Bears' tough guy Doug Plank wasn't about the jewelry

HOBART | Don't feel sorry for Doug Plank because he just missed earning a Super Bowl XX championship ring with the Bears.

Hear him complaining? Of course not.

The former eight-year free safety was featured at Wednesday night's sold-out Gary Old-Timers Banquet, joining such past celebrity speakers as Hank Stram, Charles Finley, Jimmy Piersall, Woody Hayes, Gary Fencik, Tom Heinsohn, Bob Feller, Ray Nitschke, Tommy Lasorda, Ron Santo, Dan Hampton and Dick Butkus.

Plank did not disappoint the turnout of nearly 900.

"Whether I deserved it or not, here's something nobody else on that '85 team can say: I had the '46 defense' named after my jersey number," he said.

"I initially played middle linebacker in that defense that Mike Singletary eventually ended up playing. That is more valuable to me than having played on a Super Bowl team."

Plank started 83 of 101 games with the Bears, the only NFL team he ever played for, and the most he made in a season was $100,000.

"So what if I don't have a Super Bowl memory or a Super Bowl ring? I got plenty of athletic rings," Plank said. "I got three Rose Bowl rings. I coached at Ohio State. I got a Sugar Bowl ring. I got enough rings."

The Bears' universally known 46 defense was his payoff.

"I have left something behind that people will remember long before Doug Plank is thought of again," he said.

After Plank's career ended, he operated 20 Burger King franchises, then coached in the Arena Football League and spent the 2009 season as the New York Jets' assistant defensive backfield coach. It was there he met NFL commissioner Roger Goodell one day while in the team's weight room and introduced himself.

"Bears' 46 defense," Goodell said, offering a firm handshake.

Plank couldn't stop smiling for a week.

"Every time I saw Dan Hampton or Mike Singletary or Gary Fencik or Otis Wilson or Steve McMichael hit someone really hard, it was energizing," Plank said of his playing days. "It was exciting. You could just feel the adrenaline rush through your body.

"That's what the Chicago Bears are."

Today's players are bigger, stronger and faster -- a deadly combination when out of control.

"You're playing with maximum effort," Plank said. "You're tying to run through someone and all you can hope for is you don't run into somebody who's just as fearless because somebody is not gonna be standing at the end of it."

Plank and Fencik were "The Hit Men" mentioned in the "Super Bowl Shuffle," though Plank had already retired.

"I don't know if I could've sustained another year of collisions and concussions like I had previously," said Plank, who suffered a spinal concussion that ended his '82 season and career.

"Somebody once told me you have only so many hits in your body before something gives -- and it's true. But I have no regrets. I was not a victim. I was a participant."