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Published on Thursday, 09 September 2010 18:43
This Sunday, the Chicago Bears kick off the 2010 football season with a home opener at Soldier Field. Something else happens Sunday, too. Local media superstar Chet Coppock will be in attendance for his 60th consecutive Bears home opener!
This is not a category that the Guinness Book of World Records has taken note of before, but this could very well be a record for a non-McCaskey/Halas family member to have been at this many consecutive home openers.
So how did a man of only 62 years manage to pull off a feat like this? Little toddler Chet was brought to his first Bears home opener back in 1951 when he was only 2.5 years old. His father brought him back for every home opener after that, as well, until Chet was old enough to come to them on his own. Every September, Chet would be at the home opener, first at Wrigley Field and then at Soldier Field (with the exception of 2002 when he had to drive down to the University of Illinois' Memorial Stadium to see the game).
Chet Coppock is Chicago's "Godfather of Sports Talk radio," having been a sports radio since he was a teenager broadcasting sports on the New Trier High School radio station. He has worked at numerous Chicago radio stations including WMAQ-AM, WLUP-FM, WLUP-AM, WMVP-AM, WLS-AM, Sporting News Radio and the NBA Radio Network. As a television broadcaster, he talked sports on numerous stations in town including WSNS, WFLD, WMAQ, SportsChannel and Fox SportsNet. He can currently be heard on WLS-AM doing the
pre-game shows for the weekly Notre Dame Football broadcasts, taking a fun look at the Cubs & Sox season with the
"Black & Blue City" videos, and covering sports and more each weekday on his own video show on his website,
"The Daily Coppock."
Chet Coppock's favorite home openers? 1987 - Chicago Bears vs the New York Giants - a battle of Super Bowl Champions, with the Bears dominating 34-19. The game also featured a Dennis McKinnon punt return that Coppock calls "the most athletic play I have ever seen at Soldier Field." The other favorite was 1997, with the Chicago Bears spanking Deion Sanders and the Dallas Cowboys 22-6.
So what does Chet Coppock think of the Chicago Bears this year? Right now, he sees the Bears as an 8 wins/8 losses team -- 6 & 10 if the weak offensive line has Cutler getting squished early on. However, he has high hopes for Sunday's home opener, predicting a 21-16 victory over the visiting Detroit Lions.
Photo of Chet Coppock taken at Soldier Field in 1993:
