"To play this game -- and I've always said this -- you have to have a Neanderthal gene. Butkus had two," says former Chicago Bears teammate Doug Buffone on ESPN Classic's SportsCentury series.

Over the past seven years, two Georgia players have won the Butkus Award as the nation's top linebacker. First-year starter Jalon Walker just made it three in eight years. On Wednesday ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WAND)– The Butkus Award ceremony will be held at Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Illinois on February 1, The ceremony will welcome the finest linebackers ...

Illinois Hall of Famer Dick Butkus shares a joke with Kaden McCoy, 13, of Lincoln Nebraska as he signs autographs at Grange Grove before Illinois' game vs. Nebraska on Friday, Sept. 29 ...

It is possible that Dick Butkus was the meanest, nastiest, fiercest linebacker to ever put on a helmet. More than a quarter of a century after his retirement, there remains the Butkus image ...