George Halas

Soldier Field, 1410 Museum Campus Dr, Chicago, IL

Last updated 9/12/2026

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George Halas wasn't just a head coach — he was a co-founder of the league itself, representing the Decatur Staleys at the 1920 meeting that formed the American Professional Football Association, which was renamed the National Football League two years later. He then moved the franchise to Chicago and renamed it the Bears, a team he'd own and coach, across four separate stints, for parts of five decades. Halas coached the Bears from 1920 to 1929, 1933 to 1942, 1946 to 1955, and again from 1958 to 1967 — a genuinely unusual career shape, stepping away and returning to the sideline multiple times rather than coaching one continuous stretch. Across those stints he won NFL championships in six different decades of Bears football, from the league's earliest years through the 1963 title. His 324 career coaching victories stood as the NFL record for nearly three decades, until Don Shula broke it in 1993 — meaning Halas held the wins record for roughly as long as the league itself had existed at the time he set it. Halas was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963 as one of its first 17 members, recognition that reflects a dual legacy few figures in any sport can claim: he didn't just coach a team to championships, he helped build the entire league those championships were played in.

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Don Shula
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