I DONT TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS: Bears legend Ed OBradovich doesnt yell, he speaks f

An older gentleman pushes a shopping cart through a grocery store near downtown Chicago. He is a big man with white hair, and he has a certain presence about him. But he’s hunched over, as if he’s in pain.

His wife asks him to get some tomatoes while she browses for other produce.

He returns empty-handed.

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“THOSE TOMATOES ARE GREEN,” he says with a booming baritone that drowns out the happy soft rock piped into the store. “WHOEVER PICKED THEM DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING, OR DIDN’T CARE. I WOULDN’T PAY TWO CENTS FOR THEM.”

And then a man approaches. “Are you Ed O’Bradovich?”

The voice gives him away.

The man they call “OB” has a voice you feel as well as hear, a voice that can make stemware reverberate.

OB’s voice long has been sought out by Bears fans after games — especially after losses — to make sense of it all. With his startling bluntness, passion at full boil and a unique understanding of Bears fans, OB is a Chicago treasure.

You know the voice. But you might not know where it comes from.

At 5163 Warren Avenue in Hillside, just a few blocks from what is now is the Eisenhower Expressway, a Serbian-American family ate their cereal with water. In the years after World War II, milk was a luxury for the working class.

Emil O’Bradovich was a welder, one of the first to weld aluminum. On the side, he made wrought-iron railings for porch stairs. Ed and his brother Milan helped too. Emil taught his sons how to twist the hot metal with their hands, which ensured they would have massive forearms like their father.

Emil was a man of principle and not one to be messed with.

“You did something wrong, you catch a whack,” OB said. “I supposed today, they’d put him in jail, I don’t know. But I tell you one thing, you never did that thing again, whatever the hell it was.”

Everyone called the matriarch of the family by her Americanized name, Helen. OB didn’t know her real name was Yanya until he was 28.

“When people asked for Yanya on the phone, I thought it meant ‘old lady’ in Serbian,” he said.

Yanya was a kind, caring woman who cooked and cleaned and worked at Woolworth’s to help make ends meet.

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Milan, two years older, was and is OB’s hero. He always had OB’s back, and grew up to be a military man who served two tours in Vietnam on seek-and-destroy missions. He was later part of the original strike force in Operation Desert Storm.  He retired as a distinguished Army colonel.

Emil took OB and Milan to NFL games in his 1940 Buick Roadmaster. They were able to buy seats at Comiskey Park to watch the Cardinals play. When they went to Wrigley Field for the more popular Bears, the best Emil could do was standing room.

But there was no complaining about standing for three hours. The time at Wrigley was gold to OB. The Bears were his favorite team, and he dreamed about one day joining them. He cheered for those teams from the 1950s coached by George Halas and quarterbacked by Johnny Lujack and George Blanda. He chased down Bears players like John “Kayo” Dottley and Bobby Williams for autographs after games.

The O’Bradovich kids went to Longfellow School in Berkeley. When OB was in eighth grade, his sister Jane took him to see Proviso High School’s great football team, quarterbacked by senior Ray Nitschke. OB loved watching him play.

In the summer after graduating from eighth grade, OB took a job at a construction company laying bricks and pouring foundations and footings.

For his first day of high school, OB walked to downtown Berkeley, which consisted of a hardware store and a grocery store, and boarded a bus bound for Proviso High in Maywood.

More than 100 kids tried out for the football team, but OB quickly stood out. He became a star at running back and cornerback, making the all-state team his junior year.

In the summer before his senior year, OB went swimming in Lake Zurich.

“I thought I was Superman, that I could run off a pier and get far enough out and skim the top of the water,” he said.

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The water was less than two feet deep, and OB hit his forehead on the bottom of the lake. The pain in his shoulders was shocking. He crawled on a raft, and the pain worsened. He lay down and couldn’t get up. He needed an ambulance.

X-rays revealed a broken neck. He would spend the next month or so in traction at Elmhurst Hospital with a plaster cast around his body. Eventually, his doctor sat down the family to deliver the news no one wanted to hear. An operation was necessary, and OB’s football days were over.

But some family friends recommended he see a renowned surgeon at Passavant Memorial Hospital, which is now Northwestern Memorial Hospital downtown. After more tests, the surgeon told OB and his parents that natural fusion already was taking place. He didn’t think surgery was necessary and he believed OB would be able to resume his football career in a couple of years.

OB didn’t play football as a high school senior. But what he did previously was so impressive that he received scholarship offers from Illinois, Minnesota, Wyoming and Memphis. Illinois was a natural choice.

Everyone played two ways then, and at 6-foot-4, 235 pounds, OB mostly was a split end, or “lonesome end,” on offense and a cornerback or safety on defense. He also punted and hardly ever came off the field.

“He was a very versatile player, an excellent athlete,” said Gerry Patrick, an Illini lineman who showed OB around when he arrived in Champaign and became a close friend. “He could play any position.”

OB made all-Big Ten as a junior, but then went on academic probation. Since he was on academic probation when he started college, he violated Illinois’ two-strikes policy. That ended his college career.

Patrick believes OB didn’t pay as much attention to his schoolwork as he could have because he was so focused on becoming a Chicago Bear.

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“That was his lifetime dream,” Patrick said. “He used to talk about it. He didn’t want anything to interfere with getting there as soon as possible.”

OB later found out Playboy Magazine had selected him as a preseason All-American, but had to omit him from the team after he was ruled ineligible.

At the time, players who had not completed four years of college were not allowed to play in the NFL, so OB headed north for the 1961 season.

He was under the impression the B.C. Lions of the Canadian Football League wanted him to play offense, but at his first practice, he found himself at defensive end. Afterward, he approached coach Wayne Robinson. This is how he remembers the conversation.

OB: “Coach, I never played defensive end. I’m supposed to play split end.”

Robinson: “No. Either you make it at defensive end, or you can catch the next flight home.”

And so OB became a defensive end.

“Twenty years old, you’re in Canada, you learn god damn quick,” he said.

During a B.C. game, one of OB’s teammates, a linebacker, lined up in the wrong spot.

“I took him and shoved him where he was supposed to be,” OB said. “He came back, and I pushed him again. He was a gutless son of a bitch, couldn’t stand him.”

The ensuing fight resulted in OB’s ejection and a fine of $1,000. That was 1/10th of his salary. OB subsequently was traded to the Calgary Stampeders.

At the end of the Canadian season, the Stampeders general manager, a young executive named Jim Finks, told OB, “You’ll be back next year.” OB said he replied, “The hell I will.”

Upon returning home, OB received a call from Bears assistant coach George Allen. Then another, and another. Allen probably called him a half a dozen times. He asked if other teams were contacting OB, who told him, yes, the 49ers and Redskins were. Allen wanted to know if those teams told him anything about where they might draft him.

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OB lasted until the seventh round of the 1962 draft, where the Bears made his dream come true.

OB’s eyes were never wider than when he arrived at Bears training camp in Rensselaer, Ind., for the first time and saw his competition. At right end was 6-foot-8, 280-pound Doug Atkins, a future Hall of Famer. At left end was Maury Youmans, listed at 6-foot-4, 251, but in reality more like 6-foot-6, 270.

OB was 6-foot-4, 258, the runt of the meeting room.

“I had to take somebody’s livelihood away from them,” OB said. “My back was against the goddamn wall again. If I don’t make it there, I’m going to become a welder like my dad.”

OB started 13 of 14 games as a rookie and recovered five fumbles to lead the NFL. He was named to the UPI all-rookie team.

He was taken in by the great linebacker Bill George, as many young Bears were in those days.

“He was the man,” OB said. “He taught me to be smart, know the game plan and watch films.”

In his second season, OB became a stalwart in one of the greatest defenses ever. Between Allen’s ingenuity and premium talent at all three levels, the ’63 Bears defense was overpowering. Those Bears were among the first to discover the benefits of beating up receivers at the line of scrimmage. In what was the most violent era of the NFL, OB excelled at the “clothesline.”

In the NFL championship game that year at Wrigley Field, OB and the Bears gave Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle the beating of his life. With the Giants leading 10-7 in the third quarter, Tittle ran what they called a “late,” which was the 1960s equivalent of play-action. OB recognized that Giants offensive tackle Jack Stroud stood up and dropped back when he had to pass protect. OB stepped back, and when Tittle attempted a screen pass, he stuck his big left arm in the air. OB’s interception set up a 1-yard Bill Wade touchdown and gave the Bears a 14-10 win and their first championship in 17 years.

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As he was walking off the field, a jubilant OB flung his helmet into the stands.

During his season-ending meeting with Halas, the Bears coach fined OB $100 for the missing helmet. Then he requested an isometrics pamphlet that had been distributed to the players earlier in the season. OB didn’t have it. That would cost another $100.

“I don’t intercept that pass, we don’t win that game,” OB said. “WE DON’T WIN THAT GAME. We just won the world championship. And I got fined $200.”

After reporting to training camp in Rensselaer the next summer, OB waited for Halas outside the Purple Room, where coaches would unwind and have a beer at the end of the day. When Halas emerged at about 10 p.m., OB asked him if he had a minute.  They walked together to Halas’ room at Halas Hall on the campus of St. Joseph’s and took a seat.

OB told him he’d like a $5,000 raise. Halas started laughing. Then he abruptly stopped and became serious.

“No!” he said sternly.

OB pleaded his case, bringing up the interception in the title game.

“See these rings?” he said he told Halas. “We don’t have them if I don’t make that interception.”

“Anybody could have made that interception,” Halas said.

At 24 years old, OB was no match in a negotiation with the 69-year old founder of the National Football League.

OB knew he was defeated, so he got up, grabbed the doorknob, and started to leave. Then Halas said, “By the way, kid, if you’re thinking about leaving camp, normally that’s a $100 fine a day. For you, I’ll make it $200. Have a nice night.”

It wouldn’t be the last time money would be an issue between OB and Halas.

In his 10-year career, OB held out three times. His highest salary by his recollection was $34,000.

“It was a love and a hate thing with Halas,” OB said. “I respected him because I knew who the hell the people were that started this thing. It was basically him. But there was another side to him.”

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OB became a leader and a player whose approval had to be earned by newcomers. Gale Sayers once said, “When I was a rookie, there was some unpleasantness between me and O’Bradovich. He snarled at me. I knew I had to prove myself. Then, we played the Rams. I run back a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns and toss a TD pass to Dick Gordon. But the biggest thrill was that after the game, O’Bradovich smiled at me.”

In the Chicago Bears Centennial Scrapbook, OB was ranked the 67th greatest Bear in team history.

“He was a very good defensive end,” said Bears great Dick Butkus, who became OB’s roommate. “He really had a knack for rushing the passer. He probably never got as much credit as he should have.”

Former Packers running back Paul Hornung called OB “a good player, tough, tough to block.”

OB was durable as a cast-iron skillet. A streak of 88 straight games played was a testament to his will. And the pain from that broken neck never went away. During many halftimes, he would lay on the floor of a locker room with an icepack under his neck.

“Sometimes, he couldn’t lift his arm over his shoulder, but I don’t remember him missing a game,” Butkus said. “I don’t know how he played all those years with a broken neck.”

Painkilling injections helped. The team doctor drew an X where the pain was, and that’s where the injection went in.

“Then your arm would be like a propeller, you could wheel it around, do anything you want,” OB said. “But then at 2 or 3 in the morning, you couldn’t move.”

OB and Butkus always sat in the last row of the airplane on road trips. They were in their usual spots after a game at Denver in December 1971 when searing pain shot through OB’s spine into his shoulders. He called the team doctor to the back of the plane, removed his shirt, and was shot up at 30,000 feet.

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It would be his last plane ride home as a Bear.

When OB called it a career, 1,500 people came to his retirement party at Arlington Park Towers Hotel. Among them were Butkus, Hornung and Lions defensive lineman Alex Karras. President Richard Nixon sent a letter from the White House.

When Dan Hampton was a young Bear, trainer Fred Caito told him there was someone he had to meet. Hampton shook hands with OB at the old Halas Hall after a practice. He felt like he already knew him because he had read stories about him in Butkus’ autobiography “Stop-Action.”

That night, OB, Hampton, and Steve “Mongo” McMichael went to dinner at Morton’s on State and Rush.

“It was eight hours of stories,” Hampton said. “On the car ride back, I told Mongo, No. 1, we have to get the Monsters of the Midway back. And No. 2, we have to go out with him again.”

OB became like a father figure to Hampton, who lost his dad when he was 13.

“We all have an uncle somewhere that kind of took us in,” Hampton said. “But the uncle didn’t play on the ‘63 championship team. He’s not with you at the restaurant ordering calamari, buying you a cold beer. He was here. He was bigger than life. He was all things to us.”

By this time, the legend of OB had been well established.

OB was featured prominently in an NFL Films video titled “Tough Guys.” In it, former Bears center Mike Pyle said, “Ed was always wild. Volatile. He’s like World War III walking down the street. He could go off at any time.”

OB was thrown out of two NFL games for fighting. The first was when Giants running back Phil King took a cheap shot at OB after the whistle and OB retaliated by starting a brawl. The second happened when he came to the defense of teammate Garry Lyle, who was being pummeled by two opponents.

“If I had to do it over again, I’d do the same goddamn thing, but I’d do it quicker,” OB said.

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OB embodied what it means to be a Bear, and was beloved for it. In a 1967 story in the Chicago Tribune, Robert Markus wrote, “If Gale Sayers runs a kickoff back 100 yards for a touchdown, he might, he just might get as big a cheer as Ed O’Bradovich. Then again, he might not. O’Bradovich, you see, is the people’s choice in Wrigley Field.”

It was OB who famously pleaded, “Just hold ’em,” to Wade as the quarterback came onto the field in the early 1960s, speaking for Bears fans everywhere.

It was OB who played himself in “Brian’s Song,” the TV movie about teammate Brian Piccolo. When OB found out Piccolo had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, he and Butkus flew to New York after a game to visit him at Sloan-Kettering.

“When I got the final news, it was devastating,” he said. “He was such a good kid.”

It was OB who had extra diamonds set in his 1963 championship ring.

“I’d see the other rings,” he said. “Gino Marchetti and Hornung would show their rings off. When we got our rings … a lot of guys were disappointed, big time. Several of them said they’d never wear it. But I wore mine. There was one little small diamond inside of Wrigley Field. I had that top of the ring filled in with diamonds. The reason I did that is because I was sick of seeing everybody else’s ring. I wanted it to be something special.”

Even after OB stopped playing, his stature grew. In the 1970s, OB frequented Four Torches Restaurant on Lincoln Park West, a hot spot for celebrities. He became friendly with the owner, Jack McHugh, a construction magnate who built many of Chicago’s landmarks, including Water Tower Place and Marina City. McHugh invited OB to a private party for Frank Sinatra after one of his concerts at the Chicago Stadium. OB and Sinatra hit it off, and whenever Sinatra came to Chicago, they got together.

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Sinatra often used Chicago as a Midwestern base, chartering planes to nearby concerts. OB accompanied him to many shows. Afterward, they flew back to Chicago and went all night at Four Torches. OB marveled at Sinatra’s ability to drink Jack Daniels straight until the sun came up.

“He never lost his constitution,” he said. “I don’t know how he did it.”

OB could throw them back, too. He enjoyed himself thoroughly the night the Bears won the Super Bowl in January 1986.

On the morning of the game, he and several friends gathered at Midway Airport to board a plane that OB chartered, bound for New Orleans. After attending Super Bowl XX, they walked back to the Bears hotel for the postgame party. When the bartenders packed up near 3 a.m., Hampton asked OB if there was anywhere they could go.

OB knew the owner of La Louisiane in the French Quarter from his playing days and called to see if he could accommodate them. The restaurant closed an hour earlier, but the owner told OB to come over. He brought Hampton, McMichael, several players and others, and OB partied like he was one of the ’85 Bears, which, in many ways, he was. At one point, comedian Bill Murray showed up. The doorman wouldn’t let him in until OB OK’d it.

OB left La Louisiane at about 7 a.m. and headed back to Midway in his chartered plane.

At this point, the baton had been passed.

“What we learned from him mostly was about being a Bear, selling out to be great, asking no quarter, giving no quarter,” Hampton said. “We talked about philosophical, big-picture things, what it means to win, what it means to have integrity, what it means to believe in the brotherhood of the team, in never saying goodbye.”

As last call approached at one establishment in the late 1980s, OB told Hampton, “One day, you will be in the Hall of Fame.”

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Hampton replied, “If so, you will be my presenter.”

They toasted to Dan Hampton, Hall of Famer, and had a laugh. Then, in January 2001, Hampton called OB. “You are going to need a new suit,” he told him. Both of them would be in Canton for Hampton’s induction the following August.

OB also presented Mike Ditka to the Hall of Fame in 1988. He is one of only four men who were not coaches, administrators, or owners who presented two people for the Hall of Fame. The others are Clarke Hinkle, Roger Staubach and Byron “Whizzer” White.

OB and Ditka had been close since they were barely old enough to be served beer, but they had a falling out shortly after Ditka’s induction.

“The only thing I’ll tell you about that is we were great friends, there is no question about that,” OB said. “Let me just say this, priorities got changed. I don’t forgive, and I don’t forget.”

In the ’70s and ’80s, OB became a popular guest on Chicago radio shows. In 1986, a listener called in to tell OB he had caught OB’s helmet at the 1963 title game.

“He said they used the helmet for all of his kids in Pee Wee football,” OB’s daughter Gigi Iacovelli said. “They painted it different colors for every one of his kids’ teams.”

The helmet was restored to navy blue and returned to OB in a ceremony at Wrigley Field.

When WSCR went on air in 1992, OB was one of the first guests. And when director of sports and programming Ron Gleason needed new postgame hosts because Ron Rivera was leaving for WGN, he decided to pair OB with his former teammate Doug Buffone.

“It was magic, the two of them together, a tremendous spark,” Gleason said. “Those postgame shows were incredible.”

“Doug had the same basic philosophy that I had,” OB said. “That’s why he played for as long as he did. He would play hurt. These guys today? They’d be out forever. He gave everything he had. Smart. He’d write everything down. He always had notepads. He was a student and a great football player. He took that into radio with him.”

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They lasted on The Score for 15 years.

One of the worst calls of OB’s life came on April 20, 2015. Mitch Rosen, WSCR’s operations director, told him Buffone was dead at 70.

“I was stunned,” OB said. “It was awful.”

There would be no replacing Buffone, but Hampton, Glen Kozlowski and Mark Carman continue to bring out the best in OB at his new home at WGN.

Authenticity, it seems, has not gone out of style.

“You can’t fake emotion,” Hampton said. “He has a legion of listeners because they know they are going to get the unvarnished truth win, lose or draw, and that’s all anybody wants.”

Most questions to OB will invoke an answer that sounds like it comes from an exhortation on the Bears’ 10-yard line.

“When I see a kid making $30 million, and you are making mistakes, getting knocked on your ass, you can’t even get down in a three-point stance because you are gassed … what are you supposed to say?” OB said. “It was a little too warm for him? He’ll be better next week? No! You’re out of shape, and YOU’RE A GODDAMN BULLSHITER … I DON’T TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS. I’M GONNA TELL YOU EXACTLY WHAT I SEE, GOOD, BAD, OR INDIFFERENT. YOU DON’T LIKE IT, LISTEN TO SOMEBODY ELSE!”

When OB took part in the Bears 100 celebration at the Rosemont Convention Center in June, he was walking with a cane. His color was a little off.

What most people didn’t know was OB just completed a month-long stay in the hospital. It started with a small cut on his leg. The wound became infected, and the infection became cellulitis.

OB beat prostate cancer. He had a hip and a knee replaced. He took a fall from a ladder while changing a smoke detector and hit his head on a coffee table. This summer, he had carpal tunnel surgery on both wrists and cubital tunnel surgery on both elbows.

But he comes roaring back, time and again.

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“Adversity, fear, I really don’t give a shit,” OB said. “Doesn’t bother me. Really doesn’t. The unknown, I don’t care. God’s truth.”

This is a man who played 14 years of football after a broken neck.

A man who was forced to leave the University of Illinois after his junior season.

A man who went to Canada and was told to learn a new position or catch the next flight home.

A seventh-round draft pick who made the all-rookie team.

At 79, OB is a testament to the human spirit.

At 250 pounds, he is near his playing weight, and with his fire hydrant forearms, he still looks like he could deliver a mean clothesline.

But OB is human. He will need more joint replacements down the line. There isn’t a way to hold his head that doesn’t hurt. Earlier this year, he saw a doctor to see if he could relieve the pain he feels “every second of every day.” The doctor said he could insert rods in his neck, but then OB would be unable to drive or even turn his head.

No thank you.

“Would I do it again?” he said. “I’ve asked that question over and over, and I keep coming up with the same answer. In a heartbeat. In a heartbeat. I never knew it would be this bad though.”

Pain, delivered and received, has been the currency of his life.

Despite the discomfort, OB is a contented man. He still goes to work every day for his company Bear Oil, a division of S&S Automotive group, and he relishes the challenge of each new morning.

After 45 years of devotion to his wife Nancy, he saw her laid to rest in 2005. Their children — Gigi, Amy Geier and Ed II, and their families, including two grandchildren — remain the center of his life.

“Best dad ever,” Gigi said.

Two years ago, he married Ann. They split time between their suburban home, a downtown condo and his Michigan retreat.

He maintains a close circle of friends, most of whom have been his cronies for decades. Among them is Patrick, who woke from surgery to have a kidney removed at Cleveland Clinic and found OB at the foot of his bed.

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“Friends, teammates, brothers,” Patrick said. “We’ve laughed together and cried together. And he’s probably one of the favorite Bears of all-time, even though there have been some great ones.”

Hampton said he feels blessed to have known OB for 40 years.

“He has been the face of the Bears for half a century,” Hampton said. “He’s from Chicago. He played at Illinois, he played for the Bears, he stayed here, he’s been a presence on the radio. Every team in the NFL would pray to have a legacy type player like OB. I remember when I first heard the phrase ‘urban legend’ about 10 years ago. Ed O’Bradovich is urban legend. He has been in this community for three-quarters of a century, standing for the right things no matter the consequences.”

And standing for those things loudly.

“A lot of my friends when we were kids would be afraid of him,” Gigi said.  “We’d say, ‘Dad, you’re scaring people because you’re yelling.’ He always says, ‘I’M NOT YELLING. THIS IS JUST MY VOICE. I CAN’T HELP IT.’”

The voice, like everything else with OB, comes from the heart.

(Top photo: Rick Stewart / Getty Images)

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