Chords for Butkus Monster of the Midway

I remember walking up to the line of [Gb] scrimmage and I looked to the left and started calling a signal,
looked to the right and started calling the rest of the [Bb] signal, and I looked straight [A] ahead.
_ Here's the man that you fear most in football, staring you right in the face.
What he said to me, I can't repeat, the censors would have a ball,
and immediately my voice kind of quivered and started cracking.
He was [Am] the greatest intimidator that ever played football.
I don't know how good a football player he was, he scared the [A] hell out of people.
He told me he was going to kick mine.
[E] You know what?
The first [B] time I ever played against him, a rookie year.
Dick was an animal.
I called him a maniac, a stone maniac.
He's the kind of linebacker that when he hit our backs, our back would go back in the huddle,
he'd be talking out his ear hole.
He wanted to know who was supposed to block that crazy sucker.
[N] Before you could begin to try to block on Dick, you had to overcome [B] the mystique. _ _
[Gb] He didn't appreciate this, but I said it was almost like an odor.
_ [Fm] He exuded a kind of a [G] presence. _ _
[D] _ He [E] tried to hurt you.
_ [F] He was just so competitive.
_ _ [B] Not only did he not want you to gain a yard, he didn't want you to gain an inch. _
As soon as [G] you had that football, you were the enemy. _ _ _
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Dick Butkus played football with a religious fervor,
with an unrelenting obsession [E] not only to excel, but to dominate and [Db] demoralize. _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Dick was not satisfied [E]
with just an ordinary tackle.
[G] He had to hit you, pick you up, [Abm] drive you and grind [Db] you into the [Bb] ground.
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_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ For Dick Butkus, [G] football was never a game, but a street fight.
[C] A place where all out, [E] no holds barred warfare.
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[C] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
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[Bb] _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ [D] _
He was an animal, [Dm] and he was a well conditioned [Bb] animal,
and every time he hit you, he tried to put you in the cemetery, not the [A] hospital.
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_ _ [C] _ _ [G] Butkus was the most destructive defender in the game,
_ [Bb] _ _
[A] and the NFL is filled with [Dm] horror stories of tough men who crossed him.
[N] _ _ _ He knocked out Elsie Greenwood on a punt.
And he knocked out Warren Banks, and he was a backup fullback we had,
but a good special teams player.
And I remember Warren sitting on the sideline crying, he says,
[Gb] I don't know who I am.
Because Butkus is a blind side and just carry on him.
For Dick to run [Eb] a hundred yard dash, it would take him three days.
But I want to tell you something from [C] that middle linebacker,
[E] _ 20 yards this way, [Eb] 20 yards that way, 20 [C] yards that way, _ nobody was quicker.
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He had a lot of interceptions.
_ If he was told, [E] he passed defenses to be in a certain [A] area, I [D] mean he was there.
_ He had great hands.
[Eb] _ _ _
_ The [Gb] man was _ [Eb] _ unbelievable.
_ _ _ _ [Ebm] His [B] whole damn life was football.
Forget about it.
He wasn't driving a pretty car.
[E] He wasn't going to the local [Bm] bar and pounding your chest, I'm the greatest.
[Em] It was the opposite.
[A] _ _
_ [Eb] You know, I'm really [Db] not the tough, macho guy [E] that was only during the game.
[C] And no [Gb] matter how hard you try to [B] explain that, I'm _ sure you were, you know.
_ _ He's basically a pain in the ass.
[Dm] You know, again, I know him [E] and he's got a personality like a [Gb] fried lobster.
It was horrifying playing against him because he can intimidate literally an entire offensive team,
and I mean good teams.
We had a rookie center _ _ [G] that was playing against [E] him for the first time.
[Gb]
And of course, you remember Butkus [Fm] grunted a lot and growled [G] a lot when he was backing up the [Ab] line.
And we sent this rookie center in to [G] play [Bm] for us.
And the first time he came off, his eyes were about like this.
He couldn't believe what he was [N] hearing from Butkus.
Butkus had him intimidated.
He hadn't even blocked him yet.
_ Butkus dominated the game the way no other player ever has.
He dominated officials.
He'd take the ball away from the guy after the play and shake it in the official's face,
and the official would point it their way.
It was awesome.
[Bb] I was working and Butkus came up to me and he started to wave his finger at me.
And I sort of smiled at him [A] and I said, Butkus.
_ I said, don't wave your finger at me.
I said, I'll [Bb] bite your head off.
He looked at me and said, well, if you bite my head off,
you'll have more brains in your [E] stomach than you will have [Gb] in your head.
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_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ From his personality to the impact of his tackles, everything [Ab] Dick Butkus did was [Gm] memorable. _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] Although he played on only two winning teams, he did not lower his standards to fit the company.
[Gm] _ _ _
_ _ He was Moby Dick in a [Ab] goldfish bowl.
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[Cm] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
[A] His nine-year career stands apart as the single most sustained work of devastation
_ ever [F] committed on a [Gm] football field by anyone, _ [Gb] anywhere, anytime. _ _ _ _ _
_ [D] To talk about him is to drain the [G] vocabulary of superlatives. _ _ _
[B] Well, the only thing I can say about the great Dick Butkus, I'll say it in a _ _ [Bm] poem.
Roses are red and violets are blue.
[Bb] If you've got [B] any sense, you'll keep Butkus away from [N] you. _ _