George Halas, in the bus, marks down the arrivals of Bears players as the team gets ready to leave its training camp in Wisconsin in August 1940. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)

Training camp for the Chicago Bears began this week — which means summer is over, Chicago.

Well, for my family, anyway.

This is the 10th season my husband, Patrick Finley, has covered the Bears for the Chicago Sun-Times and his ninth training camp. If you are familiar with local sportswriters, he’s the one who creates chicken-scratch drawings representing key moments when photos aren’t allowed to be taken by the media during practice.

His first training camp experience in 2013 (or, three head coaches ago) was similar to that of the players — days began early and continued under an unforgiving sun followed by uncomfortable nights trying to sleep on an extra-long twin bed in a dormitory room at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais. While photographers captured players lugging toilet paper, giant televisions and even massage chairs into their temporary quarters, Pat brought a newly purchased mini-fridge for his space — just like his freshman year at the University of Missouri.

Through the decades, the venue for Bears training camp has changed with the times, even taking the team to Indiana and Wisconsin.

This is the second season (whoops, Pat tells me it’s actually the third year) the Bears have stayed home to practice at their recently expanded and remodeled headquarters in Lake Forest. Instead of dorm rooms, players live at home or in hotel rooms near Halas Hall. While our son and I enjoy that Pat now comes home each night during camp, I think Pat misses the camaraderie that only happens when reporters — tired from a day capturing, editing and sending along their takes on all things notable — are away from their families for days or weeks, but are looking for someone to grab dinner or a beer with.

Those bonds forged during training camp continue throughout the season when the team’s game and practice schedule takes precedence over birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. That’s why it’s bittersweet to begin another cycle without two members of this hodge-podge fraternity — Jeff Dickerson and John “Moon” Mullin.

Still, training camp also combines the excitement and possibility of what could happen for the Bears this NFL season. And that’s why I wanted to highlight some of that electricity, humor and optimism found in moments from camps decades ago and more recent.

I hope these recollections from the Tribune’s archives rekindle the joy that comes with new beginnings and fresh starts — even if you’re not a Bears fan or reporter.

Now is a great time to subscribe to the Tribune. It’s just $12 for a 1 year digital subscription.

Thanks for reading. See you next week! Bear down!

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On the way to lunch from their morning study session, Earl Leggett, defense lineman, and Joe Fortunato, linebacker, greet Sisters Mary Bernard and Mary Luciana on St. Joseph's College Campus on Aug. 19, 1960. Leggett and Fortunato were participating in the Chicago Bears training camp at Rensselaer, Indiana. (Al Phillips/Chicago Tribune)

Relive highlights of training camps from 1940 onward. See more photos here.

“It is 9:30. Truth time. The flashy car, newspaper clippings, praise from a college coach — all are no help now. Practice is a time for sweating intelligently, for the head to know what to do and the body to be able to do it. It is a time when jobs are won and lost,” longtime Tribune reporter Charles Leroux wrote about the first day of Bears training camp at Lake Forest College in 1975. Read more here.

Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton greets fans at the team's training camp at the University of Wisconsin in Platteville on July 17, 1986. Payton arrived at camp on an adjacent field by helicopter. Payton missed the first two days of camp due to pressing legal matters in Chicago. (Ed Wagner Jr. / Chicago Tribune)

Payton paid $400 an hour for the hour and 20-minute ride to Platteville, Wis., and he had to buy the round trip.

‘’It was the only way I could get up here fast enough without getting a ticket,’’ he said.

Payton had been “involved in litigation in Chicago with his restaurants,” the Tribune reported, causing him to miss the first two days of camp. Read more here.

Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon, sporting a Mohawk-style haircut, takes a swig of water during a break at summer training camp in 1985 in Platteville, Wisc. (Mark Elias/AP)

“I just kept trimming and trimming and it kept getting worse and worse,” he said. Read more here.

Chicago Bears defensive tackle William 'Refrigerator' Perry holds the ball to celebrate his touchdown from the Dallas one-yard line on Sunday, Aug. 3, 1986 during the American Bowl at Wembley Stadium in London. (Ron Heflin/AP)

The Bears broke camp to play in the inaugural American Bowl at London’s Wembley Stadium against the Dallas Cowboys. Though the game didn’t generate many headlines in the local papers, the Bears’ defensive tackle sure did.

“Reporters had considered and analyzed everything from his dietary habits to his love life,” the Tribune reported. Read more here.

Jay Cutler, right, unloads his van with help from two assistants after arriving at Bears training camp in 2014. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

A year earlier, the Bears quarterback arrived in Bourbonnais driving a Cadillac Escalade. Read more here.

Chicago Bears offensive guard Roberto Garza arrives with plenty of toilet paper as the players arrive for training camp at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill. on July 29, 2010. (Tribune photo by Phil Velasquez)

From TVs to toilet paper to a guitar. See more photos here.

Bears quarterback Mike Glennon warms up and stretches at the first day of training camp on July 27, 2017. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

“Cupping seems to have increased in popularity since American swimmer Michael Phelps’s body was all dotted up at the Summer Olympics in Brazil in 2016. Since about that time, the Bears have been using it too,” the Tribune reported in 2017. Read more here.

Running back Tarik Cohen reports to Bears training camp in 2019 driving a Slingshot. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

In the 1980s, Jay Hilgenberg and Tom Thayer made the 180-mile trek from Chicago to Platteville on motorcycles.

Running back Tarik Cohen drove 90 miles from Vernon Hills to Bourbonnais in 2019 in his own custom three-wheeled version known as a Slingshot.

“I only do the speed limit,” he insisted. Read more here.

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