When Gale Sayers was Southern Illinois’ athletic director in 1976-81, one of his favorite ways to relieve stress was to slip away from the business world and set up shop at a nearby lake.

“I did a lot of fishing then,” Sayers said.

Bluegill, bass and crappie, one of the greatest and most popular of Bears caught them all on a tour of Carbondale-area lakes and ponds.

“I went out every time I got a chance,” he said.

Sayers was a star attraction at the grand opening of an outdoors store recently and the line of autograph-seekers wound around boats, fishing rods, bait and camouflage attire, from one end to the other of the 140,000-square-foot store.

Signature-seekers wore Bears insignia shirts and jackets on their bodies and clutched new fishing equipment in their hands.

Before the opening ceremony, Sayers inspected the store’s 18,000-gallon fish tank. Some of the fish had to look as edible as the ones he used to eat in his prime fishing days. Alas, fishing is prohibited in the store, and these species were on display as a museum-type exhibit.

Sayers, who will turn 64 at the end of May, had a brilliant-but-brief NFL career, joining the Bears in 1965 along with Dick Butkus. Before his career was curtailed by knee injuries, Sayers electrified fans around the league with his elusive running style.

As a 6-foot, 198-pound halfback, Sayers rushed for 1,231 yards in 1966 and 1,032 in 1969, while compiling a lifetime average of 5.0 yards per carry. Sayers also was very much a receiving threat (34 grabs in one year) and a spectacular kick returner, bringing one back 103 yards.

Sayers scored 20 touchdowns as a rookie and once scored six touchdowns in a single game.

Because his career was truncated and he retired at 29, Sayers became the youngest inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977. That accomplishment thrills him still.

“I only played 68 games,” Sayers said. “Really, it was just 41â2 years. And I got in on my first (year of eligibility) anyway. There’s no doubt that is the highlight of my career.”

Sayers’ uncanny balance running and cutting through mud on soggy football fields was not his sole connection to the outdoors.

Sayers went to high school in Omaha, Neb., leading him to Kansas University – in fact he was wearing a Jayhawks pin on his jacket while talking. While living in Omaha, his father, Roger, brought him pheasant and rabbit hunting in Nebraska and taught him how to shoot the guns needed.

“I can shoot,” Sayers said. “A lot of times that’s all we had for dinner.”

Sayers, who has run a computer supply company in the Chicago area for 23 years, is lean and seems in sufficient shape to slog through fields and tall grasses where those pheasants or rabbits might hide today.

Sayers didn’t pick up fishing for sport until after his football career ended. While working as an assistant athletic director at Kansas, he had a friend who was tremendously passionate about fishing and Sayers joined him sometimes.

His interest blossomed at Southern Illinois, however, with a neighbor’s prodding.

“He taught me how to fish and I fished every chance I got for five years,” Sayers said. “I relaxed at it. We had a good time, drank a little beer.”