No American sport generates more interest and attention than football. Because of its speed and excitement, physicality and strategy, football has replaced baseball as America's "national pastime." One of the pioneers of modern football was Sid Luckman, a Brooklyn-born, observant Jew and All-Pro quarterback for the Chicago Bears.

Luckman combined intelligence, toughness and talent to help transform the position of quarterback into what experts claim is the most demanding role in American professional sports.

Luckman became interested in the sport in 1924, at the age of 8, when his father gave him a football as a gift. After he graduated as an All-City halfback for Erasmus Hall High School, Sid received more than a dozen athletic scholarship offers from colleges around the nation. His heart was set on attending Columbia University, where he could get a quality education and live close to his family, even though Columbia did not offer him a scholarship.

Luckman spent his freshman year proving himself academically and became Columbia’s starting halfback as a sophomore. Despite a weak cast of teammates, Luckman proved the greatest all-around player in Columbia’s history. In 1938, playing both offense and defense, Luckman carried Columbia to a 20-18 upset victory over powerful Army, bringing his team back from an 18-6 half-time deficit by skillful running and kick returning, and throwing the winning touchdown pass.

Luckman was selected as an All-American in 1937 and 1938 and was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Red Freisell, a referee who officiated at several of Luckman’s college games, later placed Luckman’s achievements in perspective: "In each of those games, [Luckman] threw at least 30 passes, and on nearly every one of them he was knocked nearly out of his britches by some fast charging opponent...

Never once did I see him throw in fright or see him wince when he got his lumps. I never heard a word of protest about the beating he was taking. That brand of courage, coupled with his uncanny knack of hitting his target, put Luckman down in my book as the greatest forward passer I ever saw in college ranks."

After his last college game, Luckman announced his retirement from football, but George Halas, owner-coach of the Chicago Bears, had other ambitions. Halas was certain that Luckman would make the ideal professional T-formation quarterback. In college, Luckman had played halfback and thus received the ball several yards behind the line of scrimmage.

In the T-formation, which the pros had just developed, the quarterback, standing immediately behind the center, calls the plays, receives every snap, and has the option of running, passing or handing off the ball. In sum, he is central to the action and his team’s success depends on his resourcefulness.

Halas believed that Luckman’s passing and play-calling ability would lead Chicago to preeminence in the National Football League. In fact, after a mediocre 1939 rookie season during which he learned the T-formation, in 1940 Luckman blossomed into what sports writer Ira Berkow called "the first great T-formation quarterback."

Luckman led the Bears to five Western Conference championships and four World Championships in seven years. In the 1940 championship game, Luckman’s Bears won the most lopsided victory in NFL history, a 73-0 thrashing of the Washington Redskins.

Luckman’s best year statistically was 1943, when he led the Bears to a record of 8-1-1. On "Sid Luckman Appreciation Day" against the home team New York Giants at the Polo Grounds, Luckman led his visiting Bears to a 56-7 triumph, passing for a record seven touchdowns and 443 yards. That year, he set the league record for touchdown passes in a 10-game season with 28, including five touchdowns in Chicago’s victory over the Redskins in the 1943 championship rematch between the teams.

Luckman volunteered for the U.S. Merchant Marine when the 1943 season ended. While he could not practice with the team, Luckman, stationed stateside, received permission to play for the Bears on game days during the season.

He returned to the Bears full-time in 1946 and led them to a fifth World Championship. In 1950, Luckman retired from professional football, having thrown for 189 touchdowns in only 1,747 passes, and in championship games having completed 41 of 76 passes for 670 yards and 7 touchdowns -- a remarkable rate of one touchdown in every 11 passes. In 1965, Luckman was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

When his playing days ended, Luckman became a successful businessman in Chicago and tutored quarterbacks in T-formation skills at Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Holy Cross and his alma mater, Columbia. When Columbia tried to pay him for his services, Luckman returned the check with a note saying: "Please ask the college to accept this to help some worthy student as partial thanks to my former coach and college."

In 1994, when Sid Luckman was 78, Erasmus Hall High School named its football field in his honor, hoping to inspire a new generation of Brooklyn boys to believe that if you harness your courage, intelligence and talent you can rise to greatness.