Brian Urlacher took over the sports internet Tuesday morning. (Let’s not say he broke it, because all of the machinery kept churning to make him a thing.) Not because of something the former FS1 NFL analyst said. But all of the attention is certainly due to something he did. To his hair.
Hair, you say? Brian Urlacher doesn’t have hair. He played his entire 13-year career as a linebacker for the Chicago Bears and worked for a year on television with a beautiful bald head. If you don’t recall, this is how he looked.
But that was then. And this is now. We live in a new era, one that may not have previously seemed possible.
WATCH: Former Bears linebacker @BUrlacher54 debuts his new hair on @WGNMorningNews https://t.co/J5q3axlnyO pic.twitter.com/sq57DFCsPQ
— WGN TV News (@WGNNews) January 5, 2016
The Bear has hair. It’s out and it’s proud. OK, it sort of looks like Urlacher lost a bet or being punished. Or maybe he looks more like he’s about to take a school picture.
Is that what was going on? Was it Picture Day for Brian Urlacher on Tuesday and he stopped by the WGN studios on the way to getting his photo snapped? Not exactly.
Urlacher didn’t just decide to let his hair grow back now that his playing and TV days were over. That may not have been an option anyway. On The Dan Patrick Show, he explained that he had “two bald spots in the front, but they’re not there anymore.” No, those bald spots are not there. We could see that very clearly. And that is the point of Urlacher making his head very public on Tuesday.
As Urlacher explained on TV, radio, his Twitter account and to Yahoo Sports’ Eric Edholm (who bumped into him at the TV studio), he underwent a procedure at Katona Hair Restoration that takes hairs from where they’re growing (in this case, the back of Urlacher’s head) and puts them where they need to grow. Whatever Urlacher had going on, hair-wise, on the back of his head is now going on in the front too. As Patrick put it, the former linebacker now looks like a young Kevin James.
Kudos to Urlacher for bravely showing bald men that a different life is possible. You can have hair again. (Although if you’re finding out about this now and living on the east coast, you’re probably not getting that hair in time to shield your head from bitter cold temperatures.) If that’s what he wanted, it’s great that medical technology allowed him to get it. But we were all fine with Urlacher being bald, right? If not, was anyone really going to make a comment to Urlacher’s face about being bald?
This is a new world, people. Nothing is impossible. (Well, it’s probably easier for former NFL players.) Learn to embrace it.
What's all the fuss about??? 👀 https://t.co/JqQAO3RF8t pic.twitter.com/teLqz69gXK
— Lance Briggs (@LanceBriggs) January 5, 2016
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About Ian Casselberry
Ian is a writer, editor, and podcaster. You can find his work at Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He's written for Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation.