This is the least football-y take you’ll read about the Bears moving to the suburbs.

Pure sentimentality. Unabashed nostalgia. All XOXO, zero X’s and O’s.

The first time I stepped onto Soldier Field, the actual field, was in 2017. Leo High School, an all-boys Catholic school in Chicago’s Auburn-Gresham neighborhood, was playing Lane Tech, an enormous Chicago Public School on the city’s North Side. It was part of the annual Kickoff Classic tripleheader that marks the start of high school football season in Chicago and typically takes place at Soldier Field.

It was the first time Leo had played in the Kickoff Classic in more than 40 years, and I wrote a column about it leading up to the game. My son, 8 at the time, had a flag football game about 3 miles west of Soldier Field the night of the matchup, and we decided to swing by afterward and watch the two schools fight it out. (Leo won.)

I had interviewed Shaka Rawls, Leo’s principal, by phone but we hadn’t yet met in person. After the game, he waved me and my son down to the field to introduce ourselves in person and meet some of the players. The grass looked a little like mine at home, which is to say patchy, but we didn’t care. My son was carrying a football, and a bunch of Leo players signed it. We might as well have been walking on clouds at that point.

The first time I stepped into AT&T Stadium, home to the Dallas Cowboys, was 2018. My daughter had a gymnastics competition in Dallas and my son and I took a day trip to Arlington, Texas, for a tour of the billion-dollar behemoth because, in the words of explorer Sir Edmund Hillary, “it is there.”

The nice tour guide explained to us that the jumbo screen, measuring 160 feet wide and 72 feet high, was about the size of a commercial jet. You could stack three Statues of Liberty inside the stadium before you hit the beautiful, glass-like retractable roof. And as we walked through the hallways and concession stands and locker rooms and posh corporate suites, we were invited to make note of team owner Jerry Jones’ multimillion-dollar art collection.

At the end of the tour, we were allowed to walk onto the pristine turf and attempt a field goal. We both missed. No one signed anything for us.

If Bears President Kevin Warren gets his wish, the Chicago Bears will soon play in a stadium that’s a lot more Arlington (Heights!), and a lot less patchy (grass).

“Our new stadium, with a fixed-roof and the corresponding mixed-use development, will be worthy of the most passionate fan base in the NFL and capable of hosting marquee events year-round — from the Super Bowl to the Final Four to global soccer games to concerts to community events to youth sporting events,” Warren wrote in an open letter to fans, a few hours before the Bears lost their home opener. (Not suggesting causation. Simply pointing out correlation.)

“After purchasing 326 acres in Arlington Heights in 2023, we thoroughly evaluated other sites within Chicago's city limits, but none were viable,” Warren wrote. “Moving outside of the city of Chicago is not a decision we reached easily. This project does not represent us leaving, it represents us expanding.”

I mean it definitely represents you leaving. And I get it. I really do. Soldier Field will never attract a Super Bowl. Soldier Field will never be an entertainment district. Soldier Field is a century-old, lakefront, open-air stadium with patchy grass and lousy parking and subzero winters and a two-decade old renovation that, even when it was new, was mostly known for looking like a toilet.

But we’re Chicago! We’re not a fancy people! We drink Malort and fight over hot dog toppings and save parking spots with ironing boards and toss empty kegs at bowling pins and chant “Packers suck” under bridges after Bears games even on days we don’t play the Packers!

We’re Chicago! Give us a sliver of sidewalk next to a major thoroughfare and we’ll make it a bistro. Give us a postage stamp-sized balcony overlooking an alley and we’ll make it a four-season sanctuary. Give us a cement stoop with a third step that’s crumbling a little and we’ll make it a cathedral. Give us February and we’ll host a half-marathon. From Soldier Field!

Now we need a dome? Who are we?

I’ve sweated through my clothes at preseason Bears games. I’ve been heckled by Detroit fans wearing full-on Lions onesies for warmth at Bears games. One of my all-time favorite Bears games was Christmas Eve 2022. The wind chill was negative 42. My kids and I dressed like we were going skiing in the Alps, which is something we’ll never do because we’re Bears fans. We ski at Wilmot. With other not-fancy people.

Anyway, I’m getting off track.

I understand the appeal of Arlington Heights. (I was born there, by the way.) And I understand, as Warren points out, that Bears fans attend games from all over the state. Fifty percent of season-ticket holders, he said, live within 25 miles of the proposed new site.

Fine. I’m sure the new stadium will be lovely and I’m sure I’ll enjoy being able to feel my fingers after the first quarter and I’m sure Soldier Field will continue to host a lifetime of memories in the form of concerts and races and Kickoff Classic games and soccer games. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.

But if you hear someone muttering under her breath about ironing boards and keg bowling and hand warmers, just ignore me. Or hand me a hot dog, hold the ketchup. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.

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