Every Bears game day, John Damore settled into his Westmont recliner with an unlit cigar and watched every minute, sometimes twice. Damore, the former Northwestern captain and Chicago Bears offensive lineman who was regarded as the team's oldest living alumnus, died at home on August 4, 2026, at 92.

The Chicago Sun-Times confirmed his death and quoted his son Larry Damore on the warmth that gathered people around him. “There weren’t many people out there who didn’t just think he was the super-nicest guy,” Larry said. “He always had a crowd around him.”

Damore grew up in Riverside, Illinois, as the only son in a family of six children. His father, Lorenzo, had emigrated from Bari, Italy, and built Damore Cement Construction despite having little formal schooling. By about age 9, John was already wearing Bears jerseys. The team he followed as a child eventually became the team whose history framed his public life.

At Northwestern, Damore spent four years on the football team and studied business. The 2019 Northwestern football media guide named him and Bob Lauter as captains of the 1954 Wildcats. He completed his bachelor's degree the next year, then reported for the active-duty commitment he had accepted through the Marine Corps deferred military program.

At Quantico, Damore began as a second lieutenant and rose to lead a platoon of 13 enlisted Marines. He ran drills and maneuvers and also handled guest accommodations on the base. He completed his active service as a first lieutenant in 1957. Looking back nearly seven decades later, he told Fra Noi that only football players could rival Marines in their pride. “The Marines were the best,” he said.

The New York Giants had drafted Damore, but his path to professional football turned on home and family. He told the Giants that he needed to stay near Riverside to help with his father's construction company, and the club traded him to Chicago. The Bears' 1957 media guide introduced him as a 6-foot-1, 228-pound center from Northwestern and noted the All-Service recognition he earned with the Quantico Marines.

Damore played offensive line for the Bears in 1957 and 1959. An ankle injury sidelined him for the entire 1958 season. He returned in 1959 for what became his final season, and his teammates gave him a game ball from the game in which he was hurt. The ball remained among the tangible pieces of a short professional career that stayed central to him for the rest of his life.

He married Joyce Albert in 1961. Together they raised Alison and Larry and became grandparents to John and Ashley Bihun. Damore ran the family cement construction company for years and later opened Damore Builders with Larry. He also coached his son in wrestling, football, and baseball. Larry said his father never missed a game and was always the one leading the cheers.

That instinct carried into old age. During the Bears' January 2026 playoff run, Damore followed each turn from home, offering advice to players separated from him by generations and recalling the frozen fields of his own era. “It meant everything to me,” he said of football. “Besides family, it was my only love.”

Damore's life joined several forms of team loyalty: the Northwestern squad he captained, the Marine platoon he led, the Bears line on which he served, the construction businesses he shared with his family, and the children and grandchildren whose games he attended. His name remained on the Northwestern captain rolls and the Bears roster, while his game ball and his family's game-day stories carried the experience of 1950s football into another century.