Mike Pyle, the captain of Yale’s last unbeaten and untied football team and of the 1963 N.F.L. champion Chicago Bears, died at 76 on Wednesday in Highland Park, Ill., after a decade-long battle with dementia, which his family believes may have resulted from the battering he took as an offensive lineman.
Pyle’s wife, Candy, said the cause was traumatic brain hemorrhage. She said his brain had been sent to a Boston University center pursuing research into brain impairment linked to repeated head trauma.
“He played in the days when if you could count your fingers, you could go back into the game,” Mrs.