To be like Devin Hester, Bears’ Tarik Cohen knows to ‘keep my foot on the gas’

Devin Hester’s two sons like to watch him on YouTube. Riding in the car, they’ll take his phone and ask Siri to launch a search engine.

The legendary return man, who retired with the Bears on Monday, has found himself watching Tarik Cohen, the team’s latest returner — particularly when Cohen ran backward to get a better angle on a 61-yard punt return for a touchdown last season against the 49ers.

‘‘It kind of reminds me of some of the things I try to do,’’ Hester said. ‘‘At the end of the day, he’s a guy that’s determined to get in the end zone, regardless of a certain situation.’’

On Tuesday, Cohen sounded flattered by the comparison.

‘‘That means a lot,’’ he said. ‘‘That means that I gotta keep my foot on the gas pedal and keep striving to do what he did, even to reach beyond the goals he set.’’

Cohen and fellow running back Benny Cunningham were honored at Halas Hall as winners of the Brian Piccolo Award, given annually to the Bears players who best exemplify the courage, loyalty, teamwork, dedication and sense of humor of Piccolo, who died of cancer at 26.

‘‘He works hard,’’ Cunningham said of Cohen. ‘‘Doesn’t complain. Goes out of his way to brighten people’s days.’’

The glue of the running-back room, Cunningham said he can sympathize with Piccolo’s family. His father, also named Benny, died of cancer when he was in eighth grade.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my father and the impact that he had on my life,’’ Cunningham said.

The Brian Piccolo Cancer Research Fund benefits breast-cancer research at Rush Medical Center.