The matriarch of one of the NFL’s flagship franchises is gone but never forgotten.
Chicago Bears principal owner Virginia Halas McCaskey has died at the age of 102 on Thursday, the team announced.
McCaskey was the oldest child of George “Papa Bear” Halas and inherited the team in 1979 when her brother George “Mugs” Halas passed away. She oversaw the team’s only Super Bowl victory during the 1985 season against the New England Patriots and their 2006 NFC Championship, where they lost in the Super Bowl to Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. McCaskey held the honor of being the oldest owner in all major sports across the United States and the longest-tenured owner in the NFL. Her son, George, operates as the team’s chairman.
“While we are sad, we are comforted knowing Virginia Halas McCaskey lived a long, full, faith-filled life and is now with the love of her life on earth,” the Bears said in a statement. “She guided the Bears for four decades and based every business decision on what was best for Bears players, coaches, staff and fans.”
Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote she placed her husband, Ed, as the team’s chairman shortly after inheriting the Bears. She also named her son, Michael, the president and CEO, although she later demoted Michael in 1999 to chairman when Ted Phillips took his place.
Embed from Getty ImagesMichael retired in 2010, and one of her other sons, George, took over the position.
Virginia represented 13 different family members and approximately 80 percent of the Bears on the NFL’s board of directors.
“How that voting bloc will be affected after her death is unclear,” Finley wrote. “When asked in recent years about the team’s future, George has said repeatedly that his mother had a plan that would keep the team in the family after her death. The NFL mandates each team have a succession plan, though public details are vague.”
Virginia Halas McCaskey was a direct line to the NFL’s beginning, as her father bought the Bears in 1920 and attended a meeting that led to the founding of the American Professional Football Association that became the NFL two years later.
George Halas even brought his daughter along to shadow him when he helped validate the sport and bring it to life at a professional level with a barnstorming tour with college halfback Red Grange following the 1925 college season. She was with him at the NFL’s first ever championship game as well.
“It’s a special feeling to be part of that Bears history, which was very significant in the survival and history of the team,” she said in a previous interview, according to Finley. “And for George Halas.”
While she was not a fixture as often at games in recent years, she attended home and away Bears games late into her life.
The team won six championships with her father as the head coach and won its only Super Bowl during her tenure in the 1985 season. They also reached the Super Bowl during the 2006 campaign.
