The matriarch of one of Chicago’s best-known Irish-American clans, who was among the last-living links to the early 20th-century origins of the National Football League, has died.
Virginia Halas McCaskey, principal owner of the Chicago Bears and daughter of late NFL pioneer George S. Halas, died Feb. 6 at the age of 102.
She leaves behind a franchise that, while storied, for decades has struggled to win games, frustrating one of the nation’s most-rabid fan bases. The team now seems to be at a crossroads with a brand-new coach, a push for a new stadium and, since her death of natural causes, an uncertain ownership future.
Whatever the criticisms of her as the team’s boss over the years – losses sometimes evoked chants from the stands of “Sell the team!” – she was seen by many as earnest and well-intentioned and certainly family oriented.
When Irish America interviewed her in 2007 for the Top 100 “Best & Brightest” issue, she didn’t hesitate when asked about her priorities.
“Faith, family, football,” she said, days after her team had lost in Super Bowl XLI – the Bears’ last appearance in the big game.
Her Catholic faith indeed was important to her, as the bumper sticker on her car conveyed. “Pray the Rosary,” it said.
Mrs. McCaskey also was active in the anti-abortion movement, an obviously divisive issue but one of great importance in – and to – the church.
Though her roots were actually Bohemian, she and her family embraced her late husband Ed McCaskey’s beloved Irish heritage. The couple even put away money so each of their kids could take a trip to Ireland when they turned 50.
One of those children, the late Michael McCaskey who Mrs. McCaskey once famously fired as the Bears president, said many years ago that the family couldn’t go to Ireland when he was young.
With 11 children in the house, “we couldn’t afford it,” he said, according to an account from the Chicago Tribune. “I’m serious. When I was a kid, a family vacation was going to the Bears training camp.”
Anyone with a financial stake in the team could most certainly afford such a trip now.
Mrs. McCaskey’s father launched the Bears around 1920 with $100 and two basic goals: win, and popularize pro football.
Today, the team – with minority stakes long held by two other Chicago-area Irish-American families – is worth an estimated $6 billion or more, according to Forbes and other sources.
The Chicago Sun-Times’ Rick Morrissey wrote upon her death, “She was the link between leather helmets and helmet headsets, even if she mostly stayed out of the organization’s football decisions and mostly stayed out of sight. She was the grand lady of the NFL.”
The Bears organization said: “No single individual witnessed as much pro football history as Mrs. McCaskey. As a toddler, she accompanied her dad and the Bears during the Red Grange barnstorming tour in 1925-26.”
“In 1932, Mrs. McCaskey attended the NFL’s first indoor game, watching the Bears capture the league championship by blanking the Portsmouth Spartans 9-0 at Chicago Stadium.”
“In the 1940s, she witnessed the ‘Monsters of the Midway’ win four league championships while modernizing pro football with the introduction of the ‘T’ formation.”
“Mrs. McCaskey assumed control of the Bears in her 60s upon her father’s passing in 1983.”
Among those to express condolences when she died was the Pittsburgh Steelers, long run by another Irish-American family, the Rooneys, and also dating back decades in the NFL.
“Her quiet, determined leadership of the Chicago Bears for so many years has been a wonderful example to everyone connected to the NFL Family,” Steelers President Art Rooney II said in a written statement.
Their teams played each other in an iconic pre-season game in Dublin in 1997, and the Steelers are headed back there later in 2025 for a regular season match-up. The opponent hasn’t been announced yet, but it likely won’t be the Bears.
That game comes as the NFL – co-founded by Mrs. McCaskey’s father at a time profits and fans were sometimes tough to come by – “continues to expand its global footprint and take the game to new audiences around the world,” according to the NFL.
Mrs. McCaskey is survived by nine of her children, 21 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren, according to the team.
Nice piece Bobby
Thanks Mark!