It was 1975, in a box at the old Soldier Field, when Virginia Halas McCaskey got an up-close view of what owning an NFL team was like. She shared the box -- it was very basic -- with her husband and brother, as well as the Chicago Bears' general manager at the time, Jim Finks. And with her father, George Halas, one of the founders of the NFL.
"We all took everything very seriously," McCaskey said in a 2016 interview. "The first time I sat up there with them, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was -- the total involvement of my dad into every play and every yard. He just got so upset and worked up about every little thing that happened. He could see so many more things than I could see.
"And I went home that night and really worried about him. Here is this 80-year-old man who cared so much. And by end of the week before the next game, I realized that's a pretty darn good thing, to be 80 years old and to care that much about anything."
Eight years later, when her legendary father died, McCaskey inherited the team and, she would say much later, got just as worked up about the Bears late into her life as her father had.
On Thursday, McCaskey -- a rare woman in the NFL's ownership ranks -- died at the age of 102, ending an enduring link to the earliest days of the league. As a toddler, McCaskey had gone along on the Red Grange barnstorming tour in 1925 -- an event staged by her father after he signed Grange, helping get the NFL off the ground -- an appropriate beginning for the woman who would become, as former commissioner Paul Tagliabue used to introduce her, "the first lady of the NFL."
"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 family said in a press release from the team on Thursday. "She guided the Bears for four decades and based every business decision on what was best for Bears players, coaches, staff and fans."
Until late in her life, McCaskey followed the same routine, rising early at her modest Chicago-area home to attend Mass. While she still went to every Bears game and agonized over the results -- after her son, George, fired the coach and general manager following a dismal 5-11 season in 2014, he famously said his mother was "pissed off" -- the franchise was run by president Ted Phillips, the first person who was not a member of the Halas family to hold that title, from 1999 through his retirement following the 2022 season. Kevin Warren has manned the post, serving as team president and CEO, since 2023.
Considering her place in the NFL, McCaskey, who had 11 children, kept a low profile and rarely spoke publicly, allowing her late husband of 60 years, Ed, and their sons to have prominent roles in the Bears organization, even though she effectively controlled 80 percent of the team. In a 2016 interview with The Athletic, McCaskey predicted that the team will remain in the family's hands "until the second coming." From the start, her life was inextricably wound around the Bears and the NFL, and she encouraged members of younger generations of her family to attend games so they could appreciate the role and responsibilities of the Bears in the NFL.
"Virginia Halas McCaskey, the matriarch of the Chicago Bears and daughter of George Halas, the founder of the NFL, leaves a legacy of class, dignity and humanity," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement released on Thursday. "Faith, family and football -- in that order -- were her north stars and she lived by the simple adage to always 'do the right thing.' The Bears that her father started meant the world to her and he would be proud of the way she continued the family business with such dedication and passion. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the McCaskey and Halas families and Bears fans around the world."
McCaskey, Halas' eldest child, was born in Chicago in 1923, less than three years after her father was present for a meeting at an automobile agency in Canton, Ohio, when the American Professional Football Association was formed. In the earliest days of the league, which became the National Football League in 1922, the Bears were troubled and the family struggled during the Great Depression.
"He just put everything he had into surviving, and my mother was a wonderful partner in all of that," McCaskey said back in 2016 of her parents. "She made do with what we had and there were a lot of things that we weren't able to do. Even going to events like the Golden Gloves boxing matches that were put on by the Chicago Tribune -- I realize now those were probably free tickets. They made a big deal out of the fact we were going to those boxing matches, but those were free tickets."
Halas, the child of immigrants, stressed to his children how grateful they should be. McCaskey's favorite memories of her father's time with the Bears revolve around the alumni parties -- and sometimes, championship parties -- that were held at the end of the season. McCaskey's mother enjoyed those parties, too, because it meant she was getting her husband back after a long season. Many of those seasons were successful. "Papa Bear" Halas had built a dynasty with the "Monsters of the Midway," playing in eight title games (and winning five) between 1932 and 1943.
McCaskey, in fact, was not supposed to inherit the team at all. Her younger brother, George "Mugs" Halas Jr., was the heir apparent. He had been a part of the front office for nearly three decades and was groomed to run the franchise. But just before Christmas of 1979, he died of a massive heart attack at age 54. Four years later, when George Sr. passed away with Virginia by his side, the 60-year-old took over a team that was primed for dominance in large part because of one of her father's last acts with the Bears -- he came out of retirement in 1982 to get involved in the hiring of former Bears tight end Mike Ditka as head coach.
With her son, Michael, serving as team president, McCaskey was the owner when the Bears won Super Bowl XX at the end of the 1985 season. Less than two years later, a bitter family feud erupted into public view, with George Jr.'s children contending that reorganizations of the Bears after their father's death increased the McCaskeys' control of the franchise. At one point, Virginia took the witness stand and was questioned by her niece, according to an account by the Chicago Tribune. And her brother was disinterred, with an autopsy performed at the request of his wife and children as part of the court battle. At one point in her testimony, McCaskey alluded to concerns about whether the heirs of the founder would be able to hold on to the team.
"My father felt it was important to protect the family's ownership of the team, and that was a major reason for the reorganization," she said at the time, per the Chicago Tribune.
Following the franchise's lone Super Bowl triumph, the Bears went to the playoffs five more times under Ditka, but have only enjoyed sporadic success since then. Late in her life, McCaskey admitted that losing took a toll on her, as it had her father. There was one more memorable highlight, though. On January 21, 2007, the Bears beat the New Orleans Saints to win the NFC Championship Game and advance to the Super Bowl. McCaskey accepted the NFC championship trophy -- named for her father -- and said it was "her happiest day so far."
Beyond making it clear to her son that she was unhappy with the team's direction last decade, McCaskey remained very much in the background of team and league affairs, even as the Bears -- and being the matriarch of one of pro sports' most impactful families -- shaped everything she did.
After George Sr.'s death, McCaskey was going through her father's possessions and discovered notes that provided clues about how many people he had helped -- by giving them money or a phone call or a simple letter.
"I try to do everything as he would do them," McCaskey said in 2016. "With integrity and realizing what a responsibility it is. I know there are a lot of perks and privileges these days; the other side of it is, along with that, we have to be very careful about our business and to take care of our family and a lot of other people along the way."