https://sports.yahoo.com/chicago-bears-owner-and-matriarch-virginia-halas-mccaskey-dies-at-102-174159907.html
Chicago Bears principal owner Virginia Halas McCaskey has died at 102, the team announced on Thursday.
McCaskey was the eldest daughter of Bears founder George Halas. Her brother George “Mugs” Halas was named team president in 1963, but died of a heart attack in 1979. When their father passed away in 1983, McCaskey took control of the team alongside her husband, Ed. Their son, George McCaskey, is the current chairman of the team.
McCaskey celebrated her 102nd birthday earlier this month, on January 5, and passed just three days before Super Bowl LIX.
“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 statement. “She guided the Bears for four decades and based every business decision on what was best for Bears players, coaches, staff and fans.”
In a statement, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell praised McCaskey and her work as an owner, noting that she “leaves a legacy of class, dignity and humanity.”
“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,” Goodell wrote.
McCaskey had a front-row seat to NFL history as she watched the league grow from two teams to the juggernaut it is today. She attended Drexel University with the intent to become her father’s secretary. Instead, she spent more than four decades in charge of the team.
Under McCaskey’s tenure, the Bears went to two Super Bowls, winning Super Bowl XX in 1986. Chicago won the NFC Championship and her father’s namesake trophy against the New Orleans Saints in 2007 before falling to the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLI. McCaskey has seen the team hire 10 head coaches in her 42 years as owner, with the most recent hiring of Ben Johnson being her last. Fittingly, the last Bears game of McCaskey’s life was a 24-22 win over the Packers, a rare occurrence in recent years.
McCaskey was a devout Catholic and largely shied away from the spotlight, keeping a modest home in the Chicago suburbs but attending almost every Bears game.
Prior to her death, McCaskey was the oldest and longest-tenured owner of an NFL franchise, and one of 10 female owners in the league. McCaskey and her family own 80% of the franchise.
McCaskey had 11 children and more than 40 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her oldest son, Michael, was team president from 1983 until she removed him from the position in 1999, and he became chairman of the Bears’ board until stepping down in 2011. George, the eighth of Virginia McCaskey’s children, then took over and has been board chairman. Michael McCaskey died in 2020.
Virginia’s husband, Ed McCaskey, who was at one point chairman and treasurer of the Bears, died in 2003.
https://sports.yahoo.com/chicago-bears-owner-and-matriarch-virginia-halas-mccaskey-dies-at-102-174159907.html
