Daughter of Papa Bear now the reluctant leader

Thursday, February 1st 2007, 5:54 am

By: News On 6

MIAMI (AP) _ Her role as owner was never something she sought. Her status among the rich and powerful was never something she pursued. Virginia McCaskey realizes she reached this point only because she happened to be the daughter of Papa Bear, the late George Halas.

Football has been and always will be in her blood.

And what better way to honor her father's legacy than to win _ and win big.

The 83-year-old matriarch and grand dame of the NFL will be in the spotlight Sunday when her beloved Chicago Bears meet the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl at Dolphin Stadium.

``It's very, very important,'' McCaskey said last week in a rare interview. ``We're enjoying all the privileges and perks that go along with ownership, but we have to keep reminding ourselves we really didn't do anything to earn this. George Halas started it all and I think he'll be around to finish it all. I look on it as a very serious responsibility.''

This week marks the high point of a long-running turnaround for the NFL's original franchise. It's a turnaround that included McCaskey's famous decision to essentially fire her own son _ a bow to the reality that, as much as the Bears have always been a family-run business, they also belong to the city and the league, and she is as much the team's caretaker as its owner.

``We're just the recipients of a tremendous legacy,'' McCaskey said. ``I use the word `custodian,' and we want to pass it on the best way we can.''

A win Sunday will put McCaskey on center stage to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. Two Sundays ago, wearing a full-length mink, her hair coifed to perfection, she walked across the snowy grass at Soldier Field and never looked happier to accept the NFC Championship trophy _ the George Halas trophy.

``Lots of hugs and happy moments,'' she said of that day, possibly the best she's enjoyed since the Bears won their first Super Bowl in 1986.

McCaskey attended her first NFL championship game when she was 8, back in 1932 _ a game her dad won, of course. So much has changed in the NFL since then, yet the Bears still retain the flavor of a family-owned operation.

Yes, that was McCaskey in front of Solider Field a few years ago, mixing it up with other volunteers who were collecting money for charity before a game. And that was McCaskey shedding a tear when Walter Payton died eight years ago _ maybe wishing she didn't grow so close to her players, but knowing that football was always a family business, a business of people as much as the bottom line.

McCaskey never would have assumed this role if not for the death of her brother, George ``Mugs'' Halas, in 1979, who was in line to inherit the team. Since she was Halas' only other child, she became the majority stockholder upon her father's death in 1983.

Uncomfortable playing the role of the bigwig, McCaskey let her husband, Ed, do most of the upfront work as team chairman. Even today, on the page noting the board of directors in the Bears media guide, she is listed as ``Virginia McCaskey, Secretary.''

Rarely, however, does a secretary have to reckon with the issues she faced in 1999, with losing seasons piling up, fan support dying down and the role of her family's stewardship of the team under scrutiny.

Still talked about to this day is the toughness she demonstrated by kicking her son, Michael, out of the football operation.

Michael McCaskey was largely reviled around town for having fired Mike Ditka after the 1992 season. He made things worse seven years later when he botched the hiring of Dave McGinnis to replace Ditka's successor, Dave Wannstedt, as head coach.

The Bears announced the McGinnis hiring before the deal was done. When it fell through, it turned into a public-relations nightmare at a time when the team could least afford one. The Bears had missed the playoffs in six of the past seven seasons, were losing money and needed to expand venerable Soldier Field to stay competitive.

All this led to an organizational reshuffling, which pushed Michael McCaskey upstairs as chairman of the board and installed Ted Phillips as president, the first outsider to run the football operation. Two years later, Phillips hired Jerry Angelo as general manager.

``It was a bumpy road a lot of times, how I should sell the team and give Chicago competent ownership,'' McCaskey said. ``OK, maybe I'm not competent, but Ed and I found the people to do the job.''

Few who work for the Bears would profess to knowing McCaskey very well.

``Her first name is Virginia,'' linebacker Lance Briggs said when asked what he knew about the woman who funded his paychecks. Next question.

Coach Lovie Smith had a bit more insight.

``She's a grandmother figure and she's been that way with me and my family,'' Smith said. ``But as much as anything, she's the leader of our franchise. She had the chance to speak to our team on one occasion, and you could hear a pin drop. We realize her place in our history.''

Angelo described her as an owner who insisted on being supportive, but doing so behind the scenes _ which makes his job that much easier.

``I've always been the beneficiary of good ownership,'' said Angelo, who had a similar job in Tampa Bay before he arrived in Chicago. ``There's very strong support, but there's never any looking over your shoulder. It's a good situation and it does start at the top.''

McCaskey's family history and that of the NFL are virtually one and the same.

According to the Bears media guide, Halas founded the Decatur Staleys _ later the Bears _ in 1920 and charged 11 other teams $100 to join a league, a what-the-heck flyer to see if the idea of pro football would stick.

Well before the Super Bowl era, this league had the Bears imprint all over it. Chicago won six titles between 1932 and 1946 and dominated through the '60s with Halas at the helm, writing the checks and often serving as coach, too.

Halas stayed in charge of the team until his death, but by the 1980s _ before the Ditka era _ the Bears were a backward team that had too many vestiges of the mom-and-pop business it once was and not the multimillion-dollar enterprise it is today.

Ditka changed that for a while, but the Bears never became a fearsome dynasty and that led to the awkward changes McCaskey was forced to make.

Asked how the team's improved status has changed her role, she said: ``I think it means more responsibility.''

``We're more comfortable in a lot of ways, but along with that there are things that we have to be more concerned about,'' she said. ``We're involved in community efforts. I especially like it when the players go out to visit schools and talk to children about reading and about education.''

It's that personal touch that McCaskey brings to the organization, when and where she chooses to get involved. It is not always easy.

The death in 1970 of running back Brian Piccolo, whose battle with cancer was heartbreakingly portrayed in the made-for-TV movie ``Brian's Song,'' had a profound effect on McCaskey, who promised herself then that she would never let herself get that attached to a player again.

``We were able to follow that resolve until Walter Payton came into our lives,'' an emotional McCaskey said after Payton, the Hall of Fame star, died young in 1999.

Yet she is involved once again, in a different way this time.

Her Bears are in the Super Bowl, and she's back on the big stage she has largely shunned but willingly accepts in happy times like these.