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Chicago Bears owner Virginia Halas McCaskey died Thursday at the age of 102, the team announced.
The daughter of Bears founder and NFL co-founder, George Halas, McCaskey was the controlling owner of the team since 1983 after her father’s death and presided over the team’s Super Bowl XX title in 1985. Prior to her death, she was the oldest owner in North American sports.
McCaskey kept a low-profile as an NFL owner compared to her peers, like Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft, but was active in the role for most of her adult life before turning the operation to her children in her later years.
“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 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.”
She had 11 children, eight sons and three daughters, and fired one of them, Michael, as the team’s president in 1999 and replaced him with Ted Phillips, who stayed in the role until 2023. Phillips was replaced by current president Kevin Warren. Michael McCaskey, who died in 2020, later served as the team’s chairman until 2011, when he was succeeded by his brother George. Virginia McCaskey owned 20% of the Bears with the rest divided among her children and relatives, but no clear succession plan has been announced.
While the team had mixed success throughout her tenure, McCaskey made her mark known. She famously ended the team’s cheerleading squad, “The Honey Bears,” in 1986 because she found them “sexist and degrading to women.”
After the Bears went 5-11 in 2014 and fired coach Marc Trestman and general manager Phil Emery, George McCaskey was asked for his mother’s take on the team’s situation.
“She’s pissed off,” he said. “I can’t think of a 91-year-old woman that that description would apply, but in this case, I can’t think of a more accurate description.”
McCaskey was never supposed to be heir to her father’s team but took over in light of a family tragedy. Her younger brother, George Jr., nicknamed “Mugs,” was the sibling first in line for succession and was preparing for the job during his nearly 30 years in the team’s front office. He died of a heart attack in 1979 just before Christmas at age 54. George Sr. died four years later, putting 60-year-old Virginia in charge in 1983. One of her father’s last team moves was hiring former Bears tight end Mike Ditka as head coach, and the team won the Super Bowl two years later.
In 1987, family drama spilled into the courts after George Jr.’s children sued the McCaskey family on the grounds that their father’s death raised their controlling stake in the team. Virginia McCaskey took the witness stand in the trial to be questioned by her niece and used her testimony to allude to concerns from her father on the family’s ability to hold onto the team had it gone to her niece and nephew.
“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 in the trial.
She kept control of the team despite the trial and told The Athletic in 2016 the family will likely retain ownership of the Bears “until the second coming.”
McCaskey is survived by nine of her 11 children, 21 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren, and four great-great-grandchildren.
