Former longtime Tribune sports reporter Don Pierson is among the few who have spent hours with Chicago Bears principal owner Virginia McCaskey. He answered questions about McCaskey, who turns 100 years old today, in a phone interview Wednesday.
Pierson, who covered the Bears for the Tribune from the late 1960s through the team’s loss to the Indianapolis Colts in 2007′s Super Bowl XLI, says McCaskey takes her role as matriarch of the Bears seriously.He answered questions about McCaskey, who turns 100 years old today, in a phone interview Wednesday. As my granddaughter would say, way back in the last century — 1967.It wasn’t really a beat in the 1960s — nobody covered them every single day like they do now.
Let me go back even further. If you read Halas’ autobiography, in it he wrote that he was stunned when she was born. He was stunned because he assumed it would be George Halas Jr. That’s the way it was 100 years ago — you assumed your first child was going to be a boy. So many things had to go wrong in order for Virginia to be put in this position. As you mentioned, her younger brother died from a heart attack in 1979, then Halas died in 1983 of cancer. What did you make of it when it was announced that she was going to be the head of the organization?
They were sort of fish out of water when they had to take over the Bears. She’ll tell you that to this day. When Dan Pompei and I did the 100th anniversary book a few years ago, we talked with her for 10-12 hours. She told us she never expected to be in the position she was and in that position for, what, 40 years?Very dignified. I think it was Paul Tagliabue, former commissioner, who anointed her First Lady of the NFL and I think that’s apropos. She’s very well respected around the league.
I read your stories about Super Bowl XX that included quotes from Virginia. It seemed like it was the happiest she’s ever been. What was that like for her?
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