Remembering Virginia McCaskey (1923-2025)

LOOKING BACK
By Chris Willis, NFL Films

Remembering Virginia McCaskey

Today PFJ remembers one of the most important women in NFL history. A woman that was referred to often as the “First Lady of the NFL.” Virginia McCaskey passed away today at the age of 102. For over a century she lived true to her personal trinity of faith, family and football. She was a special lady indeed.

She was special not because her father, George Halas, was one of the founders of the NFL, but the legacy she left taking over the franchise that her father operated for over six decades. She has continued his legacy and kept the Bears franchise going. A franchise that has won 9 NFL championships including Super Bowl XX. A franchise that has made 28 post-season appearances and this past fall, 2024, the Bears will be playing in their 105th NFL season, having won over 800 total games -both regular and post-season combined. 

EARLY LIFE

On January 5, 1923, Min and George Halas welcomed their first child. The entire nine months of pregnancy George was convinced it was going to be a boy. To his surprise it was a girl. “I assumed - and so had Min - that the new arrival would be George Stanley Halas, Jr. I already had visions of drawing my son into the thick of the Bears. We didn’t even have a name for the girl…I filled in the baby’s certificate of birth leaving the name blank. Many years later, upon getting a copy of her birth certificate for a passport application, my daughter discovered that the name we gave her - Virginia Marion Halas - had been inserted in pencil,” wrote Halas in his autobiography.

Despite being an established football owner George hesitated to identify as such, when asked to designate an occupation on his daughter’s birth certificate he wondered if “the world would respect as a father’s occupation the designation of “football owner, manager, coach and player.” So instead, Halas, identified himself as a “civil engineer.”

On September 4, 1925 the couple would have their second and last child, a son, George Halas, Jr. “It’s a boy! said the nurse. She took me to Min and my son. Min was happy as an angel. She cradled the boy in her arm. He was a wonderful sight to look upon. I bent over. Hiya Mugs! I said,” recalled Halas. Once again the NFL’s Papa Bear shied away from “football owner” as his occupation. This time writing “realtor.” Soon Halas could tell the world he was an NFL owner. Something that made young Virginia proud.

Growing up in a football family came natural for Virginia. Even while her father was game planning for games during the week, she would do her homework next to him, occasionally he would take a break from the X’s and O’s to check out her work.

George Halas (left) with daughter Virginia (1963) 

Virginia got a kick out of knowing the Bears players, even if she had to prove it any way she could to her fellow schoolmates. “Girls didn’t bother at all. I think the only time I got the attention of the boys was when I got into an argument in the school playground about knowing Red Grange,” said Virginia. “That was, ‘Oh, you don’t know Red Grange,’ and it was him with the Bears at that point. It was that they knew Red Grange. So, I asked my dad to have Red sign a picture for me that I could take to school and prove that I know him. Now it’s a little embarrassing to think that I was that convinced that I had to prove something.”

Red Grange autographed photo to Virginia

Because the NFL was important to her father, it was important to Virginia. “I was very definitely involved. I loved the game, mostly because it was so important to my dad, and everything that was so important to him was important to me too,” said Virginia McCaskey in 1999.

She always cherished Sundays going to Bears games. “Home games we had 8:00 a.m. Mass at St. Hillary’s. Come home and have breakfast. I was going to say read the paper, usually the sports pages. Then he would leave about 10:00 a.m. for a one o’clock kickoff. We would go later in time to get there for the game. Then we would wait for him after the game and all of us come home together. If we won it was wonderful. Everybody was happy and enjoying the moment. I think he really tried to help me feel better if we lost a game. He’d say, ‘Well, we’ll get them next time. Or that’s too bad. But we learned something that will help us along the way.’ He was always, always very positive,” recalled Virginia. (1999 interview)

Virginia learned the ins and outs of the NFL by observing her father and being surrounded by the sport. It was her life. While attending Drexel University, near Philadelphia, Virginia met Ed McCaskey. In 1943 she married McCaskey and went on to have 11 children and now over 40 grandchildren and great grandchildren. Her and Ed continued to be involved with the Bears until 1983 when her father passed away. At that point she became the owner.

Her accomplishments include being very involved in the Brian Piccolo Award, given out yearly by the Bears to the one rookie and one veteran who best exemplifies the courage, loyalty, teamwork, dedication and sense of humor of the late Bears running back. For decades she has helped raise money for cancer research.

MEETING VIRGINIA MCCASKEY

Over my career working for NFL Films, and writing about the history of the NFL, I was fortunate to interview Virginia McCaskey twice.

My first time sitting down with her was in 1999. I was producing a piece on the NFL’s first post-season game – the famous 1932 indoor game played between the Portsmouth Spartans and Chicago Bears – and the first ever NFL Championship Game between the Giants and Bears in 1933. I interviewed all of the living participants at the time that including the likes of Glenn Presnell, Charles “Ookie” Miller, Harry Newman and George Musso. I also contacted the Bears to see about doing an interview with Mrs. McCaskey who had attended the Indoor Game as a young child.

I knew she liked her privacy and didn’t do many interviews. I thought it was a long shot. But I was pleasantly surprised when she said yes. I traveled to her modest ranch home in Des Plaines, Illinois to do the interview. For an hour she answered all my questions about the early days of the Bears and specifically about the two important games in NFL history.

Virginia McCaskey, 1999

She was very excited to talk about being indoors watching her Bears. “I remember being there, because I was nine years old. I remember the odor,” says Virginia McCaskey. “There had been a circus in Chicago Stadium the previous week. We were familiar with the Stadium because my dad had a professional basketball team, named the Chicago Bruins. So, we would go to the stadium for those basketball games. The field was not your ideal field. It certainly was a lot more comfortable than being at Wrigley Field that particular week.”

During the hour I was very impressed with her knowledge and enthusiasm for the history of the NFL. I was more than happy with the interview we did and several of her interview sound bites made my NFL Films piece on those two important games.

After I finished the interview Virginia sent me a handwritten note asking for a copy of the interview and the eventually piece that would air on our show, NFL Films Presents. I was more than happy to comply since she gave me her time. After more than twenty years later I’ve kept the note.

Handwritten Note from Virginia McCaskey (1999) to Author

The next time our paths crossed was in 2005 when I was writing my book on Joe F. Carr, the former NFL President from 1921-1939. Carr and Halas were close friends and I knew I wanted to get a little more input from Virginia McCaskey about their relationship. I again reached out to the Bears and once again she said yes to an interview. This time we did the interview in Canton, Ohio the same day the Bears played the Miami Dolphins in the Hall of Fame game.

We talked for thirty-five minutes, she was on a tight schedule because of the game, but I got what I wanted. One of my favorite quotes in the Carr book is her answer on meeting Joe Carr when he would come over for dinner. Although she was not any older than ten years old, she recalled Carr’s visit very vividly. Virginia McCaskey recalled:

 “I was very much involved then. I loved the game. My memory of Joe Carr is his coming to dinner in our apartment on Campbell Ave. during my grammer school and high school days…He was always well reserved and well dressed with his business suit, and his white shirt, and his tie and his glasses. He would always ask Mugs (her brother) and me about our schoolwork and our activities. He paid special compliments to my mother because she fixed a chicken dinner, which was his favorite. She also had a chocolate icebox cake recipe that we all enjoyed. She didn’t make it very often, so we were always happy when we heard that Mr. Carr was coming for dinner, because then we knew we’d get the chocolate icebox cake.

Then after dinner he and dad would go into the living room to have their business discussions. Mugs and I would help mom clean up the dishes or something just to keep us out of the way. Now I look back and think, wouldn’t it have been wonderful to sit in on some of those discussions.”

Her answers about her father and Joe Carr made me feel like I had been right in the living room in Chicago listening to Halas and Carr talk about the NFL. Her answers made my book better.  

My two interviews with Virginia McCaskey are two of the most important and rewarding interviews I have ever done. I will never forget them.

HER LEGACY

George Halas was involved with the National Football League for 63 years (1920-1983). He was present at the formation of the league in Canton, Ohio in 1920. He played ten seasons as a player. He won 324 NFL games in a 40-year coaching career. He won eight NFL championships as player-coach-owner. He won his first title at the age of 26. He won his last at 68. “It has been the most priceless privilege of my professional life to see our dreams come true and to watch our ugly duckling grow to be a magnificent eagle,” once said Halas about being a part of the National Football League.

Virginia’s legacy is just as impressive.

Virginia McCaskey looking at Halas Family Scrapbooks (2015) 

She has seen it all. 100 years of NFL action and history. “She has set such a great example of how owners of professional teams should conduct themselves, with a quiet dignity and a love of their teams,” said John Mara, President-CEO of the New York Giants in 2015. She knew Red Grange and Bronko Nagurski. She watched the 1932 Indoor Game and the Bears 73-0 blowout of the Washington Redskins in 1940. She was in New Orleans when the Bears won Super Bowl XX. She has been part of the NFL’s owners’ meetings her entire adult life. While sitting in the Bears owners’ box she has watched all of the Bears greatest players including Sid Luckman, Bulldog Turner, George Musso, Ed Sprinkle, Bill George, Mike Ditka, Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, Mike Singletary, Jim McMahon, Brian Urlacher, Devin Hester and many more. She befriended Brian Piccolo when he fought cancer and she has crossed paths with NFL Commissioners, Bert Bell, Pete Rozelle, Paul Tagliabue and Roger Goodell. She has seen pretty much everything that the NFL has done for the past 100 years.

“I don’t think anybody could’ve dreamed of what it had grown into. My father had that commitment and the love of the game. He used to say he didn’t really work at it because it was so important to him and he was so pleased that what he believed in had come to fruition in the present success of the NFL and we were all the benefactors,” said Virginia McCaskey.

RIP to the “First Lady of the NFL.”