A difficult offseason for the Chicago Bears just got a little more melancholy. Michael McCaskey, the former team chairman who’d run the organization following the death of George Halas for almost three decades has died. He was 76-years old. The team announced it. McCaskey has been battling cancer for some time and it appears he finally succumbed.
One can only imagine how this affects the McCaskey family. Especially team matriarch Virginia. Burying her older brother George Halas Jr. was bad enough. Now having to bury her own son? That is a tragedy no mother wants to experience.
The legacy of Michael McCaskey will forever be complicated
When talking about McCaskey’s legacy with the Bears, it’s hard to nail down. He’s the man who managed to keep the train on the tracks in the 1980s, leading the way to a Super Bowl championship in 1985. However, he is also the one who had a contentious relationship with head coach Mike Ditka and inserted his own opinions on player acquisitions. This despite no background of actually playing the game, which led to predictable results.
He oversaw the lost decade of the 1990s, promoted a career accountant in Ted Phillips to team president, and developed a long-standing reputation for being cheap. His flubbing of the attempted hire of Dave McGinnis in 1999 is probably his most infamous moment. Even so, he managed to help get the team back to success in the 2000s with a Super Bowl appearance in 2006 and an NFC championship appearance in 2010.
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His brother George took over as chairman that same year. Most people including fans, players, and coaches don’t have fond memories of McCaskey. Yet the man still devoted his life to the organization, and that should be appreciated.
