Virginia Halas-McCusky will celebrate her 100th birthday on Thursday.It’s certainly a fun and important occasion, but the patriarch of the Chicago Bears doesn’t want to make a fuss.
“She notified us months ago that she didn’t want to make a big deal of it and wanted a quiet, small family celebration.
The only daughter of legendary Pro Football Hall of Famer George Halas, Mrs. McCuskey has been the Bears’ principal owner since her father’s death in 1983.
Mrs. McCuskey was born on January 5, 1923. She was less than three years old when her father founded the Bears as her Staleys in Decatur, where she helped create what would later become the NFL. In her early childhood, she accompanied her father and team on her 1925 to her 1926 Red Grunge Barnstorming tour. In 1932, Mrs. McCaskey attended her first indoor game of the NFL, helping the Bears win her league championship as she beat Portsmouth her Spartans 9–0 at Chicago Stadium. saw.
No one on the planet has witnessed more professional football history than Mrs. McCuskey. In her 2019 Chicago Bears Centennial Scrapbook, a 320-page memorabilia chronicling the first 100 years of the franchise, Mrs. McCuskey remembers Grange, then one of football’s most popular superstars. Having carried her in front of him at the train station, fans didn’t recognize him and lashed out at him for autographs.
She also said during a game at Chicago Stadium, which was moved indoors due to severe winter weather in 1932, “the circus was there the week before and it still smelled of animals.” I remember an unpleasant smell.
Bears president and CEO Ted Phillips said, “I think I read that she lived every NFL game, except for 36.” I got
Over the years, McCaskey has occasionally shared these stories when addressing Bears players at team meetings.
Former long snapper Patrick Manery, who spent 16 seasons with the Bears starting in 1998, said, “Just because she’s the daughter of George Halas, who started NFL football, when she walked into the room, she knew that person. I respected him as such,” he said. In 2013, she became the longest-serving player in franchise history. “It was an honor to have her speak with us as a team. Whenever she spoke, we all listened.
“She’s a very special person. I think everyone wants to live her life and be like her. She’s a wonderful, impressive person.”
George McCuskey described his mother’s greatest qualities as “grace, quiet majesty, humility and appreciation” and how she inspired him “every day in every way” with “a wonderful combination of grit and grace”. He made it clear that he would continue.
“She’s a guiding force in everything we do here, and everyone knows that, including those in the locker room.
The most striking lesson George learned from his mother was, “For this tremendously unique opportunity that we have been given, let us be grateful for all that we have and keep in mind the responsibilities that come with it. What to do.
