Virginia Halas McCaskey, the matriarch of the Bears franchise and the NFL’s most direct hyperlink to its founding, died Thursday morning on the age of 102.

In a press release, the Bears mentioned, “Whereas we’re unhappy, we’re comforted understanding Virginia Halas McCaskey lived an extended, full, faith-filled life and is now with the love of her life on earth.”

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell mentioned she left a “legacy of sophistication, dignity and humanity” and the “Bears that her father began meant the world to her.”

One in every of founder George Halas’ two youngsters, Mrs. McCaskey was born Jan. 5, 1923. She and her late husband Ed McCaskey raised 11 youngsters in an unassuming Des Plaines house.

After her brother, George “Mugs” Halas Jr., died in 1979, she was in line to inherit the crew from her father. She did upon his loss of life on Oct. 31, 1983, turning into one of many few ladies in sports activities to carry such a strong place.

“He might have executed issues otherwise,” she instructed the Solar-Instances in a uncommon interview in Might 2018. “Some house owners have deliberate to promote the crew as a substitute of handing it on to the following technology. He had religion in me after ‘Mugs’ died.

“I hope to justify the factor.”

Inside two weeks of her father’s loss of life, she and Ed — whom Virginia made chairman — named their son Michael the Bears’ president/CEO. Ted Phillips took his place in 1999, when Virginia determined to demote Michael to chairman instead of his father. When Michael retired in 2011, his brother George took over the function.

Ed died in 2003, two months after he and Virginia celebrated their sixtieth marriage ceremony anniversary.

Virginia represented 13 relations in holding about 80% of the Bears. On the board of administrators, she voted her household’s shares.

How that voting bloc will probably be affected after her loss of life is unclear. When requested lately concerning the crew’s future, George has mentioned repeatedly that his mom had a plan that may maintain the crew within the household after her loss of life. The NFL mandates every crew have a succession plan, although public particulars are obscure.

For years, Virginia, a religious Catholic, quoted her son, Pat, who mentioned the Bears would keep within the household till the “second coming.”

Witness to soccer historical past

Halas purchased the franchise for $100 in 1920 and attended the well-known assembly in Canton, Ohio, that based the American Skilled Soccer Affiliation. Two years later, it turned the Nationwide Soccer League. The Staleys, who had relocated from Decatur to Chicago the 12 months earlier than, have been renamed the Bears.

When Halas took Crimson Grange on a barnstorming tour after his 1925 school season — a transfer that helped to legitimize the skilled sport — he introduced alongside his younger daughter. When Virginia was 9, she attended the NFL’s first championship recreation.

“It’s a particular feeling to be a part of that Bears historical past, which was very important within the survival and historical past of the crew,” she mentioned. “And for George Halas.”

She enrolled at Drexel College at age 16, partially to be beneath the supervision of her uncle, Walter Halas, who coached soccer, baseball and basketball. She met Ed, a Penn pupil, as a sophomore. They attended the 1942 NFL title recreation between the Bears and Washington, hoping to ask Halas for permission to marry.

The Bears misplaced — so that they finally eloped.

“Early on in my childhood, I noticed that if I actually needed one thing, the perfect time to ask was after the Bears gained a recreation,” she mentioned. “After we didn’t win? ‘Let’s wait awhile.’ ”

The face of the sport

Virginia graduated in 1943. She and her husband have been shut with operating again Brian Piccolo, who died in 1970 of most cancers after taking part in for the Bears for 4 years. She discovered then to not get too near Bears gamers — till star operating again Walter Payton joined the crew.

“After Brian Piccolo died, my husband Ed and I promised ourselves we wouldn’t be so personally concerned with any of the gamers,” she mentioned, eulogizing Payton in 1999. “We have been capable of comply with that resolve till Walter Payton got here into our lives.”

Even into her late 90s, Virginia was an energetic a part of the franchise. Her sedan with a bumper sticker that learn “Pray the Rosary” was typically seen parked close to the doorway of the ability named after her father.

The league’s oldest proprietor because the Payments’ Ralph Wilson died in 2014, Virginia and George traveled to NFL house owners conferences and to Bears highway video games, the place they sat within the proprietor’s field. She made fewer and fewer such journeys lately.

Virginia made her most public look in years on the ultimate day of the Bears 100 Weekend Celebration in June 2018. She charmed her means by a round-table dialogue, joking that the crew’s throwback socks “don’t flip me on” and claiming that, as a woman, she paid extra consideration to the gamers sporting the uniform.

Underneath her steering, the Bears gained their solely Tremendous Bowl of the trendy period in January 1986. The franchise struggled till 21 years later, when she accepted the NFC championship trophy named after her father. She declared it her greatest day because the Bears beat the Patriots to win Tremendous Bowl XX.

“It’s lovely,” she mentioned, trying on the trophy. “Simply lovely.”

She’s pissed off — allegedly

The Bears misplaced to the Colts in Tremendous Bowl XLI and returned to the playoffs solely as soon as — a 2010 run that ended with an NFC title-game loss to the rival Packers — till reaching the postseason in 2018.

The media-shy Virginia’s phrases have been invoked by her son lately — and after franchise-changing selections. After the 2014 season, George McCaskey determined to fireplace common supervisor Phil Emery and coach Marc Trestman.

“She’s pissed off,” George mentioned then, explaining his determination. “She’s fed up with mediocrity. She feels that she and Bears followers in every single place deserve higher.”

Virginia mentioned later she by no means used that wording. When a nun chided her for it, Virginia smiled and instructed her to not be upset together with her son for exaggerating.

In September 2018, George recounted the second when he instructed his mother the Bears might commerce for star cross rusher Khalil Mack. They have been in a Halas Corridor elevator, and he or she spent the journey together with her mouth agape in disbelief. She was within the constructing that day to current the Virginia Award, given by the Bears to an worker who greatest shows the traits synonymous with the matriarch herself: grace, humility, loyalty and dedication.

Brian Urlacher exemplified the respect the Bears had for her in August 2018. Two days earlier than he was inducted into the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame, the previous linebacker threw a celebration at a Canton, Ohio, lodge, not removed from the place Virginia’s father based what would develop into the NFL.

Virginia arrived to the celebration at 12:15 a.m., after the Bears’ exhibition recreation had ended. The room stopped, Urlacher mentioned, and he went instantly to hug her.

“Unbelievable,” Urlacher mentioned then. “She walked into the room, and everybody was like, ‘Whoa. That’s George Halas’ daughter.’ ”

She was that — and extra.

“I’m nonetheless looking for phrases for what [the Bears] have meant to me, and, I hope, to all of you,” she instructed the group at Bears 100. “It has made me much more grateful for what my life has been, and the place that I’m in. There’s so many privileges and perks and blessings. I simply can’t imagine I’m right here and I’m having fun with life at my age, the way in which I’m.”

She is survived by 21 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren and 4 great-great-grandchildren.