Virginia Halas McCaskey

The daughter of the Bears founder and football pioneer George Halas, Edit: Virginia Halas McCaskey took the reins beginning in 1983, after the death of her brother, George Jr. She died on Thursday February 6 2025. She was 102 and had spent her entire life around the team going back to the 1920s. Her younger brother and only sibling, George (Mugs) Halas Jr., was the team’s heir apparent, working at the club starting in 1950 and rising to team president in 1963. But he died of a heart attack in 1979 at 54. When George Halas Sr. died in 1983, Mrs. McCaskey received the sole vote in a one-generation trust. He also gave each of his grandchildren equal shares in the team. Mrs. McCaskey, her husband and her 11 children, however, turned the Bears into a considerable dynasty. When she took over as principal owner of the team in 1983, her husband, Ed McCaskey, became chairman, after serving as vice president and treasurer for 17 years during George Jr.’s tenure. Mrs. McCaskey appointed her eldest son, Michael, then a professor at Harvard Business School, as the club’s president and chief executive. He became chairman in 1999, and his brother George succeeded him in 2011. (Michael McCaskey died of cancer in 2020.) Two other sons, Brian and Patrick McCaskey, work for the team as vice presidents. In addition to her sons Patrick, George and Brian, Mrs. McCaskey is survived by six other children, Ellen Tonquest, Anne Catron, Edward McCaskey Jr. and Mary, Richard and Joseph McCaskey; 21 grandchildren; 40 great-grandchildren; and four great-great-grandchildren. Her second-oldest son, Timothy, died in 2011.