Virginia Halas McCaskey owned the Chicago Bears for forty-one years and gave roughly one interview a decade. She inherited a franchise her father invented, held it through a Super Bowl and a great many losing seasons, and refused every offer to sell. When she died in February 2025 at 102, she was the oldest owner in the NFL and the last living link to the league’s founding generation.
Quick Bio / At a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Virginia Halas McCaskey |
| Date of Birth | January 5, 1923 |
| Birthplace | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Father | George S. Halas, founder and coach of the Chicago Bears |
| Husband | Ed McCaskey, married 1943 |
| Children | Eleven |
| Descendants | 21 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren, four great-great-grandchildren |
| Became Owner | October 31, 1983, on her father’s death |
| Tenure | 41 years as principal owner |
| Date of Death | February 6, 2025, aged 102 |
Born Into the League Itself
George Halas’s Daughter
Virginia Halas was born in Chicago on January 5, 1923 — three years after her father helped found the organisation that became the National Football League, and two years after he took over the team that became the Bears.
She grew up around the franchise in an era when professional football was a marginal business. Her father coached the team for forty seasons across four separate stints and remained the defining figure of the sport’s first half-century.
Marriage to Ed McCaskey
She married Ed McCaskey in 1943. Their marriage lasted six decades, until his death, and produced eleven children — the family that has run the Bears ever since.
The scale of the descendants is not trivia. It is the ownership structure: the Bears remain one of the few NFL clubs controlled by a single extended family rather than an individual billionaire or an investment group.
Inheriting the Franchise
1983
George Halas died on October 31, 1983. Virginia became principal owner of the Chicago Bears, a role she had never sought and had not been groomed for — the franchise had been expected to pass differently within the family.
She held it for forty-one years.
The 1985 Bears
Barely two years into her ownership, the Bears produced one of the most celebrated teams in NFL history and won Super Bowl XX in January 1986. It was the franchise’s only Super Bowl title, and it came in the third season of her tenure.
The four decades that followed were considerably leaner. She was publicly candid about her frustration during the worst of them, in the few interviews she gave.
The Owner Who Would Not Sell
The Bears are among the most valuable franchises in American sport, and the pressure to sell over four decades was constant. She never entertained it. Sons Michael and later George McCaskey served as chairman while she retained ownership and the title of secretary of the board.
She was known inside the league as “the First Lady of Sports” and was, by the end, the last person alive with a direct personal connection to the NFL’s founding.
Death and Tributes
Virginia Halas McCaskey died on February 6, 2025, at the age of 102. A visitation was held at Oehler Funeral Home in Des Plaines, Illinois, followed by a private funeral at Saint Emily Catholic Church in Mount Prospect.
Tributes came from across the NFL and beyond, including a statement from Major League Baseball — a reflection of how far outside football her standing reached.
What Her Ownership Represented
Modern NFL ownership is a financial asset class. Virginia McCaskey ran the Bears as an inheritance and an obligation, held a losing team for decades rather than cash out, and stayed almost entirely out of public view while doing it.
Whether that served the team on the field is genuinely debated in Chicago. What is not debated is that she was the last of her kind in the league her father built.
More sports figures and their families: Allen Iverson and Ayahna Cornish-Lowry.
