The Super Bowl held a moment of silence Sunday in tribute to Chicago Bears owner Virginia Halas McCaskey, who died last week at age 102.
The football matriarch known as “Mama Bear” had owned the team since her father, NFL co-founder George Halas, died in 1983.
McCaskey was known for her passion for football, though she left much of the hands-on management to her husband, Ed McCaskey. She helmed the team during its 1985 Super Bowl win. Bent on keeping the team within the family, McCaskey handed the reins to Michael, the oldest of her 11 children, and four of her other sons are on the Bears’ board of directors.
The “First Lady of the NFL,” as narrator Lauren Screeden called her in a video tribute on Saturday, McCaskey said she couldn’t have imagined it any other way.
“I’ve been so blessed that this has been my life,” she said. “I can’t think of any other way I would want to be living my life.”
The McCaskey tribute was one of several held before game time, with honors also going to victims and first responders to the brutal New Year’s terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, where Super Bowl LIX is being held.