The first thing that became obvious was Virginia McCaskey’s ebullience, the way she entered the room with infectious pep. On a Sunday afternoon in Phoenix in March 2019, McCaskey had come to do something she hadn’t done at any point in her 96 years. As she walked into a dining room at the Arizona Biltmore before the NFL spring meetings, she was entering the realm of podcast guest.
“This,” she said, “is a first for me.”
McCaskey, the Chicago Bears owner, had agreed to sit down with the Tribune’s “Bear Download” podcast to help kick off the 100th-season celebration for the Bears and the NFL. And while she wasn’t sure where that conversation might steer, she did know that at a landmark time in the history of the league and the franchise her father George Halas founded, she had been lucky.
