In the annals of Bears quarterbacks, there was the great one, Sid Luckman. There was the one who quit too soon, Johnny Lujack. There was the big-play guy, Ed Brown, and then the conservative one, Bill Wade. In the 1970s, there was the blond bomber, Bobby Douglass.
Then there was the quarterback they said was the crazy one.
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Jim McMahon was a nonconformist with a wild streak. Outrageous was the word most associated with him, and it described what he did before games, during, and after. He made people talk – did you see what McMahon did now? – as easily as he won football games, and his .742 winning percentage with the Bears is the best in the modern era.
These are the five reasons they said McMahon was the one you’ll never forget.
1. He partied like a rock star
In the galaxy from whence McMahon shone, he was closer to Ringo Starr than Bart. In fact, McMahon partied with the former Beatle one night at the Limelight in London before a preseason game in 1986. Also in the mix that night were the Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, Phil Collins, Bears offensive tackle Keith Van Horne and Bears public relations director Ken Valdiserri. Barry Gibb eventually invited the group to his English manor house in Oxford. After an hour cab ride to the countryside, the party continued with fireworks and a supply of adult beverages to last beyond sunup.
Just another day in McMahon’s Bears life.
The party started the day McMahon was drafted in 1982. When his limo dropped him at Halas Hall for the first time, the No. 5 draft pick stepped out with a can of Bud Light in his hand. It was 10 a.m. And that followed a morning of Bloody Marys, according to his book, written with the Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Verdi, “McMahon! The Bare Truth About Chicago’s Brashest Bear.”
“He came up to me and said, ‘How you doin’, kid?’” Bears chairman of the board Ed McCaskey said, according to the New York Times. “I was over 60 at the time.”
McMahon was just getting loose.
“When he was done at Halas Hall, (center) Dan Neal and I took him to Highwood and we ended up at The Wooden Nickel,” Van Horne said. “We got (drunk) on pitchers of beer. That was his first day in Chicago.”
For McMahon to get drunk, it took quite a few pitchers. “He definitely had a wooden leg when it came to drinking beer,” Verdi said. “He was in a league of his own.”
Former Bears guard Kurt Becker, McMahon’s roommate, said McMahon could outdrink any of his offensive linemen. “The only guy who could drink more than him was The Fridge (William Perry),” Becker said.
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Former Bears safety Gary Fencik said the more McMahon had to drink, the better he golfed. “He has an amazing talent of drinking a lot of beer and playing better by the can,” Fencik said.
It didn’t seem to affect his quarterbacking either. Fencik recalls a bus ride to the airport after McMahon had thrown three touchdown passes in a victory over the Bengals in Cincinnati in 1986.
“He sits next to me and looks awful,” Fencik said. “I said, ‘Are you all right?’ He said, ‘I went over the (Ohio River) and was gambling all night. I have to get some sleep.’ He’s partying across the river and still has a really good game.”
Of course, everyone has breaking points. “One time, we were out, and for some reason, he passed out on my couch,” Verdi said. “I mean, he was out. The next morning the phone rings. It’s (his wife) Nancy. ‘Bob, have you seen Jim?’ I tried to rouse him to talk to his wife. There was no chance. I said, ‘He’s here, he’s safe, I think he’ll be OK. But he’s not awake.’”
Verdi sometimes joined McMahon and the offensive linemen on Thursday night dinners, or escapades, around Chicagoland. Former Bears guard Tom Thayer remembers a night at the Ichiban Hibachi and Sushi Bar in Northbrook.
“There were some people at a table two or three tables over, and they kept interjecting, talking trash,” Thayer said. “McMahon grabbed one of the eggs and threw it over. It landed right in the middle of their table and splattered in every direction.”
Some of McMahon’s wildest partying was in Platteville, Wis., during training camp. McMahon often took over bartending duties at Donisi’s or The Hoist House. He had a partnership with Honda, so his teammates could purchase Elite 250 motor scooters at cost. One of the bars was adjacent to a furniture store, connected by a door. Van Horne recalls McMahon leading his linemen in scooter races through the two establishments.
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McMahon was hitting it hard with his linemen one night before the last practice of training camp. Some of the bars were open only for Bears players and their friends, and the party went well into the morning.
“Jim kept saying he wasn’t going to go to practice the next day,” Thayer said. “We knew if he didn’t go to practice, it would piss off (Mike) Ditka, and he would take it out on us.”
So the next morning, Thayer, center Jay Hilgenberg and guard Mark Bortz filled two five-gallon Gatorade buckets with ice water, found the key to McMahon’s dorm room, and made their way in. “Jim was in bed sleeping,” Thayer said. “Jay pulled the cover off, and we threw the buckets of ice water on him and ran.” Though he had a pallor about him, McMahon practiced.
As much as McMahon belonged on the cover of Sports Illustrated, he belonged on the cover of Rolling Stone. And that’s where he found himself after Super Bowl XX as he allowed a crew from the magazine to tail him the week preceding the game.
McMahon and his teammates took over the French Quarter, which was populated mostly with Bears fans wearing No. 9 jerseys. He couldn’t stay at any bar for long because fans would swarm him. To get to the next spot, Van Horne said McMahon hopped on his back, and they followed Becker, who cleared a path through the crowd. Rolling Stone described it as “’A Hard Day’s Night’ gone jockstrap.” The magazine recounted the night McMahon and quarterback Jim Kelly, who was about to go from the USFL Houston Gamblers to the Bills, escaped to Kelly’s suite, had a food fight and then pelted Bourbon St. revelers with oranges and apples from Kelly’s veranda.
Another night, McMahon led Hilgenberg to the penthouse of a luxury hotel, according to an account by Bob Sakomoto of the Chicago Tribune. As they partook in the “wall-to-wall leftover food and drink,” an attendant who had been sleeping in an adjoining room appeared. “Please help yourself to anything you want,” he said. “But try to keep it quiet. Mr. Hope is sleeping in the next room.” Mr. Hope was Bob Hope. McMahon and Hilgenberg had raided the comedian’s suite, where McMahon had been invited earlier in the week for a party.
2. He was a rebel
When McMahon arrived in Chicago in July of his rookie season to negotiate his contract, Jerry Vainisi, the team’s treasurer, was there to drive him downtown to George Halas’ office. McMahon refused the ride, telling Vainisi he would take a cab.
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In April 1986, McMahon was asked who he wanted the Bears to draft. “I’d like to see us draft an owner,” he said. By that time, Halas had passed away and his grandson Michael McCaskey was running the Bears.
“Michael McCaskey doesn’t have any qualifications to operate the Bears, except his name,” McMahon wrote in his book in 1986. “He went from Yale to Harvard to running his own consulting firm to running the Bears. He took over as president and chief executive officer in November of 1983, and before he got his feet wet, he was jumping around our locker room, in January of 1986, with a Super Bowl trophy. He must think he’s the reason we won. That’s scary, but I’m afraid it’s true.”
Such was the beginning of McMahon’s career with the San Diego Chargers, Philadelphia Eagles, Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals, Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers. But it wasn’t the end of McMahon’s outward contempt for the man whose signature graced his paychecks. Thayer remembers McMahon criticizing McCaskey to the other players as they stretched before training camp practices while McCaskey stood on the sidelines. Valdiserri said things became awkward as a result of the tension between them.
“Jim would avoid buses Michael was on,” he said. “Michael would be on the lead bus, so Jim would go on the second, third, or fourth bus.”
McMahon had more respect for Ditka than McCaskey, but he didn’t always show it. In his book, McMahon wrote about coming to the sidelines in a 1985 game after changing a play that didn’t work. “You c—, you mother—,” he yelled at me. “— you,” I said. McMahon was asked about the exchange later in an interview with The NFL Today. “Well,” I said, “that about sums up our relationship.”
McMahon had a nickname for Ditka when he talked about his coach with his teammates. He called him “Sybil,” a reference to the 1976 movie about someone who suffered from a multiple personality disorder. “One time, I did a column with him, and he referred to Ditka as Sybil,” Verdi said. I get a call the next morning at six. It’s Ditka. ‘What is this Sybil? What’s Sybil? Who’s Sybil?’”
During the 1985 season, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle fined McMahon $5,000 for wearing an Adidas headband during a game. McMahon responded by wearing a headband with “ROZELLE” written on it in the NFC Championship Game. Then in the Super Bowl, he wore headbands representing charities and a friend who had been ill. McMahon also wore an Adidas headband around his neck that day.
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By the time McMahon reached the Super Bowl, Fencik was the senior-most starter on the Bears defense and a well-respected leader in the locker room. In his book, McMahon indicated Fencik was washed up and called him the team’s “resident genius.” Wrote McMahon, “He went to Yale, and he lets you know it.”
The circle that McMahon kept was by invitation only. Making sure outsiders stayed out made the circle stronger.
3. He had little regard for his body
On a third-and-4 against the Raiders in 1984, McMahon took off. He easily got the first down but kept running and didn’t surrender even when two Raiders converged on him. He dove and was sandwiched mid-air between defensive lineman Bill Pickel and linebacker Jeff Barnes.
McMahon knew he was hurt but didn’t come out of the game for three more plays.
“I was rasping, croaking when I got back to the huddle,” he wrote in “McMahon!” “I called an audible designed for Willie Gault, but when I threw the ball, he wasn’t there. It got picked off. Willie had a good reason for not being where I thought he’d be. ‘I couldn’t hear you,’ Mac,’ he said. ‘Are you hurting?’ Was I ever. I told (backup) Steve Fuller to be ready. Eventually, I couldn’t take it any longer.”
McMahon was helped to the locker room.
“Before the game was over, I had to go down because the TV crew wanted to know what was going on,” Valdiserri said. “I remember seeing him in extreme pain in the locker room, bent over, uniform on, pissing blood. He couldn’t really talk because of the pain.”
McMahon said his urine was “like grape juice.” He was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a lacerated kidney. He stayed 10 days. McMahon missed the rest of the season, and what may have been most distressing is he couldn’t drink a beer for three weeks.
“My longest stretch since shortly after birth,” he wrote.
“I used to tell Mike (Ditka) he should devise a game plan that protected McMahon from himself,” said Vainisi, who was the team’s general manager from 1983 to ’86. “Mike said, ‘No, you can’t do that, you have to let him be who he is.’”
McMahon shouldn’t have even been on the field for his most impressive performance. In a 1985 game at Minnesota, he was No. 2 on the depth chart behind Steve Fuller because of a back injury and leg infection. But he badgered Ditka to play until Ditka relented with the Bears trailing 17-9 in the third quarter. McMahon threw three touchdowns in seven passes to lead the Bears to a 33-24 comeback victory. Behind the crazy persona was a quarterback who read defenses about as well as any whoever took a snap.
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McMahon threw blocks, made a diving touchdown catch, and jumped over piles while leading with his head.
“Health to him was immaterial,” Verdi said.
He celebrated touchdowns by head butting his linemen.
“He was no prima donna,” Becker said. “He thought he was a lineman.”
These days, McMahon is paying the price. He has said he suffers from early-onset dementia, depression, severe headaches, and vision and speech issues.
Back then, he never thought about consequences – at least not long-term consequences. The crazier he played, the more he endeared himself to his teammates, and the harder they tried.
4. He drew attention to himself
Not too many people looked into McMahon’s eyes because they were almost always covered by sunglasses. His excuse was light sensitivity that stemmed from accidentally poking himself in his eye with a fork as a child.
It was difficult to say if the sunglasses were about how he saw the world or about how the world saw him. McMahon made statements with his appearance.
He once tried to give himself a haircut, which turned out to be a Mohawk. Before it was very common, he wore an earring. When the Bears arrived in London for their preseason game, he was dressed in fatigues and smoking a cigar. On game days, he rolled up his jersey sleeves as if he were a lineman.
At exclusive country clubs, McMahon tried to golf without shoes and shirts. In his book, McMahon said his agent Steve Zucker told him if McMahon had one wish, he thought it would be to buy his own golf course and play naked. “I can’t argue with that, although I’d never have a total tan because I need a glove,” McMahon wrote.
When McMahon was Verdi’s guest at Medinah Country Club, he golfed barefoot. Verdi heard about it.
“Some of the things he did we thought were crazy are like strawberries and ice cream now,” Verdi said. “People were horrified with the Rozelle headband. Hide your children. This is awful. He never hurt anybody. He was just goofy.”
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McMahon was ticked off when the Bears acquired Doug Flutie to back him up in 1986. When Flutie arrived for his first day of practice, McMahon mocked him by wearing a cutoff jersey with No. 22 (Flutie’s college number), black leather high tops, shoulder pads that would have fit a Pop Warner player, a helmet with a single bar facemask, and sunglasses with eyeballs on the lenses.
McMahon was known for his brightly colored underwear that appeared to be from the wardrobe department for adult movies.
“Once he told me, ‘I was cutting my grass, and I don’t think my neighbors cared for my thong,’” Verdi said.
McMahon showed up to a team Halloween party in 1984 dressed as a priest. He was carrying a bible with pictures of naked women in it.
“Well,” Van Horne said, “he was Catholic.”
You think he worried about whether anyone objected?
“Jim had the luxury of being so outgoing because he was so confident about his football skills,” Thayer said. “Most of us are scared of our own shadows. Jim was super confident and could have fun from the dress to haircuts to sunglasses.”
Whether McMahon was acting intuitively or seizing opportunities doesn’t matter. But the attention he sought came to him in lucrative ways. McMahon was making less than $1 million annually from his football salary at the height of his Bears career but more than $2 million in endorsements. In addition to Honda and Adidas, he endorsed Coca-Cola, Gotcha Guns, Miracle Whip, Revo Sunglasses, and Taco Bell, among others.
It’s funny how fine the line can be between goofy and astute.
5. He took over Super Bowl XX
In the NFC Championship game, McMahon suffered a deep bruise on the left cheek of his rear end. He still needed help putting on socks the Monday before the Super Bowl. Gault had acupuncturist Hiroshi Shiriashi flown to Chicago from Japan and Shiriashi treated McMahon at Halas Hall six days before Super Bowl XX.
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Gault and McMahon decided Shiriashi should accompany them to New Orleans on the Bears charter plane later that day, but when Shiriashi showed up for the flight, Michael McCaskey would not allow him on board. McMahon complained about it in interviews, and the Illinois Acupuncture Association agreed to pay for Shiriashi’s expenses.
As a result of the attention, Bears kicker Kevin Butler told his quarterback, “You’ve got the most talked-about ass since Bo Derek,” according to “McMahon!”
During the stretching period of Wednesday’s practice, a news helicopter hovered above McMahon. “We’re sitting on the ground,” Thayer said. “He rolled over and pulled his pants down.”
McMahon later told reporters, “I was just letting them see where it hurt.”
Shiraishi arrived Wednesday and gave McMahon three to four treatments a day, some in front of teammates and members of the media, often with McMahon wearing a purple thong.
McMahon arranged to have a treatment at 11 p.m. Wednesday night, which was the team curfew. He said he missed the curfew “by a hair,” however, rolling in at 1:30 a.m. Verdi and Becker accompanied McMahon back to McMahon’s room, and they found Shiriashi waiting in the hallway outside.
“Here’s the acupuncturist on his knees in front of the door,” Verdi said. “I don’t know what the ritual was, praying for him to come back maybe, or that he hadn’t made the long trip for nothing.”
And then the session began. “He was laying there drunk, buck-naked, facedown getting acupuncture,” Becker said. “This poor little guy had to stick needles in his ass, and Jim was sharing all the smells of the evening.” According to “Rolling Stone,” Shiriashi replied he did not like McMahon’s “back window during treatment.”
The following morning the phone in McMahon’s hotel room started ringing early. Angry New Orleans residents were calling to threaten him, but he wasn’t sure why. It turned out a local sports anchor, Buddy Diliberto, had reported McMahon called the women of New Orleans “sluts,” and said the city’s residents were ignorant. It wasn’t long before the hotel had received more than 250 angry phone calls, including death threats against McMahon, and bomb threats.
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“Jerry Vainisi and I had to go up to his room,” Valdiserri said. “He was very matter of fact and denied he made any such remark.”
McMahon, it later was confirmed, never said what had been reported, a fact confirmed at a Super Bowl press conference by Chicago radio host Les Grobstein. But just to be sure, the quarterback wore a jersey with a different number at practice later that day.
In the Bears’ 46-10 victory over the Patriots on Super Bowl Sunday, none of it mattered.
Unless all of it did.
Richard Dent was voted the most valuable player of the game. But it was McMahon who made himself the center of the Super Bowl universe.
“Jim deflected the scrutiny for everyone else,” Fencik said. “It gave the rest of us a hall pass.”
Crazy, right? Or was it?
(Graphic: Wes McCabe / The Athletic with photos from Getty Images)
