Steve McMichael’s wife, Misty, always said her husband wanted to live long enough to see himself picked for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He did — and much longer.
McMichael, a cog in the Bears’ legendary 1985 defense whose outsized personality lived on through professional wrestling and in popular culture, died at 5:28 p.m. Wednesday at 67, a source confirmed. Earlier in the day, sources said he was being put in hospice care after being in intensive care on a ventilator.
McMichael had battled ALS since being diagnosed in January 2021.
In a statement, Bears chairman George McCaskey said it was a “cruel irony that the Bears’ Ironman succumbed” to ALS. The man known as “Mongo” and “Ming the Merciless,” a player with crackling energy and a nonstop mouth who played a record 191 games for the Bears, was robbed of the ability to speak and move. It was almost as though he was being mummified, fellow Hall of Famer Dan Hampton said.
“I don’t want to remember him in the bed,” Hampton told the Sun-Times on Wednesday night. “In my mind’s eye, it’s ‘Ming’ and I chasing down [quarterbacks] Tommy Kramer and Kenny Stabler and laughing like hyenas.”
Hampton, who last saw McMichael two weeks ago, said he knew this day would come — but that didn’t make it sting less.
“You’re not accepting of it,” he said, “but you’re prepared.”
McMichael was inducted into the Hall of Fame on Aug. 3. Officials presented him with a gold jacket at his home in Homer Glen, and fellow Hall of Famers Richard Dent, Jimbo Covert and Mike Singletary were at his bedside that day.
“Welcome home, Steve,” Dent told him. “You’re in football heaven.”
McMichael played for the Bears from 1981 to 1993 and ranks second in franchise history in sacks and third in tackles.
In January 2021, McMichael, then 63, was diagnosed with 36-month onset ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It attacked him mercilessly. Within three months, he had no movement in his arms or hands. By May 2022, McMichael needed 24-hour nursing care and was unable to swallow food. He was bedridden and unable to speak.
His ALS diagnosis prompted a public push for Hall enshrinement. His dream came true when the Seniors Committee made him one of their three selections in August 2023, a decision that was later approved by the Selection Committee. He was introduced at the 2024 NFL Honors as a member of the Hall of Fame class. McMichael watched the award show from his home, but Misty said then that she hoped he’d be able to attend his own enshrinement. He wasn’t.
“It’s a victory with an asterisk,” former Bears safety Gary Fencik told the Sun-Times last year. “We’re happy and celebrating success, but we’re also looking at Steve’s condition.”
Friends and former teammates rallied around him after his diagnosis, with coach Mike Ditka calling him “one of my favorites” and Hampton calling the disease “a sobering gut punch.”
Former teammates and friends — as well as the McCaskey family — gathered for a Wrigleyville fundraiser in the months after his diagnosis. Proceeds went toward his care.
McMichael defied the odds by fighting ALS as long as he did. In August 2022, he fell unconscious while waiting for an ambulance but was home from the hospital in less than a week. In February 2024, he was treated for a urinary tract infection and MRSA, a staph infection that is resistant to some medications, but was sent home from the hospital after only eight days.
What McMichael was known for even in retirement — a dangerous sense of humor cloaked in a Texas drawl — shouldn’t overshadow his accomplishments on the field.
In those 13 seasons with the Bears, McMichael etched his name in the franchise’s statistical ranks. He was an Associated Press first-team All-Pro as part of the ’85 Bears’ Super Bowl-winning team. The Sun-Times’ Mark Potash ranked McMichael, who went to two Pro Bowls, as the 17th-best Bear of all time.
The University of Texas alum spent his last NFL season playing for the Packers before entering pro wrestling in 1995. He was an announcer and wrestler, serving as a member of the “Four Horsemen” stable during his four years with WCW. In retirement, he served as a radio host, rock musician and minor-league football coach. He even ran, unsuccessfully, for mayor of Romeoville.
He is survived by Misty and their daughter, Macy.
“Steve McMichael told everyone he would fight ALS with the same tenacity he showed for 15 seasons in the National Football League,” Pro Football Hall of Fame president Jim Porter said in a statement. “He did just that.”