Jim O'Donnell: Former Bears executive talks in realities about the team and Arlington Park
JERRY VAINISI IS ONE OF THE MOST ill-starred responses on any possible “Chicago Sports Jeopardy!” board.
The answer would play in the $1,600-$1,800 range and would speak but specks about a consistently reasoned gentleman.
And it would be:
“He was the general manager of the Super Bowl champion 1985 Bears.”
The correct question: Who is Jerry Vainisi?
But less than 14 months after all of the blue-and-burnt orange glory that was Super Bowl XX, Vainisi was the former general manager of the Chicago Bears.
“I didn't realize I had a bull's-eye on my back from the night George Halas died (Halloween, 1983),” said Vainisi — now into his third decade as the chairman and owner of the West suburban Forest Park Bank.
“I was considered ‘a Halas guy' by the McCaskey family and they wanted ‘McCaskey thought' to prevail. So Ed and Michael fired me.”
The Bears would not have another general manager until June 2001. That was when team president Ted Phillips — a Vainisi hire as controller in the fall of 1983 — brought Jerry Angelo into one of the most consistently perplexing seats on the regional sportscape.
NOW IT IS PHILLIPS AND GEORGE McCASKEY who occupy two of the most pressure-laden chairs in the history of the Chicago Bears.
That's because of their heralded push to get the team out of its cloistered Groundhog's Days at Soldier Field and into a stadium-for-the-decades at Arlington Park.
Vainisi — a former resident of Arlington Heights (as is Phillips) — has many thoughts on the churning drama.
“First, a new stadium isn't about the Bears in five or six years or a decade from now,” the Georgetown Law grad said. “It's about the Chicago Bears 50 years from now.
“The NFL absolutely wants one of its great showcase franchises into something that speaks of new energies and new vision. And there is no location anywhere in or around Chicago that is so ready to go as the site of that kind of new statement as Arlington Park.”
HIRED BY GEORGE HALAS HIMSELF on Oct. 1, 1972, to upgrade a spartan Bears business department, Vainisi lived through all of the starter claw-and-mouse games between the team, the village and the racetrack that publicly began in 1975.
“The full truth is, Halas never wanted to leave Chicago,” Vainisi said. “He did want leverage with the city to get some things done. But then the track was corporately owned (technically by Gulf & Western and dynamo Charlie Bludhorn through subsidiary Madison Square Garden Corp.) and Arlington Heights had a very aggressive mayor (the late Jim Ryan).
“Cursory meetings were held. Ideas began to gain steam. The media picked up on it. Halas was gradually turning over some significant decisions to Mugs (George Halas Jr.) and then Mugs slammed one out of the park when he hired Jim Finks as GM away from the Vikings (in September 1974).
“Then we had press conferences and architects renditions of what the new stadium at Arlington would look like. The surreal began to seem real. But through it all, Halas really didn't want to leave Chicago and we had a lease through 1979 at Soldier Field.
“Then Mugs dies (in December 1979) and Halas's future vision of the team was thrown way off track. We eventually redid his will, primarily for tax purposes, and all of the steam went out of the Bears at Arlington Park.
“As far as Soldier Field, it got to the point that in the summer of 1980, we still hadn't signed a new lease. One day before our home preseason opener, an attorney from the Chicago Park District called our office and told us if they did not have the new lease signed and back in their office by the end of that business day, we and our game the next night would be locked out of Soldier Field.
“So Halas said sign it and suddenly the Bears had a 20-year renewal to stay at Soldier Field.”
FROM HIS UNIQUE PERCH, Vainisi says the Bears have to be proceeding with marked acknowledgment of internal weaknesses to get any deal done to move to Arlington.
“I would hope there has been explicit understanding months ago that Pat Ryan has to be the lead negotiator on all of this,” he said. “Unless they have significantly matured in some compartments, Ted and George just can't get this done by themselves.
“The McCaskeys era as principal owners of the Bears has encompassed some very odd business decisions. I caught the beginning of one when the estate of Mugs Halas was set to sell his (19.7% ownership) in 1987.
“The team was worth roughly $80-90 million then. There was some hard emotions between Ed and Virginia (McCaskey) and Mugs's widow (second wife Patricia).
“Still, all the McCaskeys had to do — less than two seasons after winning a Super Bowl with an absolutely iconic NFL team — was borrow about $18 million to take close to complete ownership of the team.
“Instead, Mugs's block essentially edged toward being on an outside market. Andy McKenna was on the board and he came up with Pat Ryan as an alternative solution that the McCaskeys could live with for the cash.
“Pat put up the money. Andy got one or two points (in truth, 2%) for brokering the deal and Pat got the rest.
“All the McCaskeys had to do was call a few banks or investment firms and they easily could have secured a loan against guaranteed future revenues.
“BUT THIS GOES BACK TO AN INCORRECT PERCEPTION of Michael McCaskey within the family. He had a great academic background but in the outside world, he was a consultant, not a businessman.
“Consultants get hired and then come in with enough ‘what-ifs' to cover themselves no matter what happens. Then they move on to the next client.
“Businessmen pull triggers and live with the consequences. A lot of the dominoes that haven't fallen the Bears' way in the last 30 years can be attributed to being managed with a consultant's mentality.”
AND WHAT ABOUT THE IDEA OF NEIL BLUHM — the billionaire Chicago businessman who is partnered with Churchill Downs Inc. in the Des Plaines/Rivers Casino — blocking the Bears at Arlington Park as payback for he and Judd Malkin getting frozen out of purchasing Mugs Halas's 19.7% interest 33 years ago?
“Neil Bluhm is a brilliant businessman who didn't make his money living in the past,” Vainisi said. “What happened back in 1987 or 1988 is such ancient history. If he and any business partners can maximize profits by getting the Bears to Arlington Park, in my opinion, there is no question he'd do it.”
What about Bluhm or anyone else soon cherry-picking or outright bulk purchasing enough of the Bears stock to take controlling interest in the team?
“You must understand that Virginia McCaskey views her family's ownership of the Bears as sacred. Sacred. And I would also think that most if not all of her nine surviving children share that idea.
“Could something happen down the road? Anything could happen down the road.
“But I also think this widespread perception that any of the third-generation McCaskeys or Halases don't make money off the Bears is likely not correct. Certainly I haven't had access to the financials in years. But given the remarkable revenue streams of NFL teams each year, I can't believe there isn't some kind of regular payout to shareholders.”
AND THE AFTERLIFE OF JERRY VAINISI?
“I was in a dream job, an absolute dream job. A hometown kid, an accountant with a law degree who loved the NFL, getting to grow up and become an executive vice president and general manager of the Chicago Bears. And then winning the Super Bowl alongside Mike (Ditka) and so many other great people and players.
“And then one day it suddenly ended. I moved on to the Lions and then wound up helping to start the NFL Europe out of London.
“But I suddenly realized I was living a vagabond's life. And I didn't want that and neither did my family.
“Ironically, it was Mugs Halas who first advised me on partnering with four other people in the Forest Park Bank back in 1974. Then it was three partners, then two and now just me.
“We are so marvelously positioned to assist such an array of vibrant and diverse cities and towns.”
FROM A BEAR-BONED BANKER'S VIEW, the chances of the Monsters moving to Arlington Park?
“The marriage itself is so obvious. But if you're asking for a percentage, from what I know now and what I know of some of the people involved, I'd say 55 percent.
“The redevelopment of that land is so much more valuable with the Bears — the Chicago Bears — as anchor draw. The sellers know that. My opinion is the Bears should do the whole thing by themselves.
“But Ted Phillips and I haven't had lunch in 20 years. And I've never been invited to visit the new Halas Hall.
“So what do my viewpoints matter? Don't forget. I was ‘a Halas guy.' ”
With a Super Bowl ring ... and a successful banker's ca-ching.
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.