O'Donnell: Bears could juice big job hunts by adding Belichick, Dungy to rumored mix
DON'T BLAME THE FANBOY MEDIA for the glacialness of the Bears' muskrat ramble to find a new general manager and head coach.
George McCaskey and his black-and-blue clue crew seem to be just skippin' down the cobblestones in a hunt that has all the zipperoo of a new Valerie Bertinelli series on Netflix.
So, as a public service, three weekend quickies to juice the pursuit:
Start rumors Bill Belichick is in line to get a piece of the team. — Boom, bang, zappo.
Are you sure Mugs Halas did it this way? ... Football legend, Lake Forest czar — Jim Finks without the charm ... He's in OT in New England and in a perfect pigskin universe, he'd bring along the smarter of his two coaching sons — Stephen or Brian ... or both, along with Nike, his reflectively taciturn Alaskan Klee Kai dog.
Let leak Leslie Frazier will “likely” be the new HC with old mate Tony Dungy to follow as ruling “Godfather of Sole Pursuit” at Halas Hall. — A win-win on many fronts.
Frazier knows much of the nuttiness that is the McCaskey Bears. ... His stock will also continue to rise if he and his Buffalo defense prompt a victory and hold Patrick Mahomes and host Kansas City below 24 points Sunday (CBS, 5:30 p.m.).
As for Dungy, why not? He's a “young” 66, has enormous brand equity around the NFL and can ultimately fail as good as anyone else on the confused McWacky horizon.
Hand the job to the GM candidate who states the overwhelmingly obvious. — The position goes to the first fellow who faces the Committee of Five and says, “My first move as your new general manager would be to form a search committee to find new ownership.”
Ding-ding-DING! ... Hunt over, first hint that yes, indeed, the ongoing nightmare of Bears fans will one day end. ... The four decades of McCaskey floundering will be over and some obnoxious new-mill billionaire will drop down from the clouds and initially come across like Bernadette at Lourdes.
STREET-BEATIN': The stellar start of Drew Valentine and Loyola reminds when Corky Bell, Doug Wardlaw and Billy “The Kid” Smith pushed the Ramblers to a 16-2 regular season in 1965-66. LU was eliminated from the compact NCAA tourney in the opening round by Clem Haskins and Western Kentucky. The mythic Red Rush was calling all games on WMAQ-AM (670). ...
Speaking of mythic, Li'l Tommy Edwards confirmed the classic core of the WLS-AM 89ers traveling basketball team: Himself, Larry Lujack, Les Grobstein, John Landecker, Ed Marcin and Jeff Hendrix. (Marcin was the “89 factor”; He was a 6-foot-8 promo man.) ...
Bill Hazen notes the stronger the WSCR-AM signal has gotten since the station's 1992 inception, the weaker its listening base. That trend covers its odyssey from AM-820 (daytime only) to AM-1160 to its current perch at AM-670. Former program director Ron Gleason acknowledged that the move to directional AM-1160 cost some demo-friendly listeners in Lake and DuPage counties. ...
Young Jack Bushman (Lake Zurich High, Class of '15) continues to climb with his daily podcast “Locked on Blackhawks.” The University of Missouri grad is flashing significant promise and tremendous passion. ...
Also on the rise, Janelle Finch — another Mizzou alum — at KREM-TV in Spokane, Wash. The Naperville native will be heard from; Papa is Golf Road angling legend Tom Finch, one of the most colorful executives in the history of Arlington Park. ...
The passing of Mrs. Pat Brickhouse recalls the evening when she accompanied Jack Brickhouse to a most memorable “Celebrity Sports Trivia Night” at the original Sports Page in Arlington Heights. Husband later told Insouciant, “Well, you certainly never have to tell anyone that Pat was around.” She was an energized, Runyonesque lady. ...
And Chicago Tribune all-timer Neil Milbert, on the irony of the Bears at Arlington Park: “I wonder if Ed McCaskey will put a curse on the operation from on high. He would not have been a happy camper had he known that because of his family's football team, he'd have to go all the way to Hawthorne to play the ponies live.”
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.