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Bears Fans Will Always Wonder About the Coach Who 'Could Have Been'

Dave McGinnis dies at 74, the man who should have been the 12th Bears head coach if not for ownership botching his hiring.
Gene Chamberlain|
Former Bears assistant and Cardinals head coach Dave McGinnis celebrates a victory by the Cardinals over Washington.
Former Bears assistant and Cardinals head coach Dave McGinnis celebrates a victory by the Cardinals over Washington. | Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Those of us who had tracked him to O'Hare Airport back when there wasn't all the security 9-11 caused will never forget it.

Dave McGinnis stood there in January of 1999, as his wife, Kim, waited patiently near their departure point and he answered questions from reporters for a few minutes about why he wouldn't be the next Bears head coach.

He was a bit emotional and didn't need to stop and do this. He gracefully answered all the questions as best he could, in direct contrast to Bears president Michael McCaskey, who initially sent out poor vice-president Ted Phillips to do his bidding.

Bears head coach No. 11 1/2 then left Chicago on a plane and never got a chance to coach the team in a game. A last-ditch attempt by former board chairman Ed McCaskey to get McGinnis back by phone that night failed.

McGinnis passed away Monday at the age of 74 and will always own a place in franchise history as a flashpoint. It was McGinnis who inadvertently exposed once and for all how poorly the Bears' ownership family ran things. There could be no questions after this.

A linebackers coach for the Bears from 1986-95 under Mike Ditka and then Dave Wannstedt, McGinnis had come on board after Vince Tobin became defensive coordinator following Buddy Ryan's departure to coach the Eagles.

Tobin hired McGinnis as defensive coordinator with the Cardinals after three years on Dave Wannstedt's Bears staff. When Wannstedt was fired after six Bears seasons as McCaskey's hand-picked replacement for Ditka. McGinnis seemed a natural to return to Chicago as head coach.

He was, and McCaskey hired him—in a way. The only problem was the Bears' CEO hadn't told this to McGinnis. He tried to lowball McGinnis and PR director Bryan Harlan was directed to announce a "hiring in principle" before any paperwork had been agreed upon.

It was a fouled-up way to handle a contract, much like McCaskey had done in 1984 when he announced Ditka's second contract long in advance of the time he signed it.

A press conference was even called to announce the hiring, the media assembled at Halas Hall, but there was no McGinnis. There also was no McCaskey. He sent a gaunt, sweating Phillips out try to explain everything. There wasn't much explained.

McGinnis wasn't taking a job where such a shoddy process occurred. McGinnis later left that impromptu airport press conference extremely disappointed, went back to Arizona, and eventually replaced Tobin as Cardinals head coach.

The result was Virginia McCaskey booting Michael upstairs to board chairman as Phillips was rewarded for his service with a president's title. McCaskey, who died in 2020, remained board chairman until 2011, when his brother, George, took over the title.

Dick Jauron became the 12th man to serve as Bears head coach when hired the next day, and in 2001 produced one of their most memorable seasons before being fired in 2003.

Would McGinnis have done any better following Wannstedt? What happened in Arizona suggests it wouldn't have gone well, anyway. He never had a winning season as Cardinals head coach. He was 17-40 from 2000-2003 and his best season was 7-9 in 2001.

The Bears didn't have the Cardinals' talent poor base, but it probably wasn't much different at that point. The personnel department was a mess under Michael McCaskey as they shuffled around without a real general manager. McCaskey hired Rod Graves and then later Mark Hatley during Wannstedt's time as coach.

McGinnis, affectionately known as "coach Mac" to his players, was able to coach some of the great linebackers in Chicago, like Mike Singletary, Wilber Marshall, Otis Wilson and Ron Rivera.

"I found him to be a friend over the years, and what a great time, the timing of him coming to the Bears and being my coach," Singletary said, according to the Titans website. "I needed somebody like him. I knew where I wanted to go, knew what I wanted to do and I needed somebody to guide me, somebody to help me and have a perspective about what was next for me, and how to be a professional about getting there. For me, Coach Mac was a godsend at that time, when he came.

"I really leaned on him. He was honest with me, and he helped me so much go to the next level. He'd say: Mike, you may not want to hear this, but I have to tell you, partner: This is what you need to do, and you need to do a better job of doing this. He was a friend, a mentor, and he told you the truth. He loved helping players work through things. He was going to be a friend if you needed a friend, he knew when to get on your tail, and he knew when to back off. I was really very fortunate to have come across someone like him who could find that balance of being a coach, and a friend. I think he and I needed each other at the time we met."

McGinnis went to the Titans under former Bears player Jeff Fisher for seven years as the team's linebackers coach, and then followed Fisher to the Rams in St. Louis and L.A. as his assistant head coach.

Later, he took on a role he seemed ideally suited for as the color analyst on Titans radio broadcasts.  McGinnis' oratory skills were always apparent and appreciated by reporters at Platteville, Wis., training camp when he offered up tidbits and stories on younger linebackers for reporters.

The NFL has lost a colorful and classy coach who, unfortunately, never got his chance to be known even better in Chicago than he was.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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