Jim McMahon--the Free Spirit Who Guides Bears

Quarterback Jim McMahon does things his way both on and off the field. And the way things are going this season, the undefeated Chicago Bears don’t mind a bit.

“I don’t care if people think I’m an idiot,” he said. “That’s their opinion. Everybody has one. I don’t think I’m an idiot.”

McMahon, 26, coming off a kidney laceration that could have ended his career, has fired the Bears to four straight victories with the kind of comeback heroics unfamiliar to recent generations of Bears fans.

Currently, he is the National Football League’s leading quarterback, under the league’s complex rating system which evaluates every facet of the position.

His confidence is overwhelming, rubbing off on teammates and coaches. And his carefree, mischievous attitude keeps the Bears loose.

At training camp, for example, McMahon showed up with a hairdo that was half-Mohawk, half-punk. He did it himself, after borrowing Willie Gault’s clippers.

“My wife is a beautician and has been cutting my hair for eight years,” McMahon said. “I just had a wild hair and I kept cutting and cutting.”

McMahon’s hair still hasn’t grown out completely and he thinks nothing of grabbing a reporter’s hat and putting it on when he feels he has to appear respectable.

“I knew he was ready for the insane asylum,” teammate Kurt Becker said after he saw the haircut. “He’s a piece of work.”

McMahon is also a piece of work on the field, and Coach Mike Ditka has run out of ways to describe his star quarterback.

“What else can you say about him?” asked Ditka. “He has confidence and he can back it up. He is the most unbelievable quarterback in the league. He looks at something, sees it and his mind works in a flash. He thinks, ‘If this happens, I’ll do this; if that happens, I’ll do that.’ He’s not like most players in his thinking and I can’t argue with him.”

Such was not the case in 1983, when Ditka divided quarterbacking duties between McMahon and Vince Evans. The Bears were 3-6 when Ditka finally gave the job to McMahon. They went 5-2 the rest of the season.

Last year, the Bears were 7-2 in games McMahon started, but he failed to finish four of them because of injuries. He played part of the time with a broken right hand, taking pain-killing shots. But McMahon’s season ended when he suffered a kidney laceration in a game with the Raiders.

“I’m not injury-prone,” he said. “It’s all bad luck. I’ve been hit at times when I’m in a bad position. Other times, I’ve been hit harder and nothing has happened. Just bad luck.”

Recently, McMahon suffered neck and back spasms, and he did not start a nationally televised Thursday night game at Minnesota. But he came off the bench in the third quarter with the Bears trailing 17-9, threw touchdowns on his first two plays and put the Bears ahead 23-17. Six plays later he tossed another touchdown.

Last Sunday, against the Washington Redskins, McMahon also threw three TDs, and, in an unusual twist, caught one from Walter Payton.

McMahon was taken in the first round of the 1982 draft after setting 71 NCAA passing and total offense records at Brigham Young. But stardom was a long time coming.

“I had to convince people in this room,” he said, pointing to his teammates, “and I had to convince the coaching staff. You can’t do it one week and not another.

“You have to be consistent. I’ve added consistency to this position where the team has not had it in the past,” he said.

McMahon wears sunglasses nearly all the time, not to be fashionable but to ward off light because of an injury suffered as a child, when he accidentally pierced his eye with a fork.

He doesn’t mind being called a gambler, but indications are he is more calculating.

“You have to be a little of both,” he said. “Sometimes you have to take chances. If you’re afraid to take a risk, you may only be an average player.”

He doesn’t take a lot of risks with football, as reflected in his history of touchdowns versus interceptions. He is proudest of his BYU record of 84 career touchdowns and only 34 interceptions. In his senior year, the ratio was 30-7.

“You can’t be stupid with the football,” McMahon said. “Sometimes a defender can make a great play on an interception but most of the time it’s my stupid mistake. Usually I know what’s going on and know not to fire in a bad situation.”

Born in Jersey City, N.J., McMahon was raised in San Jose. Though a Catholic, he decided to attend the Mormon university “so that my parents could see me play in college and also because I liked to play baseball and they had a good baseball program.”

“I always wanted to be a baseball player,” McMahon said. “But I wanted to get married and have kids. Baseball players are never at home.”