McMichael Incites Controversy

The Catholic Archdiocese here has made at least one official complaint. So has Chicago’s school board, a gay-lesbian coalition and various women’s rights and ethnic groups. Most recently, people who work with Down’s syndrome patients have become upset with Steve McMichael, starting defensive tackle for the Chicago Bears and co-host of absolutely the most out-of-control half-hour of quasi sports television.

McMichael is appropriately nicknamed “Mongo” after the Alex Karras character in the movie “Blazing Saddles” who knocked out a horse with one punch. So it was quite natural, in McMichael’s way of thinking, to sign on his Sunday night show on NBC-affiliate WMAQ-TV by saying hello to all his fans, “My Mongo-loids.”

This came only two weeks after McMichael ended another show, following the Bears big victory over the Giants, by asking co-host Mark Giangreco which team he had picked to win the game. When Giangreco said he had picked the Giants, McMichael pulled out an egg, cracked it on Giangreco’s forehead and said, “Now, you’ve got egg all over your face.”

At 34, it was natural to assume McMichael would at best be a part-time player winding down a distinguished career as a tough, mean, nasty, intimidating player for a franchise that clings dearly to such types.

But McMichael has never been more popular, partially because of his over-the-edge show, partially because his Hall-of-Fame-bound blood brother Dan Hampton is retired, and largely because he has been directly responsible for three of the Bears four victories this season.

In the season opener, with the Vikings driving toward a winning touchdown, McMichael deflected a Wade Wilson pass that safety Markus Paul intercepted with 1:13 to play to save a 10-6 victory. The next week, with Tampa Bay threatening, McMichael sacked Chris Chandler with 1:46 left to preserve a 21-20 victory. Only two minutes remained two weeks later, and the Jets were running out the clock in an apparent upset at Soldier Field. That’s when McMichael wrestled the ball away from Blair Thomas, allowing the Bears to get the ball back, score on the final play of regulation and win it in overtime.

Vince Tobin, the Bears defensive coordinator, was quoted last week as saying, “Before, we had a lot of leaders on defense. Now, he’s put himself in a position of, ‘I’ve been here this long. I’ve got to make the plays to lead the defense.’ ”

Hampton says the fact that McMichael didn’t play much his first few seasons means, “he’s a 12-year vet with about eight or nine years of mileage.”

For the first time in a career that began in 1980 with the Patriots, and began again with his release and subsequent signing with the Bears in ‘81, McMichael isn’t in anybody’s shadow, not Hampton’s, not even Mike Singletary’s. “What took everybody so long to notice?” he asked the Chicago Sun-Times, offering a hint as to why he wouldn’t sit for an interview this week. “It feels like a bandwagon to me.”

Actually, the bandwagon is hitched to the television show, which airs 10:30 Sunday nights after Bears games. It’s shock TV at its best (or worst if you’re one of the offended). On one level, which you can see if you watch McMichael in a non-football setting, he’s a sensitive, charming man, infinitely brighter than his crude, caveman act would suggest.

Sensitive, however, doesn’t come oozing out during the show, to put it mildly. One show, McMichael and his wife, Debra, a former Mrs. Illinois, held down Giangreco and painted his face with lipstick.

Another night, McMichael pulled about a foot-long knife and chopped a Big Mac in half, through the styrofoam package. An off-duty state trooper called the set to say, “Tell Steve I’m a big fan of his, but that’s knife is about four inches too long and illegal in the state of Illinois.”

Larry Bales, a friend and business partner who has negotiated several contracts for McMichael, including the WMAQ deal, recently got a call from an NBC executive who said McMichael had to tone it down or else. “I talked to him,” Bales said.

Bales, who has been close to McMichael since college, says although they’ve never talked about it, he thinks the murder of McMichael’s father during his freshman year led him toward keeping a certain distance from most people, and outrageousness at times can do the trick nicely. “He’s got a really high IQ,” Bales said. “But because of his size, and playing football in Texas, his behavior tends to reinforce the image of a big ol’ wild football player.

“I talked to him when he was suffering through his rookie year, a South Texas boy in New England. He said, ‘I am who I am and I’m not changing it for anybody.’ And he paid the price, getting cut. But getting picked up by the Bears was probably the best thing that’s ever happened to him.”

McMichael, not particularly big (6-foot-2, 260 pounds) made himself a great player through contentiousness. In 1989 he scored the highest on the coaches’ grading system. He increased his number of tackles for seven straight years, not counting strike-shortened 1987. No two players in this generation played defensive tackle the way he and Hampton did together.

“Nowadays,” Hampton said, “a lot of guys aren’t willing to sacrifice themselves for the team because they’re thinking about the big money down the road if they stay healthy. He’s a guy you want in the foxhole with you, a tough-guy in the old-fashioned sense of the term. Steve’s attitude is, ‘Damn the future, let’s see who’s better today.’ ”