Bears Great Steve 'Mongo' McMichael 'At Peace' With ALS Diagnosis

ROMEOVILLE, IL — To Jarrett Payton, Steve McMichael has always been more than one of his hulking adopted football uncles. Since Payton was a kid, the former menacing Chicago Bears defensive tackle has always been the gregarious, bigger-than-life protector who always made sure that he looked after son of his Hall of Fame teammate, Water Payton, first as a youngster and then — and perhaps more importantly — as a grown man.

Yet, as Jarrett Payton — the now retired NFL running back who, as the rambunctious toddler who used to scatter hot chocolate packets around the locker room during the 1985 Super Bowl championship run — prepared for a visit with McMichael at his Romeoville home this past week, he braced himself for what was he knew was coming.

Less than a week earlier, Payton was among the tight circle of people McMichael had trusted with the news that he had been diagnosed with 36-month onset ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The news had hit Payton and others much in the same way McMichael had once hit quarterbacks, fast and viscous. But for all the times McMichael had been there for Payton, especially since 1999 when his legendary father died at the age of 45 from liver disease and bile duct cancer, Payton realized it was payback time.

But seeing McMichael in his current condition certainly wouldn’t be easy, Payton realized. The 63-year-old Bears veteran who had always been known more by “Mongo” than by his first same, had dropped between 50 and 60 pounds since his diagnosis in January, according to the Chicago Tribune. He no longer had use of his arms and hands that wreaked so much havoc during his playing career and later as a professional wrestler with the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling. But when McMichael told Payton, who is now a sports anchor at WGN, that he wanted him to help share his story with the world, Payton knew he had to go. Easy or not.

“He told me, “I was there for your pops, I was always there for my teammates, and now you’re here for me,’” Payton told Patch. “It’s just coming around full circle.”

As accountable as McMichael has always been to everyone around him, he must now rely on others to adjust to the condition that is taking so much from him. His wife, Misty, assists her husband with daily tasks he once took for granted such as using the bathroom and according to the Tribune, a full-time future in a wheelchair is inevitable for the two-time Pro Bowler.

McMichael said in interviews with the Tribune and with WGN-TV on Friday that the diagnosis was met initially with denial. After originally being diagnosed with the disease at the Mayo Clinic, McMichael sought a second opinion at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, where doctors confirmed that the 13-year Bears veteran who appeared in 191 regular-season games and 12 playoff games in Chicago was indeed living with the disease. Although McMichael's body had been started to fail him over time, he never expected the news he got earlier this year, but that doctors said had likely been setting in over the previous three years.

“This ain’t ever how I envisioned this was going to end,” McMichael told the Tribune.

Former teammates, along with Payton, are still coming to grips to the condition McMichael now lives with. Dan Hampton, who was first a teammate and then a bandmate of McMichael’s in the “Chicago Six”, told the Chicago Sun-Times that he has struggled to accept the vision of McMichael in his current condition during the two or three times he has visited him at his Romeoville.

Hampton recently helped build a wheelchair ramp at McMichael’s home as McMichael and his wife prepare for the life changes that will continue to come. Much in the same way as Payton needed time to see McMichael struggling to get around in a way McMichael jokingly calls himself a "Super Bowl Shuffler", Hampton has difficulty seeing his former teammate coping with the effects the crippling neurological disease.

“To see that now he’s not in a position where he’s able to control his life, it’s a sobering gut punch,” Hampton told the Sun-Times.

McMichael calls the toll ALS has taken on him “humbling”. The house in Romeoville where he and Misty live is a rental, but given the assistance he needs even getting around, McMichael told the Tribune that “Mongo needs a handicap-equipped house.” A Go Fund Me effort has raised more than $100,000 in just more than a day. Betsy Shepherd, the family’s spokesperson, said that the funds will help defray the cost of McMichael’s daily care and medical costs. Shepherd said that McMichael is paralyzed from the shoulders down and his legs grow weaker by the day, which requires him to get around in a wheelchair that was donated by the Bears.

The Tribune reported that McMichael could receive substantial financial help from the NFL and has applied for assistance through the league's "88 Plan" which could provide $144,000 per year to assist with his medical costs. The fund provides assistance to former players who suffer from ALS, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and dementia.

Shepherd said McMichael, Misty, and the couple’s 13-year-old daughter, Macy, are now in search of a new home and have made a down payment on a handicap-accessible van. Still, for Payton and others who know McMichael, the former hulking lineman’s attitude despite his condition are inspiring. McMichael’s familiar Texas drawl is still among his most recognizable traits, but even as he listens to the caretaker who has always watched over him, Payton senses that McMichael is beginning to accept his condition.

“He’s at peace, he’s in a good place,” said Payton, who played for McMichael in 2010 as a member of the Chicago Slaughter after the former running back's NFL playing career ended. “He has an understanding of all the things that are coming next. For the two hours I was with him, I just saw a guy who is just happy to be alive. … I think he understands that he has a body that can’t do all the things he wants or that he was once able to do.

Payton added: “But he’s done pretty much everything he’s wanted to do and that’s how he has lived his life. That’s what is really helping him to be at peace. …As an athlete, sometimes, you think you are indestructible and that nothing can happen. But (things happen) that teach you that you’re not indestructible, you’re not Superman, and that sometimes, you have to live every day of life one day at a time.”

That is the life McMichael lives now. He told WGN that he would rather live with this that something that takes away his ability to think for himself or to remember a life well-lived and a career that included being part of one of football’s all-time great defenses during the magical 1985 season.

There are days, Misty McMichael told the Tribune, when the couple scream out in frustration over the hand they have been dealt. McMichael, who has remained a public figure since his playing career ended with the rival Green Bay Packers in 1994, told Payton in the WGN interview that the public won’t see him out and about anymore.

McMichael, the one-time candidate to be Romeoville’s mayor and the owner of Mongo’s restaurant, can no longer sign autographs or even pick anything up like he once could. McMichael told the Tribune that he feels guilty for the toll his condition has taken on his wife and daughter.

Still, he copes the best he can, but there are days he still can’t believe that a disease known better for its connection to a former baseball great is “running the bases” on McMichael in ways he could have never imagined.

“I thought I was ready for anything,” McMichael told the Tribune. “But man. This will sneak up on you like a cheap-shotting Green Bay Packer.”

Payton insists there are signs that Mongo is still Mongo. He does his best to soak them up as much as possible. In addition to the Go Fund Me effort, Shepherd said that the website, www.TeamMongo76.com and Facebook page @TeamMongo76 will include upcoming events that McMichael and his wife will be attending and will offer Team Mongo that can be purchased. All the proceeds will go to the family, Shepherd said.

Another Chicago shirt company has also produced "Team Mongo" T-shirts that will benefit McMichael and his family.

“He’s at a point where he needs help,” Payton said. “But I think that’s what he deserves. For all the things he has given to people around the world — he has given them everything — and now, I think it’s our turn to give back to him.”

Go Fund Me is a Patch promotional partner.