A group of Chicago Bears Fans calling themselves BearFansUnited want to send a message to the McCaskey family.
“Fire your entire football staff and start over. Fire Lovie Smith; Fire Ron Turner; Fire Jerry Angelo; Fire Ted Phillips and fire anyone else involved in the current meltdown. Can ‘em with reckless abandon.”
Who could blame them after this abysmal season?
But it’s not like BearFansUnited members can just walk up to Soldier Field and start yelling at Virginia McCaskey.
So BearsFansUnited is getting serious.
The group, which formed on the Chicago Bears own message boards, has managed to scrape together enough funds to plaster a billboard with their message. And as soon as Wednesday, commuters who drive down Hintz road in Arlington Heights will see the group’s plea.
The group is also collecting donations on BearFansUnited.org for a full-page ad in a Chicago newspaper pleading with the owners of Chicago’s beleaguered football team to do the right thing.
The idea for the media blitz started just after the Green Bay Packers came to town and destroyed the Bears in week 14.
A poster calling himself “Uncle Meatball,” started posting messages on the Chicago Bears Message boards floating an idea to take aim at the Bears management.
“Meatball” is Andrew Gasser,a military man, and a die-hard Bears fan, who is forced to follow the team from afar.
“I’ve listened to games in Afghanistan and in Iraq and in South America, and I started getting pissed about this team with all the Rex hate,” Gasser said.
“But it really hit the fan last week when they said they were going to retain Lovie,” he said. “I thought we’ve got to do something about this.”
So Gasser bought the website BearsFansUnited.org and started asking for donations.
He posted his site address on the Bears message boards and fans started donating to his cause immediately.
But billboards can cost $1,000s and Gasser sank all his money into the web site.
Luckily, another disgruntled fan, David Becker, just bought one. Becker owns Wheeling Auto Center and recently purchased the land that his business sits on. It came with a vacant advertising space.
Becker, a Bears season ticket holder, said he’d donate it to the cause, and even called his advertising friend to get the ball rolling on artwork.
He felt compelled to add his voice to the cause.
"I've been watching the Bears since the 70s," Becker said. "Those Bears didn't win a lot of games either, but thing I remember of those teams is that even if they lost, the team they were playing knew they were playing the Bears. We don't know who these guys are."
While Becker and Gasser got the billboard together, word spread through the message boards and more and more Bears fans kicked cash into the movement.
Today the site has collected close to $3000, or about the cost of materials and labor for the billboard and their total is growing.
They’re aiming for around $7,500 to pay for the billboard and the full-page "Fire Lovie" ads. Anything extra goes to the Connie and Walter Payton Foundation.
You can donate here.
