Bears by two.
That’s Marion Wood’s Super Bowl prediction, and you don’t argue with a 103-year-old woman who saw Red Grange’s six-touchdown day in person, holds a pretty strong claim on the distinction of oldest Bears fan and makes an awful lot of sense when she talks about Rex Grossman.
Wood, living in her own apartment at the Belmont Village Assisted Living Community of Glenview, does not miss a game. Ever. Not the Sunday night games. Not the Monday night games. “Especially not the Arizona game,” she said of the come-from-behind thriller. “I saw it from beginning to end.”
That was the game in which Grossman threw four interceptions and fumbled twice, which drew Wood’s ire. “Many times I lose patience, not with the team but with Rex,” she said. “I think for a time he thought he was pretty good and I think he had to be pulled down to size to get him focused on the fact that this is a defensive team, not an offensive team.”
This is not to suggest, however, that Wood is not behind Grossman’s resurgence. “As I said to somebody recently, poor Rex has been eating beans all this time,” she said. “His first two years he was injured, then he had to come up the hard way and now he’s ready to graduate to eating skirt steak.
“I think he’s practiced hard enough, I think enough that he’s going to pull it off if he will just stay focused. But he’s the kind of fella who goes off on tangents.”
Wood has been a student of the game since she was a little girl, growing up with brothers who played football. “I’m fairly strong and had no sisters, so therefore every activity in our house was geared to boys, whether it was ice skating or roller skating, bicycling or football, so I became interested when my two brothers played football. You begin to learn things and as you learn, you kind of store them away.”
Wood has been a Bears fan “long before there were Bears [in 1922], when they were the [Decatur and then, for a year, Chicago Staleys]. The men played football on Sundays then for $25 a game.”
It was at the same time the Staleys were bought by George Halas that Wood went off to college at the University of Illinois. As luck would have it for a girl passionate about football, Red Grange also went to school there.
“I didn’t know him but I just worshiped him,” she said. “And I worshiped that new stadium when they built it. Before that, they had a wooden stadium, which was primitive, and when they built the new stadium, it was so exciting.”
More exciting, however, was Grange’s most famous day of all. “It was a gorgeous day, the dedication of the stadium, and here was this young boy from Wheaton, the son of an iceman who had not played much football, score seven (he actually scored five and threw for a sixth) touchdowns that one day. And oh, was I there to see it.”
Wood, who graduated from Illinois in 1925 with a bachelor’s of science and is the oldest living U of I alum, taught at Senn High School for 39 years. She has seen her love of football and the Bears grow even stronger through the years.
“I loved some of those early players like Grange and Bronko Nagurski, then [Walter] Payton and the Fridge,” she said. “I loved the Fridge. He was the laziest, lumbering person, but he was good.”
One of her favorites was Jim McMahon, who recently visited Wood. “I worshiped him when he played, with that headband of his,” she said. “I thought he was God on wheels. When he visited, he gave me a great big kiss and hug. We talked about the headband.”
Wood’s new favorite is Brian Urlacher. “He’s got his eyes set on the stars and he’s going to go no matter what anyone says and he is a star right now,” she said. “He always seems to be the difference in the game. Urlacher will change positions (as he did for one play, lining up at corner against New Orleans) and they rally.”
That doesn’t mean, however, that Wood advises this again Sunday against the Colts. “No,” she said, “don’t change anything right now. But let’s just stay focused and not turn cartwheels either yet. If they pay attention, they’ll be in line for a victory. It might be more than two points, but that’s my prediction. It will be tied two or three times and it will be exciting.”
Wood will be watching the Super Bowl with one of her grandsons in her apartment and she will be focused like she hopes Grossman will be. “I don’t go to the big game room upstairs with the big screen,” she says, “I did that once, but I like my own television, in my own room where it’s quiet so I can concentrate. I can’t stand watching the game when everyone has their own ideas. I have my own ideas and I don’t want to be disturbed. I want to be focused on the game.”
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misaacson@tribune.com
