Chicago Bears legend Steve McMichael, who has ALS, was admitted to the intensive care unit in Illinois on Thursday night with sepsis and pneumonia, his wife Misty McMichael said on Friday.
“Prayers for Mongo,” a graphic on his wife’s Instagram read with a caption: “We were admitted last night to the ICU at Silver Cross with Sepsis and pneumonia.”
According to his family, McMichael, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2021, is now awake after he was unconscious when he was admitted to the hospital.
“I think those prayers have kept him alive and the Hall of Fame hope, that dream is still alive, all that together is keeping him here with us,” his wife said about the community support for McMichael.
“The world is going to be a sad place when he’s not here anymore so I appreciate the prayers and I want them to keep praying cause we got a whole other year to get through.”
The Chicago defensive tackle played 13 seasons with the Bears, compiling two All-Pro selections while serving as a crucial part of the team’s defensive line when they won the Super Bowl in 1985.
McMichael, also known as “Mongo” and “Ming The Merciless,” played in a franchise-record 191 consecutive games from 1981 to 1993 and ranks second on the team’s all-time sack list with 92 and a half.
The defensive tackle will have a chance to be inducted into the Hall of Fame next year as one of 12 players who retired before 1998 that voters will deliberate on next January.
McMichael finished his career with one season in Green Bay after he spent his rookie season with the Patriots.
The NFL legend lived out a second career as a professional wrestler, once challenging Ric Flair and Arn Anderson to a match with his partner Kevin Greene.
He was also the head coach of the Chicago Slaughter of the Indoor Football League from 2007 to 2013.
