Chicago Bears 🐻⬇️

Jeff Joniak celebrates 25th season as radio voice of Chicago Bears

Story by Gabby Hajduk

"To the outside, 40, midfield, 30 of the Colts, 20, 15, Hester 5, touchdown Bears! Devin Hester, you are ridiculous!"

It is nearly impossible to rewatch one of the most iconic plays in Bears and NFL history without hearing Jeff Joniak's bellow those words.

The Bears' radio play-by-play broadcaster – who is now in his 25th season in the role – however, avoided doing so for an entire year.

Joniak refused to listen to his call of Hall of Fame returner Devin Hester's historic 92-yard opening kickoff return touchdown in Super Bowl XLI until the following winter. Joniak feared he didn't capture the moment well enough — not just for the Bears, but for Hester himself.

That fear stemmed from Joniak's obsession of mastering his craft — a shared trait amongst all play-by-play broadcasters he's met — as well as a mistake he admittedly made heading into the Super Bowl.

"I never anticipated that happening, even though I should have," Joniak said of Hester's opening kickoff TD. "That's a mistake on my part. I just had that nervous energy of a Super Bowl. I mean, who grows up thinking they're going to call the Super Bowl, let alone for the charter franchise of the National Football League? I just wanted to get flash bulbs popping and settle in.

"And then he made a cut to the middle of the field and he got vertical. Half my brain is calling it and half is saying, 'Oh my God, he's going to score. How are you going to capture this?' And it felt like slow motion. Eight seconds. Slow motion."

Now far removed from that career-defining moment, Joniak is confident he delivered. It's memories like those, as well as the prospect of future franchise-defining calls, that keep Joniak at the top of his game 20 years later.

"25 years means everything," Joniak shared. "I get excited for every single game, and it doesn't matter what the situation is, because I love the craft. I love the organization. I'm humbled and I'm still hungry. I never have and never will take it for granted because it's a privilege to do it.

"The Bears organization has meant everything to me. I started in '97. I had my first born, Kelly, in '98, and Kaitlyn, 18 months later. They grew up with this franchise, so it's impacted my life in every single aspect. I still pinch myself. The Bears have meant everything to me — changed my life."

Hester's Super Bowl touchdown, while an obvious career highlight, is just one of countless unforgettable plays Joniak has called, first on WBBM and now, on ESPN1000, where he is joined by Super Bowl XX champion Tom Thayer (analyst) and former Bears fullback Jason McKie (sideline reporter).

In 2001 – his first season in the role – the Bears won the NFC Central with a 13-3 record. The most memorable moments of that season were safety Mike Brown returning interceptions for touchdowns in back-to-back weeks against the 49ers and Browns – highlights that Joniak still replays in his mind.

Another moment that Joniak will cherish is 2006 NFC Championship game, where Soldier Field transformed into a snow globe as the clock expired and the late Virginia Halas McCaskey hoisted the NFC championship trophy named after her father, George Halas.

Hester's record-setting rookie season, when Joniak coined his now-famous phrase: 'Devin Hester, you are ridiculous!' Cornerback Charles "Peanut" Tillman's 38 career interceptions. Brian Urlacher's entire NFL career. Cornerback Nathan Vasher's 108-yard touchdown return following a missed field goal against the 49ers in 2005, a call that earned Joniak a glowing review from fellow broadcaster Kevin Harlan.

Throughout his tenure, Joniak has become a household name for Bears fans, who remember those legendary plays just as clearly as the broadcaster himself does. Part of what Joniak prides himself on is "matching and surpassing the passion of the fan base," a quality that tight end Cole Kmet grew up with as a diehard Bears fan and now experiences firsthand.

"I have a lot of respect for Jeff," Kmet shared. "I've gotten to know Jeff really well since my time being here, and I think I'd call him a friend at this point. So much respect to him, to all the work that he's done for this organization and calling these games. I know he's seen a lot of great football in his day, so we're really grateful to have him here as part of our team."

The opportunity to chronicle NFL history as it's being made is never lost on Joniak. But none of this was supposed to happen. Joniak calls his rise into radio an upset and his rise into television a colossal upset.

As a kid, he planned to be a meteorologist. Sure, he possessed a deep love for sports and chronicling games on his own, but that was all for fun.

"I didn't want to be on TV or anything, but I wanted to chase hurricanes," Joniak said. "I hand-picked Iowa State to do that. But my 10-year-old self would take a tennis ball and throw it against my grandmother's cinder block walls in the basement. I'd be calling games. I'd play table hockey with my brothers, and I would put a light on it and shine it up with Windex like I was the Zamboni driver going over it, and I would call games. I had an electric football game, and I'd be calling this stuff. The good Lord got me on the path to what I was supposed to do."

The thing is, it's still just "for fun" for Joniak. Although he's now a seasoned vet in the industry, he never lost that pure joy that sports bring to kids, families and communities. Before his tenure with the Bears began, Joniak co-hosted Chicago Bulls gameday broadcasts from 1991-96 during their championship era. He had previously worked at the Tribune Radio Network, Illinois News Network, CLTV, Metro Networks and even dabbled in broadcasting with the Chicago Cubs.

While each stop holds special meaning, his heart was always with football.

He still remembers the first time he saw green grass on a football field. His father took him to an NFL game for the first time and to Joniak's surprise, the grass wasn't black and white like it appeared on television.

"You're hooked right then and there," Joniak said. "And I still get that excitement no matter where we're at, whatever stadium it is. It's an adrenaline rush that I cannot replicate in my life."

That inexplicable high is only guaranteed 20 days out of the year. So for the other 345 days, what does an NFL play-by-play broadcaster do?

In Joniak's case, it's countless hours of research — some of which he'll never use during the three-hour game broadcast window — making him a wealth of knowledge on all things Bears, NFL and football in general. It's also stepping out of his comfort zone to emcee community events, host panels and partake in a variety of other club efforts.

Believe it or not, Joniak is inherently a shy person. At the beginning of his career, he planned to "hide behind the microphone," but the spring of 2001, before he even called a game for the Bears, Virginia Halas McCaskey asked him to emcee a fundraiser for local two high schools.

"For her to believe in me to do that – and it was in front of a big crowd – it was to me, divine intervention," Joniak said. "Seriously. And I had to realize also that if you're going to be the voice of the team that involves more than calling [the game]. It is expansive and it's only grown and continues to grow. And I embrace it. I got up there at that microphone and it was just like, 'who is this guy?' I was out of body and it really was significant."

That vote of confidence from Mrs. McCaskey opened up a whole new world for Joniak, who now hosts major annual events such as the Bears Care Gala, Alumni Homecoming dinner, Draft Party and Ed Block Courage Awards, among others.

One of the most gratifying moments of his emcee career, however, occurred in an old-school high school gym.

Several years ago when the Bears first embarked on the journey of building their own stadium, which eventually led to the club purchasing 326 acres of land on the site of the former Arlington Park racecouse in 2023, they asked Joniak to emcee a meeting in Arlington Heights.

The location? None other than Hersey High School, where Joniak graduated from in 1980 and was later honored as one of the school's Distinguished Alumni.

It's a memory that still causes Joniak to choke up.

"I remember calling my buddy Jim Joyce, otherwise known as 'Doc,'" Joniak recalled, "and I said, 'you're never going to believe what I'm gonna do today. I'm gonna go to Hersey,' where the first day of school, I was in that gym in square dance class. My first period was gym class. Now I'm going to go in that gym and I'm going to tell that kid that was 14 years old — if somebody would have said, 'hey, you're going to try to get the Bears their first privately owned stadium in their now 106-year history, you would have laughed at me.'

"I walked in there and that gym smelled the same. And everything looked familiar and I could not believe what I was doing — helping the Bears and the McCaskey family try to get a stadium."

Joniak was first introduced to those 326 acres by his father, who loved the ponies. He called it a "big, big event" whenever his high school self had the opportunity to spend a day at the racetrack. He remembers going to the park with his family to watch fireworks.

As the Bears now zero in on Arlington Heights as the future home of their world-class stadium, Joniak can envision how impactful the project would be for the community, Bears fans and Chicagoland.

"It can mean great things for this franchise moving forward — for the Bears, the fans, the NFL, Chicagoland, the county and the state," Joniak said. "What is going to be eventually built there beyond just the stadium is really impactful and they deserve to have that kind of stadium. The fans deserve to have that kind of stadium, that kind of facility. The train drop off there, to me, is unlike any other stadium anywhere in the in the world. I don't know, maybe there is in Europe, I don't know. And to have a Super Bowl eventually and all these other major events, it kind of moves my soul."

Joniak's father is responsible for way more than just his son's fondness for Arlington Park.

He instilled a love for sports in his son at a young age, specifically football, by taking him to sporting events as simple as high school football games — where Joniak can still recall the first time he felt the emotions of the fans and realized he shared their passion.

Joniak's father passed away at age 53. He knew his son was heading into broadcasting, but he never had the chance to see it happen. Joniak isn't sure how his father would react, considering how great his love of football was, but he knows it would hold very special meaning.

When Joniak thinks about what he would now say to his childhood self, who shared those formative memories of sports with his father, the message is rooted in pride.

"I would say, 'dream big,'" Joniak said. "No dream is too big. Don't be that shy guy thinking that you can't make a difference because win or lose, Bears Sundays, Mondays, Thursday nights on the radio is an intimate experience. I view it as me talking to just one person. They may be having a crappy day. And my dad had a lot of crappy days — he didn't love his job. He always hated his job, and I know football was his getaway and I'm giving you a getaway for three hours.

"I'm mindful of that, win, lose or draw. I would say to him, 'you can reach your dreams, you just have to give yourself a little grace to get there.'"