Hall of Fame honor is huge for ailing Steve McMichael, but he didn't get there alone

Almost 30,000 men have played in at least one NFL game, but only 362 have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That number includes owners, coaches, general managers and the like.

For a player to get voted in, to get that freaky metallic bust that hopefully looks like you when you were a stud?

Wow.

On Saturday, former Bears defensive tackle Steve McMichael is entering the hallowed hall in Canton, Ohio. Of course, the Texas-born ‘‘Mongo’’ won’t be marching in for the ceremony. He won’t be wheeling in, either. He won’t even get carried in.

One of the heroes of the Bears’ Super Bowl championship team nearly four decades ago, McMichael hasn’t moved in many months, suffering as he is with the progressive, neurodegenerative disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which first struck him seven years ago. Even delicately lifting his mechanized bed out of his house in south suburban Homer Glen and carefully fitting it into an ambulance and then onto a private jet is impossible.

Well, it could be done, but the risk was determined to be too great. Almost anything could kill him with such a journey: a clogged breathing tube, a tipped bed, a battery failure, sudden air turbulence.

But his wife, Misty, will be in Canton for the festivities this week, then she’ll fly home on a private jet Saturday morning to be with McMichael when TV cameras and dignitaries arrive at his bedside and Hall of Fame president Jim Porter presents him with his gold jacket and bust.

‘‘I’m flying to Canton Wednesday morning at 6:30 a.m.,’’ Misty says. ‘‘Then I’m flying back with our daughter Macie, Jim Porter, Richard Dent, Jim Covert and Jim McMahon. ESPN will be there live. There’ll be a block party going on. Then I’m going back to Canton for the dinner that night. Better believe it.’’

It has been nonstop preparations at the McMichael household ever since the news came that old No. 76, a Hall nominee for two decades, finally got voted in. He’s going in with former Bears Devin Hester and Julius Peppers, but their routes were much simpler.

Certainly, the sympathy vote helped McMichael. To see a man who once reveled in machismo and the wildest of hijinks reduced to a withered, immobile husk tugged at everyone’s heartstrings. Yet his stats — 13 seasons with the Bears, five Pro Bowls, two times an All-Pro, a Super Bowl champ, 92œ sacks — were good enough by themselves to qualify him.

But Misty was the prime mover. She’s a fellow tough-as-nails Texan, a lady who might as well be McMichael’s female clone, except with blond hair and long eyelashes.

‘‘When he lost his voice, I got mine,’’ she says.

That meant getting his story out there, flogging the news, beating the drum. She became pals with the media. She worked radio, TV, blogs, podcasts — whatever might help McMichael’s cause. Indeed, her husband had told her in his limited, whispering, now-vanished voice that he wanted to live, despite his condition, that he wanted the honor for satisfaction, for peace.

‘‘I asked Dan Hampton why he got into the Hall of Fame before Steve,’’ Misty says. ‘‘He told me he printed up his stats and sent them to voters. So I did that. The problem was, Steve was quiet, you know?’’

There’s irony there — or maybe just wild humor. That’s because ‘‘Mongo’’ was, in his lifestyle, about as un-quiet as a man could be. Be it vicious football plays, pro-wrestling stunts, hilarious, often off-color rants on local radio, unfiltered takes on anything whenever he was asked or a run for political office, he was always out there. But he didn’t brag. He didn’t boast. Not about his own greatness, anyway.

So now Misty has done it. And she’s reveling in the glow.

‘‘The bust-maker flew to our house to measure Steve’s head,’’ she says. ‘‘And the ring-maker came to measure his finger. And a cool thing they did, they’re putting handprints in for the first time. And they did mine! I’ll be the first woman in the Hall of Fame.’’

She loves the fact that McMichael will be introduced by Jarrett Payton, Walter Payton’s son.

‘‘He’ll be wearing his dad’s gold jacket for the first time ever,’’ Misty says.

And best of all is that ‘‘Mongo’’ himself has written his acceptance speech, at least the start of it. His eye-blink computer is now too hard for him to operate, so he only does ‘‘yes’’ (one blink) and ‘‘no’’ (two blinks).

But he typed the beginning when he could, and it goes like this: ‘‘Hello, Chicago!’’