Immortality is an odd thing for a mere mortal to experience. Keith Ortego knows this better than most.

 

 This week the 52-year-old former McNeese State wide receiver was a face in the crowd at Walk-Ons in Lake Charles, slipping in unnoticed like anyone else looking for a meal and a drink. Unless they honed in on the large ring on his finger, no one at the sports bar could have guessed he was there to watch a movie about events that took place in his own life. In another time and place, such anonymity was impossible to come by. If you look on the wall at any pizza joint or bar worth its weight in mozzarella cheese and Old Style beer in the Chicago area — and you can trust that this reporter has done extensive leg work to confirm it — Ortego’s 22-year-old face is staring back, along with the rest of his teammates on the 1985 Chicago Bears.

 

 Three decades after the fact, the ’85 Bears remain cryogenically frozen in their hometown as The Greatest Team That Ever Was.

 

 “It’s an honor,” Ortego said. “I was blessed by God to be in the right place at the right time.”

 

 Not to be flip, but Ortego’s personal path to football history began with a middle finger.

 

 Passed over by every team in the 1985 NFL draft — 17 times apiece in the cases of Buffalo and Cincinnati — the wide receiver jumped on an invitation to join Chicago for a training camp tryout. But it looked as if that dream would die young when he broke the middle finger on his left hand.

 

 Encumbered by a splint, he had to catch balls one-handed on side fields. That’s what commanded the attention of coach Mike Ditka, who reasoned the rookie had pretty good hands if he only needed one of them.

 

 “Adversity kept me around,” Ortego said.

 

 Around, as it turned out, for the wildest ride of his life.

 

 Ortego was activated midseason as injuries and ineffectiveness forced Ditka to turn to him as Chicago’s third punt returner of the season.

 

 Even though he had only returned punts in one game of his four-year McNeese career, he was able to stick in the role from the moment “Da Coach” gave him the job.

 

 “He just wanted you to catch it and try to get nine or 10 yards,” Ortego said.

 

 In the divisional playoffs, Ortego was deep for one of the most unusual plays in NFL history. Giants punter Sean Landeta, backed up on his goal line, whiffed on his punt attempt as he dropped the ball toward his foot.

 

 Bears defensive back Shaun Gayle picked it up and scooted into the end zone while Ortego, stationed near midfield, had the worst view in the house.

 

 “I’m looking for the ball in the air going ‘Where is it?’” he chuckled.

 

 A week later, the lifelong Louisiana boy didn’t mind getting caught in a minor snowstorm as the Bears clinched a trip to the Super Bowl with a 24-0 win over the Rams — it meant he was going home to the Superdome.

 

 He was living his boyhood dream as a rookie player, and to top it off it was in front of his friends and family. He recalls his parents hosting multiple teammates for a crawfish boil the week of the biggest game of their lives.

 

 It was not without humorous results.

 

 “We have guys from all over the country there,” Ortego said. “And all of them are looking at the table wondering, ‘What are we supposed to do with those things?’”

 

 Notably, fellow rookie William “Refrigerator” Perry was not on the guest list.

 

 “I’m not sure the state of Louisiana had enough crawfish at that time just to feed him,” Ortego said.

 

 The numbers still jump off any page.

 

 A 15-1 record. 456 points scored and 198 allowed. Backto-back playoff shutouts before a 46-10 demolition of New England in the Super Bowl.

 

 But it was the assembled cast of characters, starting with Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan on down, who made the Bears an ideal representation of the big-haired, neon-tinged decade in which they played.

 

 The headliner was running back Walter Payton, then the NFL’s all-time leading rusher.

 

 “He was the greatest guy you could ever meet,” Ortego said. “He was a team leader who knew everyone around him.”

 

 It was Payton who put the awestruck Ortego at ease, coming up to the rookie from a place most hadn’t heard of and asking him about fishing in Louisiana.

 

 But when it came to taking pressure off teammates, Ortego says no one could match eccentric and irreverent quarterback Jim McMahon. Like Carolina’s Cam Newton today, the antics and wardrobe choices that left so many in the media fixated on the quarterback kept everyone else loose and smiling.

 

 McMahon wasn’t just that way in front of the camera.

 

 Ortego recalls “The Punky QB” having a party in his hotel room the night before the Super Bowl. Everyone else was looking to call it a night when McMahon blurted, “What are you guys worried about? The game doesn’t start till 6:30.”

 

 There have been 49 Super Bowl champions, but only one set to song and dance.

 

 “The Super Bowl Shuffle” lifted the Bears from football team to full-fledged cultural phenomenon. The record sold a half-million copies, one of which was the first music recording owned by the author of this piece. (Sadly neither Beethoven nor the Beatles, but the Bears).

 

 The Shuffle barely missed cracking Casey Kasem’s Top 40, peaking at No. 41 on the charts. It absurdly earned a Grammy nomination for Best R&B performance, only losing out to the Prince song “Kiss.”

 

 Ortego’s cameo as a music icon was far more unlikely than his rookie run to the Super Bowl. He appears as a member of the “Shufflin’ Crew Chorus” in the music video, which was a massive hit during the heyday of MTV.

 

 Though the production values of the video are as shaky as Ortego’s dance moves, he said the shoot took about 12 hours the day after their lone loss of the season at Miami.

 

 “I figured sure, it’ll be fun, only take a couple hours,” Ortego said. “It was work! Suddenly your whole off day was gone.”

 

 Years later, Ortego is just glad the team was able to live up to its boasts.

 

 “If we lost, that could have been the biggest flop in history,” he laughed.

 

 Life can go by in the blink of an eye.

 

 Ortego was on top of the world just one year out of college. He had won a Super Bowl in his home state, even tackling college teammate Stephen Starring to save a potential touchdown on New England’s first kickoff return of the game.

 

 To this day, Ortego remains the lone McNeese player to play in a Super Bowl and win. (Luke Lawton earned a ring as a member of the 2006 Colts practice squad).

 

 But like the Bears at large, that was the peak.

 

 After three years of service, the coach who brought him into the league sent him home, cutting Ortego at the end of the 1988 preseason. With no calls from other teams, Ortego’s football career was over.

 

 “People think it’ll last 10-15 years,” he said. “You have to refocus and say, ‘What’s my next dream?’”

 

 Ortego said it took a decade for him to truly appreciate what the ’85 Bears accomplished. Now he savors every moment spent with former teammates at reunions.

 

 “What do you miss? You miss that group of guys, the camraderie,” he said. “Everyone thought we were so distant, but it’s just such a really close group.”

 

 As evidenced by ESPN’s recent “30 For 30” documentary about the team, there continues to be a fascination with a group that wasn’t quite like any to come before or since.

 

 Somewhere Ortego’s face will always be smiling from the wall, forever 22 and never forgotten.

 

 That smile returns while he watches it all play out again, both on the TV screen and in his mind.

 

 “I was lucky.”<p>Keith Ortego</p>