Jim McMahon talks with fans on Twitter about how his Packers teammates reacted when he wore a Bears jersey to the White House

For some reason, yesterday was #NationalSunglassesDay. Ordinarily such information would not move me. But this day prompted the Bears Twitter feed to compliment Bears legend Jim McMahon’s famous shades...

...leading to McMahon posting four more pictures of him in sunglasses.

This led me to tweet one of my favorite photos of Jimmy Mac, from the 1996 Packers’ trip to the White House in which McMahon — a backup Green Bay quarterback — wore his Bears jersey.

McMahon did this because two days after Super Bowl XX, the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded, thus knocking out the Bears’ trip to the White House in 1986. As a result, McMahon wore his Bears jersey to the White House in 1997 with the Packers.

My colleague Robert Zeglinski responded to my McMahon tweet with his own comment about McMahon...

...at which point McMahon himself told the story behind the jersey. And while I knew the reason he wore it, I didn’t know that he actually cleared it with his Packers teammates, who supported him completely.

The ‘85 Bears, of course, eventually went to the White House under President Obama in 2011, giving McMahon the official makeup he always wanted.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

McMahon’s tweet set off some other interesting topics, along with other conversations with fans throughout the day. Here are the highlights:

On the physical toll of his career and his style of play

On the disappointment of the 1980s Bears

On playing against the Bears later in his career

On his Mike Tomczak t-shirt

McMahon seems pretty responsive to fans on Twitter. Drop him a line — you just might find yourself in a conversation with an all-time great Bear.