During his coaching tenure at the University of Chicago, Shaughnessy befriended George Halas, the owner and coach of the Chicago Bears. In 1930, Halas had hired Ralph Jones, the athletic director and football coach at nearby Lake Forest College, who had been his freshman coach at the University of Illinois in 1914. Under head coach Robert Zuppke, Illinois employed the T formation in "its most rudimentary form". With the Bears, Jones experimented with the old T formation, and he spread the linemen, pushed out one receiver, and used a back as a man in motion, the latter usually being Red Grange. While these changes were innovative, they were not game-changing, and the T was used to complement the single-wing offense rather than replace it. In 1935, Shaughnessy described to Halas his vision of the T formation that used "hidden ball stuff, but with power". He had not employed it at the University of Chicago because he lacked the players to execute it. In 1937, Shaughnessy began to work part-time as a consultant to the Bears for $2,000 per year ($ adjusted for inflation). In that capacity, he helped refine the T formation and analyzed scouting reports. The Bears continued to experiment with the T, and after Shaughnessy left Chicago, the formation became the club's standard offensive formation in 1940. The media has sometimes erroneously credited Shaughnessy for the invention of the T formation. The Associated Press wrote that "he was, however, undeniably the father of the modern T-attack." Shaughnessy himself called it the oldest formation in football.