The NFL Network has a series titled A Football Life. In 2023, they did an episode on Mike Ditka. But if anybody has lived "a football life," he did. By his own admission, "My life has been a miracle since, because of this game."
Michael Keller Dyczko Jr. was born on October 18, 1939, the same exact day as Lee Harvey Oswald. Suffice it to say that Ditka was more admired. He was born in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, southwest of Pittsburgh. His father sort-of anglicized the family name to Ditka.
He grew up in Aliquippa, northwest of Pittsburgh, just down the Ohio River from Joe Namath's hometown of Beaver Falls, and a short drive from Pittsburgh International Airport. At Aliquippa High School, he played football, basketball and baseball under head coach Peter "Press" Maravich, who is now best known as the father and coach of "Pistol Pete" Maravich. (Pete was 8 years younger than Ditka, and never a teammate.)
Other notable graduates of Aliquippa High include Press himself; later NFL stars Sean Gilbert, Ty Law and Darrelle Revis; baseball pitcher Joe Beggs; and composer Henry Mancini. Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Tony Dorsett, star linebacker Paul Posluszny, and pitcher/dentist George "Doc" Medich all lived in Aliquippa, but later moved to nearby Hopewell and attended high school there. Future baseball player John "Tito" Francona (father of Terry) lived in Aliquippa, but moved to nearby New Brighton.
A star at the University of Pittsburgh, which retired his uniform Number 89, Mike Ditka practically invented the position of tight end with the Chicago Bears, winning the NFL Rookie of the Year award in 1961, and helping them win the 1963 NFL Championship. In 1967, he was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles; in 1969, to the Dallas Cowboys. He helped them win Super Bowl VI, and caught a touchdown pass in the game.
Football players did not have mustaches in those days.
He retired after the 1972 season, with 427 receptions for 5,812 yards and 43 touchdowns. He was the 1st tight end elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was named to the NFL's 75th Anniversary Team in 1994, and its 100th Anniversary Team and the Bears' 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players in 2019. In 1999, even though he was, by then, an analyst for NBC, John Madden, then with Fox, named him to his "All-Madden All-Millennium Team."
When The Sporting News named its 100 Greatest Football Players in 1999, Ditka was ranked 90th. When the NFL Network named its 100 Greatest Players in 2010, Ditka rose to 59th.
Although he was only 33 years old when he retired, Cowboy head coach Tom Landry immediately named him assistant head coach and special teams coordinator. He helped the Cowboys reach 3 more Super Bowls, winning Super Bowl XII in 1978.
In 1982, Ditka became the last head coach hired by George Halas, the founder of the Bears and a co-founder of the NFL. Halas died during the next season. He got them into the Playoffs 7 times, including winning Super Bowl XX over the New England Patriots on January 26, 1986. In other words, the Bears haven't won a World Championship without Ditka having some part in it in 80 years.
That 1985 Bears team, pushed by the Chicago media and the various TV commercials their players did, became one of the most iconic teams in NFL history, even before they could fully cement themselves as one of the greatest teams in NFL history.
Walter Payton, tackle Jim "Jimbo" Covert, defensive ends Richard Dent and Dan Hampton, defensive tackle Steve McMichael and linebacker Mike Singletary have been elected to the Hall of Fame; center Jay Hilgenberg and safety Gary Fencik probably should be; and 320-pound defensive tackle turned trick-play running back William "the Refrigerator" Perry became a folk hero.
But, like the New York Mets team that won the World Series 9 months later, that edition of "The Monsters of the Midway" became "a dynasty of one." After that Super Bowl, the growing rift between Ditka and his defensive coordinator, James "Buddy" Ryan, meant that they couldn't both stay. Ryan was offered the head coach's job with the Philadelphia Eagles. Ditka kept the Bears in the Playoffs in 4 of the next 5 years, but only reached 1 more NFC Championship Game, and was let go after missing the Playoffs in 1992.
Ditka was hired as an analyst for NBC's NFL studio show, NFL Live. He played off his tough-guy-with-a-sense-of-humor image, boosted by his often contentious press conferences as Bears coach. He said things like, "A man without fear belongs in an asylum. Or on special teams." And, "If God wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms."
Also playing off this image was a Saturday Night Live sketch: "Bob Swerski's Super Fans," which imagined a sports-talk show in Chicago. George Wendt, best known as Norm Peterson on the Boston-based Cheers, was a Chicago native, and played Bob, the show's host, his name a takeoff on Chicago Bulls broadcaster Chuck Swirsky. He had 3 sidekicks on the show: Robert Smigel, the sketch's creator, a New Yorker who moved to Chicago to start his comedy career, played Carl Wollarski; Mike Myers, a Toronto native, played Pat Arnold; and Chris Farley, ironically a Wisconsin native and a fan of the Bears' arch-rivals, the Green Bay Packers, played Todd O'Connor.
Left to right: Farley, Smigel, Myers and Wendt
The radio show was said to be broadcast live from the original Mike Ditka's Steakhouse (since closed, at the Tremont Hotel at 100 East Chestnut Street on the Near North Side). They all adopted Ditka's look: Slicked-back hair, aviator sunglasses, big bushy mustaches, and a Bears sweater. Wendt smoked a cigar like Ditka tended to do.
They would brag about the accomplishments of their favorite football and basketball teams, making ridiculous predictions (Todd always predicting shutouts, while Pat once said Ditka would "find a way" to hold an opponent to minus-7 points), exaggerating their accents with stretched-out vowels and S's: "Da Bearssss!" "Da Bullssss!" which would be accompanied by raising their beer mugs in a toast.
They never mentioned hockey's Blackhawks, and only once did I hear them mention either of the city's baseball teams: "Da Cubs!" Never the White Sox as "Da Sox!" They talked smack, they drank beer, they ate Polish sausages, and, in a running gag that now seems cringey, especially in light of Farley's death from a drug-induced heart attack, Farley's Todd would have a heart attack, but quickly recover. The sketch ran 11 times from 1991 to 1997, before Farley's death at the end of that year.
In 1997, Ditka left NBC to become the head coach of the New Orleans Saints. In 1999, he traded all their draft picks, and their 1st round pick for the next season, to the Washington Redskins for their 1st round pick, which was used on Heisman Trophy-winning running back Ricky Williams. It turned out to be a bad match, and Ditka had the worst season of his coaching career -- and, as it turned out, the last.
He joined CBS in 2000, and ESPN in 2002, remaining with them through the 2015 season. After a long estrangement, the Bears finally retired his Number 89 in 2013.
When the Bears won the Super Bowl in 1986, the space shuttle Challenger blew up 2 days later, and their scheduled White House reception with President Ronald Reagan was canceled. In 2011, 25 years later, President and Chicago resident Barack Obama invited the team to the White House to make it up to them.
Despite Ditka and several of the players being very conservative -- Ditka later openly supported Donald Trump, and was even approached to run against Obama for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois in 2004, but thought a loss would hurt his restaurant chain, and chose not to -- he gave Obama the traditional gift, a team jersey with the President's name on the back. Sometimes, the number on the jersey is 1, sometimes it's the President's sequential number (in Obama's case, 44); this time, it was the year of the title, 85.
Ditka, Tom Flores, Tony Dungy and Doug Pederson are the only 4 men to win a Super Bowl as a player and as a head coach. Dikta and Flores are the only 2 to also win one as an assistant coach. Steve Owen, Ray Flaherty, Joe Stydahar and Buddy Parker also won NFL Championships in the pre-Super Bowl era as non-coaching players, and also won a title as non-playing head coaches. Halas, Elgie Tobin, Guy Chamberlin, Jimmy Conzelman and Curly Lambeau won early titles as player-coaches.
Ditka was married to his first wife, Marge, from 1961 to 1973. They had 4 children together, each, like them, having a name starting with an M: Sons Mike III, Matt and Mark; and daughter Megan. In 1977, Mike married Diane Trantham. They eventually moved to Naples, Florida, for Mike's health, as he'd had heart attacks and strokes, and had gotten each hip replaced twice. But they missed Chicago, and returned to the city's Gold Coast.
At his number retirement, December 9, 2013
Mike Ditka died today, October 9, 2026, in Chicago, 9 days before what would have been his 87th birthday. His family asked for the announcement to be made by a Chicago sports-talk radio show host: Jarrett Payton, son of his favorite player, Walter Payton, who passed away in 1999. (I've already seen 2 AI-generated images of Payton walking Ditka into Heaven.)
In watching ESPN's coverage of his death, one phrase came to my mind: "Mike Ditka was one of a kind." And both ESPN football analyst Chris Berman and Cleveland Browns coach Todd Monken also said, on the air, that he was one of a kind. So, yeah, it seems obvious.
Also on ESPN, on Pardon the Interruption, Chicago native co-host and Bears fan Michael Wilbon pointed out the man's iconic status: "To those of us who cared about the Bears. Ditka was everything we believed in, everything Chicago believed in. Decades later, people don't go to NFL games dressed like Parcells, or Walsh, or Shula! They come dressed like Mike Ditka! Iron Mike! Da Coach! Our world is so much less interesting without him."
He's right. People go to Raiders games dressed like biker gang members or Darth Vader. People go to Washington games with pig masks, or at least rubber snouts, in remembrance of the 1980s "Hogs." But in Chicago, they still show up in shades and fake mustaches in tribute to "Da Coach."
Da Tribute
With his death, there are 4 surviving players from the 1963 NFL Champion Chicago Bears: Defensive back Richie Petitbon, defensive end Ed O'Bradovich, running back Ronnie Bull and offensive lineman Bob Wetoska.
