Legendary Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, who led the team to its only Super Bowl victory in 1986, has died, his family announced.
He was 86 years old.
“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather and friend, Mike Ditka,” the family said in a statement Friday that did not include the cause of death.
“While the world knew Mike as a Hall of Fame football player, legendary coach and leader of the Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl XX team, we knew him as the heart of our family,” the statement said. “We will miss Mike beyond measure and remember him forever.”
The Bears released a statement saying Ditka’s impact on the team as a “player, coach and proud icon and ambassador of our organization is immeasurable.”
Ditka, according to the release, “created a lifetime of treasured memories in the hearts and minds of Bears fans that will last for generations.”
Ditka, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988, was remembered by the organization’s president, Jim Porter, as a player who “brought an unparalleled level of toughness to an era already defined by physicality.”
“He brought that same philosophy to his coaching,” Porter said in a statement.
Tough and pugnacious, Ditka epitomized the hard-hitting team he led to a 46-10 loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX and was nicknamed “Iron Mike,” both because of his gruff demeanor and because he hailed from a steel town in western Pennsylvania.
Ditka, born Michael Dyczko on October 18, 1939, became a beloved Windy City figure and the embodiment of Chicago’s blue-collar, tough-guy identity.
In the years following the Bears’ Super Bowl victory, Ditka was immortalized by “Saturday Night Live” in the “Bill Swerski’s Superfans” sketches, which featured a group of fans singing his praises to the point of absurdity with Check Chicawgo ayccents.
“If I can switch gears for a moment, gentlemen, Coach Ditka versus The Hurricane, who would win? » says Bill Swerski’s character in a sketch.
“Ditka! Ditka!”, the others respond.
Ditka was married from 1961 to 1973 to his first wife, Marge. This marriage produced four children: Mark, Matt, Mike and Megan. In 1977 he married Diane Trantham, who also survives him.
The Ditka family has not yet announced funeral arrangements.
The eldest of four children, Ditka was the son of a welder of Polish and Ukrainian descent who changed his name to make it easier to pronounce.
But growing up in the town of Aliquippa, Ditka excelled in the American sport of football, earning him a scholarship and a ticket to the University of Pittsburgh, where he had originally planned to study dentistry.
Instead, Ditka excelled on the field and in 1961 he was drafted by the Bears as a tight end. There, Ditka redefined a position that consisted primarily of blocking for rushers by becoming a scoring machine who racked up a dozen touchdowns in his first season and was named rookie of the year.
Ditka was a star of the 1963 championship Bears, before the Super Bowl, and a professional bowler in each of the five seasons he played for “Da Bears.” He also gained some infamy when he confronted a fan who rushed onto the field in the middle of a championship game broadcast on national television.
“Ditka had been trained since high school to knock over anything that moved,” famous Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote in September 1966. “The young man flew into the air. He was limp when he landed and shaking when the police took him away.”
Unable to reach a contractual agreement with Bears owner and coach George Halas, Ditka signed with the Houston Oilers in 1967 for the then-princely sum of $300,000.
Halas, Ditka said disparagingly, “threw nickels around like manhole covers.”
Ditka later played for the Dallas Cowboys, where in 1972 he caught a touchdown pass in their 24-3 victory over the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI.
After retiring in 1973, Ditka was hired by the Cowboys as an assistant coach. And during his nine seasons there, Dallas made the playoffs eight times, won six division titles, three NFC championships and a Super Bowl victory in 1977.
“Ditka was the first Canton enrollee to win a Super Bowl as a player, assistant coach and head coach,” the Hall of Famer said in a statement.
In 1982, Ditka and Halas made peace and the former Bears tight end became the Bears’ head coach.
With his bushy mustache, swept-back hair and growling voice, Ditka actually looked a bit like the bear on the team logo, Chicago sportswriters noted.
“Give me three years, and if you walk with me, we’ll go to prom,” Ditka allegedly swore during a team meeting.
It took Ditka four years to get the team to the Super Bowl. And he did it with a hard-nosed, old-school type game that relied more on running than passing, hard-hitting defense, and which he called “Bears Football.”
Powered by one of the most formidable defenses ever fielded by an NFL team and an offense led by unstoppable running back Walter Payton and courageous quarterback Jim McMahon, the Bears quickly routed the Patriots in the championship game.
“There are some teams that are blonde and some that aren’t,” Ditka said at the time. “Some teams are called Smith, others Grabowski. We are Grabowskis!”
They were swaggering Grabowskis.
The Bears were so confident that they were going to win it all that the team recorded a championship anthem called “Super Bowl Shuffle” seven weeks before the Super Bowl.
Under Ditka, the Bears won several more division titles and played in seven playoff games. But Ditka never got the team back to the big dance.
Ditka suffered a heart attack during the 1988 season, but the Bears continued to win. Five years later, after the Bears won only five games and lost 11 during the 1992 season, Halas fired Ditka.
He then became a television football analyst, then coached the New Orleans Saints for three losing seasons before being fired from that position in 1999.
But Ditka never coached another NFL team again.
Instead, Ditka returned to the broadcast booth, working for NBC, CBS and ESPN and opened a chain of steakhouses.
Never one to shy away from the camera, Ditka starred in the 2005 comedy “Kicking & Screaming” alongside Will Ferrell and Robert Duvall, playing an exaggerated version of himself in the film.
Ditka has also made numerous appearances on various television shows. And he embarked on a three-decade career as the ubiquitous TV anchor for everything from Hanes underwear and erectile dysfunction drugs to Campbell’s Chunky soups.
In 2004, Ditka seriously considered running as a Republican for an open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois. He refused and that seat was won by future President Barack Obama.
Ditka, however, was highly critical of Obama’s presidency and considered himself an “ultra conservative.” But Ditka visited the White House in 2011 with members of the Super Bowl-winning Bears team, where he presented the president with a Bears jersey with the number 85 and “Obama” emblazoned on the back.
Traditionally, the winning Super Bowl team visits the White House after the game, but in 1986 its planned visit was canceled due to the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
Ditka also angered many fans in deep blue Chicago with her early and outspoken support of Donald Trump’s bid for president. And he sparked a backlash in 2017 when, during a radio interview, he criticized black players for kneeling during the singing of the national anthem and said he was unaware of any racial oppression in the United States.
The next day, Ditka apologized.
“I have absolutely witnessed the oppression in society over the last 100 years,” Ditka said in a statement to WGN-TV in Chicago. “The interview was about the NFL and related issues. That’s where my head was at.”
In 2024, after several years in Florida, Ditka returns to Chicago.
“Chicago is my home,” he said.
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