Of all the quotes attributed to Mike Ditka over the years, there is one in particular that stands out when it comes to how he lived his life in football.
“Living in the past is for cowards,” the football legend once said. “If you live in the past, you die in the past.”
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Like many other things Ditka said, it was brash and impulsive. He didn’t pretend to be delicate or polite.
It is, however, an accurate representation of how Ditka has continued to progress and evolve over more than 60 years of involvement in the sport. He succeeded more than he failed, but he pretended that it didn’t matter much.
“Success is not permanent and failure is not fatal,” said one of Ditka’s other famous quotes.
Ditka died Friday, his family said. He was 86 years old.
Jarrett Payton, Walter Payton’s son, announced the news on Chicago’s 104.3 The Score. Payton shared a statement from the Ditka family on X:
It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather and friend, Mike Ditka. While the world knew Mike as a Hall of Fame football player, legendary coach and leader of the Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl XX championship team, we knew him as the heart of our family. Mike will be missed beyond measure and remembered forever. With love and gratitude, The Ditka Family
During a football career that spanned nearly five decades, Ditka was inducted into the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame, won NFL championships as a player, assistant and head coach, the latter of which came during the 1985 season, when he led the Chicago Bears to their first and still only Super Bowl title.
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The 1985 championship propelled Ditka to a new level of fame. He cashed checks for showcasing a wide variety of products, was lovingly ridiculed on a classic “Saturday Night Live” sketch and became the Chicago sports scene’s closest thing to a patron saint.
But if Chicago’s triumph over New England in January 1986 remains the high point of Ditka’s career, it is far from the only one.
Indeed, few men have experienced the level or magnitude of Ditka’s success in the game. His coaching years were preceded by a Hall of Fame playing career with the Bears and Cowboys, then followed by successful ventures in broadcasting and business. In his later years, Ditka started the “Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund”, an organization designed to help struggling former players who had not been as generously rewarded by the game as he was.
From Pennsylvania to Chicago
Although he appears to be from one of Chicago’s many Polish neighborhoods, Ditka was born “Michael Dyczko” on October 18, 1939, in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. The son of a welder, he played football at Aliquippa High School and his fame in steel country earned him the nickname “Iron Mike” that would stick for decades after he left the state.
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After a successful college career at Pitt, Ditka was drafted by the Bears with the fifth overall pick in the 1961 NFL Draft. He won the Rookie of the Year award that season and was a key part of Chicago’s 1963 NFL championship team under George Halas, the last Bears team to win a title until Halas hired Ditka to return the team to glory in the 1960s. 80.
Ditka was traded to the Eagles in 1967, but eventually landed in Dallas, where he won Super Bowl titles with the Cowboys as both a player (VI) and assistant coach (XII). He and Oakland Raiders coach Tom Flores remain the only men to win the Super Bowl as a player, assistant and coach.
After nearly a decade as an assistant under Cowboys legend Tom Landry, Ditka sent a letter to Halas saying he was “ready” to come home and lead the Bears. Halas accepted his offer for the 1982 season and in three seasons, Ditka took the Bears to the NFC title game.
Ditka had a distinct coaching style
Ditka’s leadership style could be described as volatile, and his relationships with players, fellow coaches, and the media were far from perfect. Although the egos of Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan could barely coexist in the same locker room, the 1985 Bears became one of the greatest teams in sports, going 15-1 and shutting out two teams in the NFC playoffs before bombing the Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX.
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Ryan left to become head coach of the Eagles after the Super Bowl. Ditka and the oft-injured and dramatic Bears never reached the top again, soon outclassed in the NFC by San Francisco, Washington and New York. In subsequent years, members of the 1985 team said that Ditka should have won at least one more title with his talent, an accusation that the coach himself later agreed with.
Ditka was fired after the 1992 season, capping an 11-year streak in which the Bears went 106-62. He surfaced in New Orleans in 1997 for a three-year stint that would have been largely forgotten if not for his decision to trade all of the Saints’ picks in 1999 (plus a first-rounder in 2000) for the right to move up and take Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams. The couple posed as a just-married couple for the cover of ESPN: The Magazine, with Williams wearing a wedding dress.
Ditka remained visible after her coaching career
After leaving New Orleans, Ditka returned to a broadcasting career he had started at NBC and took jobs at CBS, then ESPN. He cultivated his personality into a successful and ubiquitous brand, running popular Chicago-area restaurants and putting his face on everything from fine wine and Bloody Mary mix to salsa and giardiniera, a spicy Italian condiment that is popular in the Chicago area.
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A staunch Republican, Ditka considered running for the open Illinois Senate seat in 2004, but ultimately decided against it.
A Democrat named Barack Obama ended up winning the job, and Ditka, not without bitterness, would later point out that the course of American history would have been different if he had decided to keep the job.
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