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CHICAGO (AP) -- Mike Ditka, who personified the toughness and grit of Chicago in a Hall of Fame career as a player and coach of the Bears and the leader of arguably the most dominant team in NFL history, has died. He was 86.
Ditka’s family announced his death on Friday in a statement.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, Mike Ditka,” the family said. “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.”
Nicknamed “Iron Mike” as a player, Ditka helped revolutionize the tight end position and in 1988 was the first to play at the spot to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He then moved to the sidelines and later took over as Chicago’s coach. His 1985 team featured one of the game’s most dominant defenses ever. It also had enough outsized personalities to record a rap video, “The Super Bowl Shuffle,” and back up their boasting in the championship game three months later.
He was arguably the NFL’s most recognizable -- and imitated -- personality during his time as Chicago’s coach with his thick but neatly groomed mustache and sweater vest with “BEARS” emblazoned across the chest. The iconic look is still mimicked by fans at Bears games decades later. That along with his fiery, red-faced sideline tantrums inspired the popular “Da Bears” skit on “Saturday Night Live” during the 1980s.
After retiring as a coach, Ditka became a restaurateur, pitchman and TV personality, as well as a forceful advocate for improved medical and retirement benefits for former players.
Ditka was tough and gruff, the quintessential Chicago Bear. He did everything from order off the menu to knock defensive backs on their butts with a growl. His adopted hometown reveled in every minute.
Revered as “Da Coach,” Ditka was the ringmaster of the 1985 Bears, one of the most dominant and perhaps the zaniest Super Bowl-winning team in league history.
“When I got to Chicago in the summer of 1985, Mike Ditka and the Chicago Bears were king,” former President Barack Obama wrote on X. “Coach Ditka set the tone for a team that was punishing, dominant, and fun -- and the city loved him for it. I’m thinking of the Ditka family and Bears fans everywhere on the passing of a legend.”
Ditka was enshrined in the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame and the Bears said during a ceremony in 2013 that his “No. 89” jersey will be the last one retired by the team.
“Player. Coach. Legend,” the Bears wrote in a tribute on social media. “Mike Ditka embodied the spirit of Chicago and will be deeply missed.”
Ditka was the first person enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, who had won Super Bowls as a player, assistant coach and head coach. Tom Flores, inducted in 2021, is the only other person to accomplish the feat.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Ditka “epitomized football over so many years” during his career.
“He brought intensity, authenticity and an unmistakable personality to everything he did,” Goodell said in a statement. “As a Hall of Fame player, Super Bowl-winning coach with his beloved and iconic Bears, and as a broadcaster, Mike served as an ambassador for the game and inspired generations of fans. Through his work with the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund, Mike was a champion for taking care of those who helped build our game. We extend our deepest condolences to Diana and the Ditka family.”
Ditka got his “Iron Mike” nickname during his western Pennsylvania upbringing
He was born in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, the son of a welder who changed the family name from Dyczko. He grew up in nearby Aliquippa -- which also later produced fellow Pro Football Hall of Famers Ty Law and Darrelle Revis -- close to the coal-mining and steel-manufacturing plants that dotted the western part of the state, a big, talented, three-sport athlete and All-American at Pitt whose bruising style made his first nickname, “Iron Mike,” a good fit.
“When our players see Mike Ditka’s name, I want them to understand how he competed,” current Pitt football coach Pat Narduzzi said in a statement. “He gave everything he had and expected the same from the guys beside him. That’s Pitt. He showed us that tough people find a way through tough times and taught us to fight for the names on the front and back of our jerseys.”
Selected fifth overall by flinty Chicago owner George Halas in the 1961 draft, Ditka went on to Rookie of the Year honors, multiple Pro Bowl trips and the 1963 NFL Championship. He and Baltimore’s John Mackey changed the tight end position and offensive schemes forever. He was a battering ram of a blocker, but Ditka was just as likely to catch a short pass and pinball through an entire secondary or outrace a lone safety on a deep touchdown throw.
He left Chicago in 1966, playing briefly for Philadelphia and Dallas.
Soon after his playing days, Ditka became “Da Coach” of the Bears
Ditka moved to the sideline in 1973 as an assistant to the revered Tom Landry and stayed with the Cowboys for eight years, including winning the Super Bowl during the 1977 season, before returning to a hero’s welcome in Chicago as head coach in 1982.
Ditka’s return to the Bears lasted 10 tumultuous years, including five straight NFC Central titles, the Super Bowl win, a DUI conviction, a heart attack, a long-running feud with defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan and, finally, a new nickname -- “Da Coach.”
To Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary, the seeds of what was to come were planted in Ditka’s first meeting with the team. He laid out his vision, saying Chicago would be in the Super Bowl in three years -- and many of the players in the room would not be around for it.
“When I first heard him when he walked in the room, to me Coach Ditka had the opportunity to be the greatest coach of all time because he had the fire,” Singletary said at the Bears’ 100th anniversary celebration in June 2019. “I don’t know how George Halas coached. But I can imagine that the fire and intensity and passion that Coach Ditka exuded that first day set the tone for exactly what he said: ‘Three years from now, we’re going to be in the Super Bowl.’ And that was 1982. In ’85, we were there and it was because of that vision.”