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RIP Mike Ditka, Da Coach of the '85 Bears and the Heart of Chicago

Mike Ditka died Friday at 86. Kevin Keys looks back at the 1985 Bears, Super Bowl XX, the 1963 title and the man Chicago saw itself in.

· ~7 min read

I was sitting in Tampa International Airport when the news came in. I'll never forget where I was when I heard it. Mike Ditka died Friday, Oct. 9, at 86. His family said he passed around 9 a.m., surrounded by the people who loved him most. No cause of death was given.

This is my last post before I leave, and I'm glad it's this one. RIP, Coach.

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His family put it better than I can: "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."

The 1985 Bears

If you were anywhere near a television in 1985, you remember. The Bears went 15-1. The only loss came on a Monday night in Miami in December, and they never lost again.

The defense was Buddy Ryan's 46, and it didn't so much play offenses as dismantle them. It allowed the fewest points in the league that year and held opponents to 10 points or fewer in 14 games. The Pro Football Hall of Fame still calls it the measuring stick for every great defense since. Mike Singletary in the middle, staring holes through quarterbacks. Richard Dent coming off the edge. And William "The Refrigerator" Perry, a rookie defensive tackle Ditka decided to line up at fullback near the goal line, because why not.

On offense there was Walter Payton, the greatest Bear of them all, and Jim McMahon, the punky quarterback in the headband who drove his coach crazy and won anyway. Ditka held that room together. Big personalities, bigger egos, one sideline, one man in charge.

The day after the Miami loss, the team taped "The Super Bowl Shuffle" in Chicago. Most coaches would have been nervous about a team recording a rap song before winning anything. It sold more than half a million copies and got nominated for a Grammy. Then they went out and backed it up.

Super Bowl XX, Jan. 26, 1986, at the Superdome in New Orleans: Bears 46, Patriots 10. New England finished with seven rushing yards. The Bears had seven sacks. It was the franchise's first championship since 1963, and Ditka was on the field for both of them.

"This is special," he said that day. "We made history today. That's beautiful."

It was. He was named NFL Coach of the Year for that season.

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Mike Ditka in a Bears jacket and tinted glasses walking the sideline, giving his trademark one-finger salute
Classic Ditka. Some coaches send a message with a press release. He used one finger.

Before the headset: Iron Mike

People who only know the mustache and the sweater vest sometimes forget what a player he was. George Halas drafted him No. 5 overall in 1961 out of Pitt, where scouts figured he'd play defense. Halas put him at tight end instead, and Ditka basically showed everyone what the position could be. As a rookie he went for 1,076 receiving yards, the first 1,000-yard season by a tight end in NFL history, and won Rookie of the Year. Nobody at the position topped that rookie number for 63 years.

In 1963 he led all tight ends in catches and helped the Bears beat the Giants 14-10 on a frigid day at Wrigley for the NFL championship. He blocked like a man with a grudge. "Nobody played the game harder than I did," he said, and nobody who saw him play ever argued.

Later in Dallas he caught the final touchdown of Super Bowl VI, and as a Cowboys assistant he won another ring in Super Bowl XII. In 1988 he became the first tight end inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Hall says he was also the first man enshrined in Canton who had won the Super Bowl as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach.

Da Coach

Here's the part that's hard to explain to anybody who isn't from the Midwest. Chicago didn't just root for Mike Ditka. It looked at him on the sideline and saw itself.

He grew up in western Pennsylvania, starring at Aliquippa High, figuring he'd end up in a steel mill or a coal mine like the men around him. He brought that with him to Chicago and never put it down. The jaw, the scowl, the mustache. Work hard, hit harder, don't complain about the weather. That's the city's whole personality, and he wore it like a sweater vest.

When Halas hired him in 1982, the Bears hadn't won anything since 1963. Ditka told the players that the ones who stuck it out would get Super Bowl rings. Three years later, they did. "The Bears were his life. And they became my life," he said years later. "That was the only job I ever wanted and the only job that ever meant anything to me."

By the early '90s he was a pop culture fixture. "Saturday Night Live" gave us Bill Swerski's Superfans, four guys in a Chicago sports bar raising their mugs to "Da Bears" and treating Ditka like a force of nature. He even stopped by the sketch himself. It's affectionate, and it's accurate. To a lot of Chicago, he really was a force of nature.

His name went on a popular Chicago restaurant and on everything from cigars to wine. He also used that voice and that stature to fight for better pensions and health care for retired players, especially the guys from his era who struggled after football. That part doesn't get mentioned enough.

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The Bears' own tribute to Coach. See it on X if it doesn't load.

The tributes keep coming

Within a couple of hours, it felt like all of football and half of Chicago had something to say.

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Even the South Side showed up for him.

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Pitt, where it all started:

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The Saints, the team he coached after Chicago:

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And Lions coach Dan Campbell, with a story about meeting him:

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One more for the Coach

Plenty of Bears fans landed here in Sarasota over the years, and I'd bet a few of them have a Shuffle VHS tape in a closet somewhere. Tonight's a good night to dig it out.

I'm headed to a wedding tonight, and before the toasts start, our whole table is going to pour one out for Coach. All of Chicago should, too.

I'll be in the Douro Valley until November. I'll raise another glass of something red over there for Iron Mike. Thank you for 1985, Coach. Chicago won't be the same.

Sources: Pro Football Hall of Fame, Chicago Bears, the Ditka family statement via AP.

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