Mike Ditka, Hall of Fame Tight End and Coach of the 1985 Bears, Dies at 86

Mike Ditka, the Hall of Fame tight end who came back to Chicago to coach the Bears and delivered the franchise its only Super Bowl championship, died Friday morning. He was 86.

His family announced the death in a statement shared by Jarrett Payton, the son of Walter Payton, who played for Ditka in Chicago. The family said the world knew him as a Hall of Fame player, a legendary coach and the leader of the Bears’ Super Bowl XX team, but that they knew him as the heart of their family, and that he would be “remembered forever.” No cause of death was given. Ditka had a stroke in 2012 and a heart attack in 2018.

“Da Coach. Hall of Famer. The heartbeat of the ’85 Bears and a Super Bowl champion,” Payton wrote. “Chicago won’t be the same. Prayers to Diana and the family. RIP, Coach.”

Ditka is one of only two people to win a Super Bowl as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach, a distinction he shares with Tom Flores. He is the first tight end ever elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And for a generation of fans, he was simply Da Coach: the mustache, the sweater vest, the cigar, the glare on the sideline and the voice that never softened for anybody.

From Aliquippa to the Bears

Michael Keller Ditka was born Oct. 18, 1939, in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Aliquippa, the steel town west of Pittsburgh that would later produce Tony Dorsett, Ty Law and Darrelle Revis. He played at the University of Pittsburgh from 1958 to 1960, earned consensus All-America honors as a senior and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Pitt retired his No. 89 in 1997.

The Bears took him fifth overall in the 1961 NFL Draft, and the Houston Oilers of the rival AFL drafted him in the first round as well. He chose Chicago and George Halas, and he changed what a tight end was allowed to be. Before Ditka, the position was mostly an extra blocker. As a rookie he caught 56 passes for 1,076 yards and 12 touchdowns, became the first tight end to top 1,000 receiving yards in a season and was named the NFL’s Rookie of the Year.

He made the Pro Bowl in each of his first five seasons and was a first-team All-Pro three times. In November 1963, with the Bears chasing Green Bay for the Western Conference title, he caught a short pass against Pittsburgh and dragged and shook off what seemed like half the Steelers’ defense on a long run that set up the tying field goal in a 17-17 game Chicago could not afford to lose. The Bears finished 11-1-2 and beat the New York Giants 14-10 at Wrigley Field for the 1963 NFL championship. A year later Ditka caught 75 passes, then a record for a tight end.

His relationship with Halas eventually soured over money. After a contract dispute, Ditka was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1967, then dealt to the Dallas Cowboys in 1969. In Dallas, under Tom Landry, he caught a fourth-quarter touchdown in the Cowboys’ 24-3 win over Miami in Super Bowl VI. He retired after the 1972 season with 427 receptions for 5,812 yards and 43 touchdowns across 12 years.

Landry’s staff, then Halas’ letter

Landry kept him on as an assistant. Ditka coached special teams and tight ends in Dallas from 1973 through 1981, and he picked up his second ring when the Cowboys beat Denver 27-10 in Super Bowl XII.

He wanted a head coaching job, and he wanted a specific one. Ditka wrote to Halas, the man he had once feuded with, and asked for the chance to coach the Bears. Halas, then 86 and still running the franchise he founded, hired him in January 1982. Halas died in October 1983. He never saw what the hire became.

1985

Chicago went 3-6 in Ditka’s strike-shortened first season and 8-8 in his second. Then the Bears won the NFC Central in 1984 and reached the conference championship game, and in 1985 they put together one of the most dominant seasons in league history.

The 1985 Bears went 15-1, their only loss coming on a Monday night in Miami in December. They shut out the Giants 21-0 and the Rams 24-0 in the playoffs, then beat New England 46-10 in Super Bowl XX at the Louisiana Superdome on Jan. 26, 1986. The defense, built by coordinator Buddy Ryan around Mike Singletary, Richard Dent, Dan Hampton and Steve McMichael, allowed 10 points in three postseason games. The offense had Payton, Jim McMahon, Willie Gault and a 300-pound rookie defensive tackle, William Perry, whom Ditka turned into a goal-line running back and a national celebrity.

That team recorded the “Super Bowl Shuffle” before it had clinched anything, feuded openly, and still won by 36 in the Super Bowl. Ditka and Ryan were carried off the field separately by their players. Ditka was named the Associated Press Coach of the Year. His one lasting regret from that night, he said for years afterward, was that Payton never scored. Perry got the goal-line carry instead.

Eleven seasons in Chicago

The Bears never got back to the Super Bowl under Ditka, but they stayed very good for a long time. Chicago won the division five straight years from 1984 through 1988, added another title in 1990 and made the playoffs seven times in his 11 seasons. He went 106-62 in the regular season with the Bears and 6-6 in the postseason, and he coached in three NFC championship games.

He won his second Coach of the Year award in 1988, a season in which he had a heart attack in early November, was back on the sideline within two weeks and still led the Bears to a 12-4 record and the NFC title game. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame that same year, as a player, alongside Fred Biletnikoff, Jack Ham and Alan Page.

The end came after a 5-11 season in 1992, when Bears president Michael McCaskey dismissed him. Ditka spent the next four years as an analyst for NBC.

New Orleans and the Ricky Williams trade

Ditka returned to coaching with the New Orleans Saints in 1997 and went 6-10 in each of his first two seasons. In the 1999 draft he traded every one of the Saints’ picks, plus first- and third-round picks in 2000, to Washington to move up and select Texas running back Ricky Williams. The two posed for a magazine cover in a wedding dress and a tuxedo. The Saints went 3-13, and Ditka was fired after the season with a 15-33 record in New Orleans. He never coached again.

Da Coach

If the Saints years dented his coaching record, they did nothing to his standing in Chicago. Ditka spent more than a decade on ESPN’s Sunday NFL studio shows, ran a steakhouse that carries his name a few blocks off Michigan Avenue, sold cigars and wine and sausages, and appeared in everything from commercials to “Saturday Night Live,” where the Superfans sketches turned “Da Bears” and “Ditka” into a national catchphrase.

The Bears retired his No. 89 at Soldier Field on Dec. 9, 2013, during a Monday night game against the Cowboys, the franchise where he won his first two rings. He was one of the few people in the building that night who had been part of both teams’ best days.

He stayed close to the Payton family after Walter’s death in 1999 and lent his name to the fight against the liver disease that killed him. That the news of Ditka’s own death came through Payton’s son says something about how he was regarded by the people who played for him, even the ones he yelled at.

Ditka is survived by his wife, Diana, and his children and grandchildren. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Mike Ditka at a glance

• Born: Oct. 18, 1939, Carnegie, Pa. Raised in Aliquippa, Pa.
• College: Pittsburgh (1958-60). Consensus All-American, 1960. College Football Hall of Fame, 1986.
• Playing career: Bears (1961-66), Eagles (1967-68), Cowboys (1969-72). 427 receptions, 5,812 yards, 43 touchdowns. NFL Rookie of the Year, 1961. Five Pro Bowls. 1963 NFL champion. Super Bowl VI champion.
• Assistant coach: Cowboys (1973-81). Super Bowl XII champion.
• Head coach: Bears (1982-92), 106-62 regular season, 6-6 postseason, six division titles, Super Bowl XX champion. Saints (1997-99), 15-33. AP Coach of the Year, 1985 and 1988.
• Honors: Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 1988, the first tight end enshrined. No. 89 retired by Pitt (1997) and the Bears (2013).