Mike Ditka has passed away, the Ditka family announced Friday, at 86 years old.
Ditka was such a towering personality that his importance to the game of football need not be explained, but it would be a disservice to the man to not list them anyway. Ditka was:
-- a College Football Hall of Fame tight end at Pitt
-- the fifth pick in the 1961 NFL draft, and the eighth pick in the 1961 AFL draft
-- the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year
-- a five-time Pro Bowler
-- a two-time First Team All-Pro, and a three-time Second Team All-Pro
-- a member of the NFL's 75th Anniversary Team
-- a Super Bowl champion
-- a Pro Football Hall of Famer
-- a 2-time AP NFL Coach of the Year
-- a Super Bowl champion as an assistant head and head coach
-- one of four men to win a Super Bowl as a player and a head coach, and of the four, he was easily the best player and one of two to also win as an assistant
Ditka is best remembered as the head coach of the 1985 Chicago Bears, one of the best teams in NFL history. Those Bears went 15-1 in the regular season, with 11 wins by double digits, including a 3-game run with wins by scores of 24-3, 44-0, and 36-0. In the playoffs, the Bears beat the New York Giants 24-0, the Los Angeles Rams 24-0, and the New England Patriots 46-10.
The success of that team launched Ditka's celebrity to a point rarely seen by football coaches.
Ditka played college or professional football from 1958-72, coached from 1973-92 (he was the assistant head coach for Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys teams before taking over in Chicago), and then returned for an unsuccessful stint leading the New Orleans Saints from 1997-99. He was a fixture in America's pastime for nearly half a century, and in the process became an avatar of American masculinity with his square jaw, trademark mustache, and a look on his face that appeared he was halfway through a breakfast of nails and broken glass. Along the way, he moonlighted in TV, gave his likeness to video games, and made a number of cameos playing himself in television and movies.
Mike Ditka was one of the most important figures in NFL history, an icon in American cutlure, and he will be missed.