Biography
In the early 1960s, Mike Ditka tore up the field for the Chicago Bears as the most potent offensive tight end the game had seen and returned in the 1980s to guide the team to its only Super Bowl victory as its irascible coach. A product of Western Pennsylvania, Ditka earned All-America honors at the University of Pittsburgh before being drafted by the Bears in 1961. He helped Chicago win the 1963 NFL Championship and was selected to the Pro Bowl several times while with the Bears. He wrapped his career with the Dallas Cowboys, with whom he won his first Super Bowl in 1971, and then spent a decade as an assistant to Cowboys legend Tom Landry before the Bears called Ditka back to be their head coach. By the 1985 season, he had built one of the most formidable teams in football history as the Bears stormed to a win in Super Bowl XX. But ensuing campaigns proved disappointing, and Ditka, though ensconced as a Chicago icon, was let go after the 1992 season. He returned to coaching in 1997 with the New Orleans Saints, but it proved a short-lived stint. In 2000, Ditka bowed out again for a high-profile broadcasting career with CBS and ESPN. One of two NFL luminaries to win a NFL title as a player, assistant coach and head coach, Ditka achieved a cult-figure status as the smack-talking, gum-chomping "Guy's Guy," revered in not only Chicago, but around the country as well.
