78 Facts About Mike Ditka

1.

Michael Keller Ditka was born on Michael Dyczko; October 18,1939 and is an American former football player, coach, and television commentator.

2.

Mike Ditka was an NFL champion with the 1963 Bears, and is a three-time Super Bowl champion, playing on the Cowboys' Super Bowl VI team, winning as an assistant coach for the Cowboys in Super Bowl XII, and coaching the Bears to victory in Super Bowl XX.

3.

Mike Ditka was named to the NFL's 75th- and 100th-Anniversary All-Time Teams.

4.

Mike Ditka was the head coach of the New Orleans Saints from 1997 to 1999.

5.

Mike Ditka is the only person to participate in both of the last two Chicago Bears' league championships, as a player in 1963 and as head coach in 1985.

6.

In 2020, Mike Ditka became the owner of the X League, a women's tackle football league that was originally the Lingerie Football League.

7.

Mike Ditka is known by the nickname "Iron Mike", which he has said comes from his being born and raised in a steel town in Pennsylvania.

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8.

Mike Ditka was born as Michael Dyczko in the Pittsburgh-area town of Carnegie, Pennsylvania on October 18,1939.

9.

Under head coach Press Maravich, Mike Ditka was a three-sport star at Aliquippa High School.

10.

Mike Ditka is quoted as saying, "Doc Miller patched me up many times".

11.

Mike Ditka hoped to escape his hometown's manufacturing jobs by attending college with a football scholarship.

12.

Mike Ditka played for the University of Pittsburgh from 1958 until 1960, where he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.

13.

Mike Ditka was a three-sport athlete at Pitt, playing baseball and basketball.

14.

Mike Ditka started on the football team all three seasons, leading the team in receiving in each, while serving as a linebacker, defensive end, and punter.

15.

Mike Ditka was a unanimous first-team selection on the College Football All-America Team as a two-way end.

16.

Mike Ditka finished his college career with 45 passes for 730 yards and seven touchdowns.

17.

In 1986, Mike Ditka was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame.

18.

Mike Ditka was selected by the Chicago Bears fifth overall in the 1961 NFL Draft, while the Houston Oilers drafted him eighth overall in the first round of the 1961 AFL Draft.

19.

Mike Ditka signed with the Bears and his presence was immediately felt.

20.

Mike Ditka scored 12 receiving touchdowns, which was the most by a Bears rookie.

21.

Mike Ditka's success earned him Rookie of the Year honors.

22.

Mike Ditka continued to play for the Bears for the next five years, earning a Pro Bowl trip each season.

23.

Many of the players from that team, including Mike Ditka, were drafted by assistant coach George Allen, a future Hall of Famer, who was then in charge of the Bears' drafts.

24.

Mike Ditka was outplayed by tight end Jim Kelly, registering 26 receptions for 274 yards and two touchdowns.

25.

Mike Ditka appeared in 11 games with six starts, and his statistics were below tight end Fred Hill.

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26.

Mike Ditka posted 13 receptions for 111 yards and two touchdowns.

27.

Pettis Norman ended up being named the starting tight end, but Mike Ditka still was able to play in 12 games with four starts, while making 17 receptions for 268 yards and three touchdowns.

28.

Mike Ditka appeared in 14 games, while tallying eight receptions for 98 yards and no touchdowns.

29.

Mike Ditka set the franchise record for tight ends with 30 receptions in a season, while compiling 360 receiving yards, one touchdown, and three kickoff returns for 30 yards.

30.

Mike Ditka started all 14 games, posting 17 receptions for 198 yards and one touchdown, while alternating in some passing situations with rookie Jean Fugett.

31.

On March 1,1973, Mike Ditka announced his retirement as a player, opening the door for him to be named the Cowboys wide receiver assistant coach under head coach Tom Landry.

32.

Mike Ditka scored two touchdowns on offensive fumble recoveries, tying seven other players for the most in NFL history.

33.

Mike Ditka spent nine seasons as an assistant coach with the Cowboys.

34.

Mike Ditka has stated that one of his biggest regrets in life was not letting Walter Payton score a touchdown in the Super Bowl, instead opting for Jim McMahon to run it in twice and rookie defensive tackle William "The Refrigerator" Perry to run it in once.

35.

Nevertheless, Mike Ditka has contended that his reluctance to give Payton the ball was justified on account of the disproportionately heavy coverage the Bears' star running back faced from the Patriots' defense, and insisted that Payton's mere presence on the field was a decisive factor in the Bears' crushing victory notwithstanding personal statistics.

36.

Mike Ditka suffered a heart attack during the 1988 season, which he attributed to stress since he was in excellent physical condition and had no significant family history of heart disease.

37.

However, despite being expected to miss much of the season, Mike Ditka was on the sidelines as an "advisor" the next week and back in full charge the week after.

38.

In 1997, after a five-year absence in which he had served as a television analyst, Mike Ditka returned to the NFL to take over as the permanent replacement for Jim Mora with the New Orleans Saints.

39.

Mike Ditka inherited a team that had not made the playoffs, nor had recorded a record above.

40.

The trade was further mocked because of a magazine cover in which Mike Ditka posed with Williams, who was wearing a wedding dress.

41.

Mike Ditka came into the postgame press conference appearing emotionally exhausted, and said he felt the Saints would be better off hiring someone else to coach the team.

42.

When followed up with a question about whether he would resign before the season was over, Mike Ditka said that he would if he felt that he was going to be fired.

43.

Mike Ditka chose to give the start to Jake Delhomme, his third-string quarterback.

44.

Almost immediately after his dismissal from the Bears in 1992, Mike Ditka took a broadcasting job with NBC, working as an analyst on NFL Live and as a color commentator for many other NBC broadcasts.

45.

On his radio show, Coach Mike Ditka is called "America's Coach" by well-known sidekick Jim Gray.

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46.

Mike Ditka regularly appears on Chicago radio station ESPN 1000, often broadcasting on Thursday mornings from one of his eponymous restaurants along with ESPN 1000 mid-morning hosts Marc Silverman and Tom Waddle, a former Bears player under Mike Ditka.

47.

Mike Ditka replicated this role on the second game of the doubleheader in 2008, as well.

48.

Mike Ditka spent several years with ESPN working on Sunday NFL Countdown.

49.

In March 2016, ESPN and Mike Ditka announced he would move to SportsCenter for remote-broadcasting analysis, as Mike Ditka disliked the long distance from his home to the studio.

50.

Mike Ditka has written or contributed to a number of books since 1986.

51.

Mike Ditka wrote Ditka: An Autobiography with friend and sports journalist Don Pierson; he authored The 85 Bears: We Were the Greatest with Rick Telander.

52.

Mike Ditka wrote with Telander In Life First you Kick Ass: Reflections on the 1985 Bears and Wisdom from Da Coach.

53.

Mike Ditka is a large topic in books written about the Bears as a team such as Then Ditka said to Payton and Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football.

54.

In 1995, Ditka starred as a football coach in a full-motion video game called Quarterback Attack with Mike Ditka, released for the Sega Saturn, PC, and 3DO.

55.

In 1993, Mike Ditka appeared as himself in the 271st and final episode of the American television sitcom Cheers.

56.

Mike Ditka appeared in several ads for Montgomery Ward in the early 1990s, promoting their electronics and appliances department, known as Electric Avenue.

57.

Mike Ditka performed "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field in 1998, the first season after the death of Harry Caray, who had previously led the song.

58.

Mike Ditka was inducted to the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame in 2001.

59.

In January 2007, Mike Ditka used the Super Bowl return of the Chicago Bears as a platform to promote efforts by many early NFL players trying to raise support for former NFL players in need of money and medical assistance; he is a key member in the Gridiron Greats.

60.

Mike Ditka owns a chain of restaurants, "Mike Ditka's", which has three locations in Illinois and one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

61.

Mike Ditka discovered singer John Vincent, who has been performing at his Chicago restaurant since 2001.

62.

Mike Ditka was a co-owner the Chicago Rush, an Arena Football League team.

63.

In 2012, Mike Ditka partnered with Terlato Wines to produce his own collection of wines, produced in California.

64.

Mike Ditka's profile is featured on Resultly and he regularly interacts with users about the collections he creates of his favorite items from all over the web.

65.

Mike Ditka was seen wearing a Green Bay Packers sweater vest.

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66.

Mike Ditka was married to his first wife, Marge from 1961 to 1973.

67.

Mike Ditka married his current wife Diane Ditka in 1977.

68.

From 1997 until 2001, Mike Ditka lived in an area of New Orleans known as English Turn.

69.

Mike Ditka is a practicing Roman Catholic and a member of the Knights of Columbus.

70.

On November 23,2018, Mike Ditka was hospitalized in Naples, Florida, after suffering a heart attack while playing golf.

71.

In July 2004, Mike Ditka, a self-described "ultra-ultra-ultra conservative", was reportedly considering running against the Democratic candidate, state senator Barack Obama, for an open seat in the US Senate for Illinois in the 2004 Senate election.

72.

George Allen, whose father by the same name was an assistant coach with the Bears in the 1960s when Mike Ditka played, met with Mike Ditka in an effort to persuade him to fill the spot on the ticket.

73.

Mike Ditka's wife was against the run and he operates a chain of restaurants.

74.

Mike Ditka believes that Obama never would have been elected president if Mike Ditka had run against Obama for Senate in 2004, and claims that Obama is the worst president in United States history.

75.

In stark contrast to the above-stated positions, Mike Ditka appeared in an ad during the 2010 Illinois gubernatorial election for incumbent Democratic governor Pat Quinn.

76.

Four years later, in 2014, Mike Ditka appeared in a televised campaign ad for Quinn's Republican challenger, Bruce Rauner, who defeated Quinn in the general election.

77.

Mike Ditka presented President Obama with a Chicago Bears jersey with the number 85 on it with "Obama" on the back of it.

78.

Under the network's new social media policy, Mike Ditka is to refrain from making controversial statements, but made a series of remarks in late 2017 that drew widespread criticism.