From the Lawton Constitution
By James Finck, Ph.D.
I need to start out by accepting that I am a big nerd. Recently, I have been looking at different ways to calculate who the greatest NFL coaches are. I have examined regular-season and playoff winning percentages, but also things like coaching trees, which I think are important in determining who has changed the league the most. I also have looked at things like how many quarterbacks they took to the big game and tried to create different formulas to judge all these variables. With each calculation, I still get the same few names at the top: Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, and Andy Reid.
While these coaches are famous among football fans, what I have been thinking about this week is that they may not be well known to people who don’t follow the sport. Not that casual fandom makes someone a better coach, but it is still an interesting thought. My reason for considering this question is the passing of someone I think may be the most popular coach of all time, Mike Ditka.
For football fans, Ditka is a legend who coached arguably one of the greatest teams in NFL history, the 1985 Chicago Bears. While I would not place him on my list of the greatest coaches, Ditka certainly had an exceptional career that extended well beyond his pop culture status.
As a player, the Bears selected him as the fifth overall pick in the 1961 NFL Draft. He immediately made an impact, winning the NFL Rookie of the Year award. During his 12-year playing career, he earned five Pro Bowl selections and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988.
Ditka later added to that legacy as a coach, leading the Chicago Bears to a 15-1 regular season record and a victory in Super Bowl XX. During his time as head coach at Chicago, he had a record of 112-68.
Yet his true greatness emerges when the conversation shifts from coaching to cultural significance. Ditka was more than a successful coach; he was a personality, a symbol of toughness, and a walking embodiment of a particular American attitude. He seemed to personify the sport itself. He was loud, demanding, emotional, and unapologetically old school. In an increasingly polished world of professional sports, Ditka looked and acted like a man who had no interest in polishing anything.
That is what fans like me loved most about him. He represented a vision of masculinity that I believe is being lost. In a world that often criticizes masculinity, Ditka stood for discipline, physical toughness, loyalty, and the willingness to endure punishment without complaint. Those are traits I associate with true masculinity.
Ditka became bigger than the game, turning into a celebrity whose appeal extended well beyond the football field. His appearances in commercials, sports broadcasting, and popular culture made him recognizable to people who might never have watched a Bears game.
It helped that he was the architect of the 1985 Bears, who went 15-1 in the regular season and finished the year with a Super Bowl victory. That team was more than a championship squad. With its punishing defense anchored by Mike Singletary and Super Bowl MVP Richard Dent, larger-than-life personalities like Jim McMahon and William “The Refrigerator” Perry, and the unmistakable swagger of Walter Payton, it became one of the most recognizable teams in sports history. The 1985 Bears didn’t just win games; they put on a show. The popularity of the “Super Bowl Shuffle” alone helped make them a household name. Ditka stood at the center of it all.
What really put him over the top culturally was how easy he was to parody. Everyone understood the personality being portrayed, even when his name wasn’t mentioned. Nothing demonstrated this better than the famous “Da Bears” sketches on “Saturday Night Live.”
Beginning in the early 1990s, the recurring “Superfans” sketches featured a group of exaggerated Chicago sports fans who gathered to celebrate Da Bears. Played by comedians George Wendt, Chris Farley, and Mike Myers, the fans were famous for their thick Chicago accents, enormous appetites, and outrageous predictions about their team. One typical prediction might be Bears 63, Giants 3.
When asked what would happen if the Bears were only 14 inches tall, the answer was Bears 18, Giants 10, because that would make it a much fairer match. In another sketch, a fan predicted the final score would be 31 to -7. When asked how a team could get a negative score, he explained that Ditka would find a way.
Their most memorable banter came when they discussed Ditka himself. What if Da Bears missed their flight and only Ditka made the trip? Who would win? Ditka 17, Giants 14. Ditka would barely get by.
Who would win the Indianapolis 500 if Ditka drove the team bus? Ditka.
Who would win in a golf game between Ditka and God? God, but it’s close.
The best was the question of who would win between Ditka and a hurricane. The men, in unison, declared Ditka. But then one fan asked, “What about Hurricane Ditka?” They all sat stunned, unsure how to answer, before finally agreeing: Ditka, but only by a field goal.
The great coaches win multiple championships, like Belichick. Exceptional coaches change the game, like Walsh or Reid. But a rare few become symbols that people recognize even when they know little about the sport itself. Mike Ditka belongs in that category.
We should certainly remember his exceptional legacy on the field, but it was what he did beyond the field that helped cement his place in our cultural landscape. Rest in peace, Iron Mike. You will always be remembered as one of the great ones and as the leader of Da Bears.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at james.finck@swoknews.com.
