.jpg) Ditka in 2008 | |||||||||
| No. 89, 98 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Tight end | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born: | October 18, 1939 Carnegie, Pennsylvania, U.S. | ||||||||
| Height: | 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) | ||||||||
| Weight: | 228 lb (103 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school: | Aliquippa (Aliquippa, Pennsylvania) | ||||||||
| College: | Pittsburgh (1958–1960) | ||||||||
| NFL draft: | 1961 / round: 1 / pick: 5 | ||||||||
| AFL draft: | 1961 / round: 1 / pick: 8 | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| As a player: | |||||||||
| As a coach: | |||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
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| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Head coaching record | |||||||||
| Regular season: | 121–95 (.560) | ||||||||
| Postseason: | 6–6 (.500) | ||||||||
| Career: | 127–101 (.557) | ||||||||
| Record at Pro Football Reference | |||||||||
Michael Keller Ditka (born Michael Dyczko; October 18, 1939) is an American former professional football player, coach, and television commentator. During his playing career, he was UPI NFL Rookie of Year in 1961, a five-time Pro Bowl selection, and a six-time All-Pro tight end with the Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles, and Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League (NFL); he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988. Ditka was the first tight end in NFL history to reach 1,000 yards receiving.
He 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. He has been named to the NFL's 75th- and 100th-Anniversary All-Time Teams.
As a head coach for the Bears from 1982 to 1992, he was twice both the AP and UPI NFL Coach of Year (1985 and 1988). He also was the head coach of the New Orleans Saints from 1997 to 1999.
Ditka and Tom Flores are the only people to win an NFL title as a player, an assistant coach, and a head coach. Ditka, Flores, Gary Kubiak, and Doug Pederson are also the only people in modern NFL history to win a championship as head coach of a team for which they played previously.[1] 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.
In 2020, Ditka became the owner of the X League, a women's tackle football league that was originally the Lingerie Football League.[2]
He is known by the nickname "Iron Mike", which he has said comes from his being born and raised in a steel town in Pennsylvania.[3]
- ^ Draper, Kevin (February 8, 2016). "Gary Kubiak Was Actually the Third Person to Win The Super Bowl Coaching the Same Team He Played For". Deadspin.com. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
- ^ "Mike Ditka Becomes Owner X League Women's Tackle Football League". July 15, 2020.
- ^ "Getting Down and Dirty with 'Da Coach'". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 75. Ziff Davis. October 1995. pp. 114–116.