Mike Ditka, Chicago Bears Hall of Fame legend, dies at 86

Of all the quotes attributed to Mike Ditka over the years, there's one in particular that stands out when it comes to the way he lived his life in football.

"Living in the past is for cowards," the football legend once said. "If you live in the past, you die in the past."

Like many other things Ditka said, it was brash and impulsive. It made no pretensions about being delicate or polite.

It was, however, an accurate depiction of the way Ditka kept progressing and evolving in over 60 years of being involved with the sport. He succeeded more than he failed, but he claimed that didn't matter much.

"Success isn't permanent and failure isn't fatal," went one of Ditka's other famous quotes.

Ditka died on Friday, his family announced. He was 86.

Jarrett Payton, Walter Payton's son, announced the news on Chicago's 104.3 The Score. Payton shared a statement from the Ditka family on X :

It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, Mike Ditka. While the world knew Mike as a Hall of Fame football player, legendary coach, and leader of the Chicago Bears' Super Bowl XX championship team, we knew him as the heart of our family. Mike will be missed beyond measure and remembered forever. With love and gratitude, The Ditka Family

In a football career that spanned nearly five decades, Ditka earned induction into both the College Football and Pro Football Hall of Fames, won NFL championships as a player, an assistant and a head coach, the latter coming in the 1985 season, when he led the Chicago Bears to its first and still only Super Bowl title.

The 1985 championship launched Ditka into a new level of fame. He cashed checks for pitching a wide variety of products, was lovingly lampooned on a classic "Saturday Night Live" sketch and became the closest thing the Chicago sporting scene has ever had to a patron saint.

But while Chicago's triumph over New England in January 1986 remained the high point in Ditka's career, it was far from the only highlight.

Indeed, few men have experienced Ditka's level or breadth of success in the game. His coaching days were preceded by a Hall of Fame playing career with the Bears and Cowboys, then followed with successful ventures in both broadcasting and business. In his later years, Ditka started the "Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund," an organization designed to help struggling ex-players who hadn't been rewarded as handsomely by the game as he was.

Though he looked as if he was from one of Chicago's many Polish neighborhoods, Ditka was born "Michael Dyczko" on Oct. 18, 1939 in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. The son of a welder, he played high school football in Aliquippa and his stardom in steel country gave him the "Iron Mike" nickname that would stick for decades after he left the state.

After a successful collegiate career at Pitt, Ditka was drafted by the Bears with the fifth overall pick in the 1961 NFL Draft. He won that season's Rookie of the Year award and was a key part of Chicago's 1963 NFL championship team under George Halas, the last Bears team to win a title until Halas hired Ditka to return the team to glory in the '80s.

Ditka was traded to the Eagles in 1967, but eventually landed in Dallas, where he won Super Bowl titles with the Cowboys both as a player (VI) and an assistant coach (XII). He and Oakland Raiders coach Tom Flores remain the only men to win Super Bowls as a player, assistant and coach.

After nearly a decade spent as an assistant under Cowboys legend Tom Landry, Ditka sent a letter to Halas saying he was "ready" to return home and lead the Bears. Halas took him up on his offer for the 1982 season and within three seasons, Ditka took the Bears to the NFC title game.

Ditka's leadership style could best be described as volatile, and his relationships with players, fellow coaches and media were far from perfect. Even though the egos belonging to Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan could barely co-exist in the same locker room, the 1985 Bears became one of the sport's greatest teams, going 15-1 and shutting out two teams in the NFC playoffs before shellacking the Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX.

Ryan left to become the Eagles' head coach after the Super Bowl. Ditka and the drama-filled and often injured Bears never again reached the top, soon outclassed in the NFC by San Francisco, Washington and New York. In later years, members of the '85 team would come out and say Ditka should've won at least one more title with the talent he had, a charge with which the coach himself later agreed.

Ditka was fired following the 1992 season, capping an 11-year run that saw the Bears go 106-62. He surfaced in New Orleans in 1997 for a three-year stint that would have been largely forgettable were it not for his decision to trade away all of the Saints' picks in 1999 (plus a first-rounder in 2000) for the right to move up and take Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams. The pair posed as a just-married couple for the cover of ESPN: The Magazine, with Williams donning a wedding dress.

Ditka remained visible after coaching career

Following his departure from New Orleans, Ditka resumed a broadcasting career he'd started with NBC and took jobs with CBS, then ESPN. He cultivated his personality into a successful and pervasive brand, running popular restaurants in the Chicagoland area and putting his visage on everything from fine wine and Bloody Mary mix to salsa and giardiniera, a spicy Italian relish that is popular in the Chicagoland area.

A staunch Republican, Ditka considered running for Illinois' open Senate seat in 2004 but ultimately decided against it.

A Democrat named Barack Obama ended up winning the office, and Ditka, with no small amount of bitterness, would later remark that the course of American history would have been different had he decided to pursue the office.