Mike Ditka told it like it was — and Chicago loved him for it. No beating around the bush, but maybe a threat to beat the bejesus out of someone who got his goat. Whether it was an obnoxious Bears fan yelling at him after a loss on the field or a reporter who asked a question he didn’t care to answer, Da Coach always had a ready, blunt and frequently hilarious response.
Threatening Neal from North Lake
In 1992, Ditka had a weekly show on WSCR-AM Radio. A caller accused the Bears coach of being a crybaby. Ditka promptly offered to meet the caller, “Neal from North Lake,” at the coach’s downtown office at a time of Neal’s choosing. “You tell me what time and when, and I’ll whip your ass,” the 53-year-old coach said.
Throwing his gum at a Niners fan
It wasn’t just punches that Ditka threw or threatened to throw. In 1987, after his team suffered a 41-0 loss in San Francisco, Ditka hurled a wad of gum into the stands, allegedly hitting a woman. During the game, fans had been throwing beer and ice cubes at the Bears bench.
“Any time someone throws something at me,” he later said, “I’m going to throw it back.”
Ditka’s press conferences
Ditka was often at his fiery best during press conferences, especially when things weren’t going so well for his team, like when this reporter asked Ditka why he was in such a bad mood.
@nflonfox Never gets old 😂 #mikeditka #chicagobears #nfl #football
On one occasion, Ditka all but abandoned his press duties (at least for a time) to spar with a heckling passerby. “I’d rather talk to him,” Ditka told reporters. “I know I’m smarter than that son of a b—h.”
Ditka challenging the Bears fan base for sitting on their hands
Even after a Bears win, Ditka was more than happy to berate fans who he thought didn’t do enough to support their team: “I thought we were in a mortuary for a while.”
When Ditka took on George Halas
Almost anyone was fair game in Ditka’s book. When he was a tight end for the Bears, got traded to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1967, he famously said: Owner George Halas “throws nickels around like manhole covers.”
Ditka, on the occasion of having his jersey retired in 2013, told the Sun-Times: “I think it hurt him. It bothered him, even though I said it in jest. I said it as a joke at a banquet, trying to be a smart ass, like we all are. But I think it bothered him, I really do. And I told him that I never really meant it that way. But then again, he forgot about it because he hired me as a coach. But at that time, it did bother him. Don’t forget, that was the sixties. There was no big money being made in pro football, believe me.”
Ditka and Buddy Ryan
They feuded for years and famously shoved each other during half-time of the Bears’ only defeat of the 1985 season, a 38-24 loss to the Dolphins. Ditka was the head coach, Buddy Ryan, his defensive coordinator. But when Ryan died in 2016, Ditka had mostly kind things to say about his former rival: “Buddy and I, we were good for each other,” Ditka told the Sun-Times, “because we were good for the Bears.”