On Friday, the National Football League lost one of the legendary figures of the sport, and someone who fans of the Minnesota Vikings are very familiar with, even though he never wore the purple and gold.
Mike Ditka, who was the first tight end to ever be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and later went on to become a Super Bowl-winning head coach for the Chicago Bears, passed away on Friday. He was 86 years old.
Ditka, ironically enough, came into the NFL the same year that the Vikings did,
as the Bears selected him with the fifth pick of the 1961 NFL Draft. He was also selected #8 overall in the AFL Draft that year by the Houston Oilers, but opted to play for Chicago instead. Over the course of his playing career, he played for Chicago, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Dallas Cowboys. Upon retiring in 1973, he joined Tom Landry’s staff in Dallas, where he was an assistant until the Bears hired him as their head coach in 1982.
Ditka led the Bears for 11 seasons, from 1982 to 1992. That meant he got to lead the Bears into the Metrodome once a year, and he didn’t have much of an affinity for the place. In 1987, he referred to it as the “Rollerdome,” stating that it would be better suited for roller skating than for football. Then-Vikings GM Mike Lynn responded by sending a pair of roller skates to Halas Hall. The nickname actually stuck to the point where a skating club was founded that used the Dome until it was torn down following the Vikings’ 2013 season.
The game Vikings fans may remember most, however, is likely Ditka’s final game at the Metrodome as the Bears’ head coach in 1992. In that game, the Bears led the Vikings 20-0 early in the fourth quarter, and Chicago quarterback Jim Harbaugh called an audible that he thought was going to be a short pass to running back Neal Anderson. Anderson missed the audible, and instead the pass went to Vikings’ defensive back Todd Scott, who took the ball into the end zone for a 35-yard touchdown. That was the first of three unanswered touchdowns for the Vikings, who turned that 20-0 deficit into an improbable 21-20 victory.
Ditka was. . .shall we say. . .less than impressed with Harbaugh’s decision.
After leaving Chicago, Ditka took a break from coaching for several seasons before being hired by the New Orleans Saints in 1997. He coached the Saints for three seasons before leaving the coaching ranks for good after the 1999 season and moving into the world of broadcasting.
Ditka is one of just two people, along with former Raiders head coach Tom Flores, to win a Super Bowl as a player, an assistant coach, and a head coach.
We want to send our condolences to the family, friends, and loved ones of Mike Ditka on his passing, as well as to our NFC North brethren in Chicago, who are no doubt taking this one pretty hard.
