Mike Ditka, one of the toughest, oneriest, yet most dedicated players to ever wear the star has passed away, his family announced earlier today. He was 86.
"He just wore the persona of football," owner Jerry Jones said of Ditka during an interview on 105.3 The Fan. "The fact that he was with the Dallas Cowboys, and the fact he enjoyed those great years. … We're going to miss him. If you like football, you're going to miss Mike Ditka."
Largely associated with the Bears, Ditka earned induction into the Hall of Fame as a game-changing tight end and later, as Chicago's head coach, led the team to a Super Bowl title in 1985. But his roots with the Cowboys run deep. After a two-year stint in Philadelphia, he came to Dallas in 1969 and served the role of a grizzled veteran, helping the team shake loose its Next Year's Champions nickname.
"I think everybody had a great deal of respect for him," said Bob Lilly during an interview for a Cowboys' Legends Show about Ditka's time in Dallas (Mike Dikta: Da Coach, Da Cowboy). "I knew that he would add a lot of fire to our team, which we kind of needed."
Ditka finished with 924 receiving yards and five touchdowns over his four seasons with the Cowboys. During that time, Dallas reached the Super Bowl in 1970 and then won the Lombardi Trophy in 1971 with a 24-3 victory against the Dolphins. Ditka scored the game's final touchdown to secure the win.
"He was well respected, and he was really a team player," said Roger Staubach in the same documentary. "In that '71 season when we turned it around, I used the story of how we won 10 in a row because we started playing together as a team. And Mike was responsible for a lot of that."
Following his retirement as a player in 1973, Ditka immediately joined Tom Landry's staff and spent the next nine years working under his mentor as a receivers and special teams coach.
"Mike was a very smart football player and a very smart coach," former player personnel director Gil Brandt once said. "He did a great job. His only problem was he was a little bit stubborn. And the great thing about it is that Coach Landry kind of subdued the stubbornness and made him more flexible."
"Well, you know Mike was the first one to come up with the idea that we should use a shotgun (formation)," said Dan Reeves, another player turned assistant coach for Landry. "He said, 'It will give us a little more time. You know we got a quarterback who can scramble.'"
"It wasn't my idea. What I said was, 'Why don't we do it like the old single wing? Move the quarterback away. And (Landry) thought about it for a while, and he came in with a whole bunch of plays designed off of that."
The result was another trip to the Super during that 1975 season. In fact, during Ditka's tenure with the organization, the Cowboys appeared in five Super Bowls, winning two. But when the Bears head coaching job came open in 1982, he became the natural choice and went on to post a 106-62 record in 11 years at the helm, an impressive .631 winning percentage.
Still, his time with the Cowboys shouldn't be forgotten. Despite his association with Chicago, Dallas, and in particular Landry, always remained dear to his heart.
"I mean, I love the Cowboys. I still love the Cowboys, I mean it," said Ditka in the documentary. "Tom gave me a chance, first of all, and then I made good on the chance. And then when he asked me to be an assistant coach, my whole life changed. It had purpose.
"I was the luckiest guy in the world. I fell into something and got to work for him."
