Mike Ditka
Overview
Michael Keller Ditka, Jr. (born October 18, 1939) is a former American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 player, television commentator, and coach. Ditka coached the Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...

 for 11 years and New Orleans Saints
New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans, Louisiana. They are members of the South Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League ....

 for three years. Ditka and Tom Flores
Tom Flores
Thomas R. "Tom" Flores is a retired American football quarterback and coach. Flores and Mike Ditka are the only two people in the National Football League history to win a Super Bowl as a player, as an assistant coach, and as a head coach...

 are the only two people to win Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...

s as a player, an assistant coach, and a head coach. Ditka was the only individual to participate in both of the last two Chicago Bears' championships, as a player in 1963
1963 NFL season
The 1963 NFL season was the 44th regular season of the National Football League. On April 17, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle indefinitely suspended Green Bay Packers running back Paul Hornung and Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alex Karras for gambling on their own teams, as well as other NFL games;...

 and as head coach in 1985
1985 NFL season
The 1985 NFL season was the 66th regular season of the National Football League. The season ended with Super Bowl XX when the Chicago Bears defeated the New England Patriots.-Major rule changes:...

.
Ditka was born as Michael Dyczko in the Pittsburgh-area town of Carnegie on October 18, 1939.
Quotations

Effort without talent is a depressing situation....but talent without effort is a tragedy.

He throws nickels around like manhole covers.

In reference to George Halas during a contract dispute in his playing days.

If you're not in the parade, you watch the parade. That's life.

Success isn't measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.

You're never a loser until you quit trying.

Success isn't permanent and failure isn't fatal; its the courage to continue that counts.

"There are teams that are fair-haired, and those that aren't so fair-haired. Some teams are named Smith, some Grabowski. We're Grabowskis!" – A reference to the Bears' blue collar background.

"I don't believe in living in the past. Living in the past is for cowards. If you live in the past, you die in the past."

 
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