![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2026\/z100926rip_mike_ditka.png\")
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Mike Ditka died today from natural causes.\u00a0 Mr. Ditka was 86.<\/p>\n
Mike Ditka was born Michael Dyczko.\u00a0 His family changed their surname to Ditka because it was so hard to pronounce.\u00a0 Mike played three sports in high school where he excelled at football.\u00a0 After his graduation, Mr. Ditka was recruited by Notre Dame, Penn State, and Pitt. He planned to become a dentist.<\/p>\n
Mike Ditka selected Pitt where he was again he was a three sport athlete: football, baseball and basketball.\u00a0 He started all three years in a variety of positions.\u00a0 Mike Ditka was selected as the team captain his senior year.\u00a0 He was also a unanimous first-team selection on the College Football All-America Team.<\/p>\n
Mike Ditka was selected by the Chicago Bears fifth overall in the 1961 NFL draft.\u00a0 Mr. Ditka was selected as Rookie of the Year due to his success on the field.\u00a0 He would go on to make the Pro Bowl in each of the next five years.<\/p>\n
Unable to reach a contract agreement, Mike Ditka was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles where he played for two years.\u00a0 Injuries plagued Mr. Ditka and after two years he was traded to the Dallas Cowboys.\u00a0 He played five seasons for the Cowboys before announcing his retirement as a player.\u00a0 At the time of his retirement,\u00a0 Mike Ditka’s 427 receptions were the most by a tight end in NFL history.<\/p>\n
When Mr. Ditka announced his retirement, Dallas’ Head Coach, Tom Landry, immediately hired him as an assistant coach.\u00a0 Mike Ditka’s successful run with the Cowboys inspired him to express his interest in a head coach position with the Chicago Bears if it became available.\u00a0 It did and in 1982 Mike Ditka was hired to fill it.<\/p>\n
In 1984, their third season under Coach Ditka, the Bears went to the National Championship.\u00a0 In 1985, the Bears compiled a 15-1 record and were Super Bowl Champions.\u00a0 Mike Ditka went on to coach the Chicago Bears through the 1992 season.\u00a0 After a four year break, Mike Ditka accepted the head coach position for the New Orleans Saints where he coached for three years.\u00a0 Mike Ditka then moved into broadcasting working for NBC, CBS and ESPN.<\/p>\n
Mike Ditka was the first tight end\u00a0 inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
As a lifelong Chicago Bears fan, Mike Ditka is easily my all-time favorite football coach.<\/p>\n
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mike Ditka’s family, friends and fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike Ditka died today from natural causes.\u00a0 Mr. Ditka was 86. Mike Ditka was born Michael Dyczko.\u00a0 His family changed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,57,49,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-rip","category-sports","category-tv"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43073,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43072\/revisions\/43073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}