Mike dikta biography

He signed with the Bears and his presence was immediately felt. In his first season, Ditka had 58 receptions, introducing a new dimension to a tight end position that had previously been dedicated to blocking. He also scored 12 receiving touchdowns, which was the most by a Bears rookie. His success earned him Rookie of the Year honors. He continued to play for the Bears for the next five years, earning a Pro Bowl trip each season.

He played on the NFL championship team. Many of the players from that team, including Ditka, were drafted by assistant coach George Allen, a future Hall of Famer, who was then in charge of the Bears drafts. With the prospect of high school graduation looming, Ditka wanted to do something with his life that would take him away from the steel and mining industries of the area.

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Luckily, his athletic skills were hard to overlook and local schools such as Penn State, Pitt, and Notre Dame all sought his services. Ditka picked Penn State and then flipped to play at Pitt, mainly due to his desire to become a dentist. HOFer H2P pic. Practices with Ditka were heated as he demanded that his teammates and coaches push each other hard.

The Pitt offense at the time was run-heavy, as was the primary custom across the football landscape at the time. Ditka led the team in receptions again with 16 for yards and four scores and averaged just over 38 yards per punt. Here's something for ThrowbackThursday. Mike Ditka from his time as Pitt student-athlete. H2P TBT pic. He was like a prize fighter in the ring.

He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in and had his mike dikta biography 89 retired by the school in Mike Ditka at Pitt. He would change the way the TE postion was played when he got to Chicago. Inwhile the Bears wentDitka caught 56 passes for a career-high 1, yards and 12 touchdowns also a career-high and a record for Chicago rookies.

Image of Chicago Bears tight end Mike Ditka on the far left with teammates during a workout at Soldier Field in via Wikimedia Commons, public domain pic. Ditka pulled in 59 passes for yards and eight touchdowns which netted him another Pro Bowl nod along with a first-team All-Pro selection. During a game against the LA Rams on October 13, Ditka tied a franchise record when he caught four touchdown passes to help crush LA Then, during a game against Pittsburgh on November 24, Ditka caught a pass and blasted through six Steeler defenders for a long gain.

In the championship game, Ditka caught three passes for 38 yards and Chicago scored 14 points while blanking the Giants in the second half for a victory. That season, he caught a career-high 75 passes which was second on the team for yards and five scores. InChicago went but missed the postseason as Ditka collected 36 passes for yards and two scores.

He was poetry in motion. Besides that, he was a great guy. Ditka was frustrated and negotiated a new deal with the Oilers, who still had his rights from the AFL Draft. I keep that, no matter what. His first year with his new club coincided with an injury, leading Ditka to miss games for the first time in his career. He also switched his jersey number to 98 and hauled in 26 passes for yards and two touchdowns in The following year, Ditka changed his number back to 89 and made only six starts, leading to just 13 catches for yards and two scores.

Thankfully for both Ditka and the Eagles, he was traded again after the season, this time to the talented Dallas Cowboys. Ditka started four games for Dallas in and collected 17 receptions for yards and three touchdowns as the Cowboys went and lost to Cleveland in the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Cowboys took a record into the postseason where they defeated Detroit and San Francisco in the first two games to meet the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V.

During the fourth quarter, quarterback Roger Staubach found Ditka for a seven-yard touchdown on the way to a resounding win. He had 17 receptions for yards and a touchdown as Dallas went and lost in the NFC Championship game against Washington. However, in his senior year, he also showed the anger that would later get him in trouble as a coach: at the halftime of a game, he slammed a teammate into a locker because the teammate had missed a tackle.

A week later, he apologized.

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InDitka was drafted by the Chicago Bears, and spent six years playing with them as a tight end. Although he was not fast, he was unstoppable once he had the ball. Ditka was also willing to play through pain; in he played most of the season with a separated shoulder. He could not lift his left hand higher than his shoulder, but caught balls by swatting them with his right hand and pinning them to his chest.

InDitka was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles, and played two years with them before being traded to the Dallas Cowboys, with whom he played four more seasons. He retired from playing football after that season. During his career he caught passes, 43 for touchdowns. He averaged Ditka did not remain unemployed for long. He was soon hired by Tom Landrythe Cowboys' head coach, as an offensive assistant and special teams coach.

Inthe Chicago Bears' famed coach, George Halaswho had drafted Ditka as a player, brought him back to Chicago, this time as head coach of the Bears. He would coach the Bears for 11 seasons, period of time that would bring him lasting fame in football.

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In the s, the Bears were a strong team; from tothey had 52 regular-season victories, the most ever by an NFL team in any four-year period. Their success hinged largely on one player, running back Walter Payton. Ditka told Mike Sager in Esquire that other teams "tried to stop our running game, and it didn't matter if they did stop it, because we kept trying to run the football, and eventually we made it work.

And we made it work because of one guy — Walter Payton. InDitka was named the Sporting News Coach of the Year as the Bears went and won the Super Bowl over the New England Patriots in with, as Paul Attner wrote in the Sporting News, "some of the toughest, most aggressive, hard-nosed football you could ever want. It was the team's first championship since The Bears failed to repeat as championships, losing early in the playoffs to the Washington Redskins.

Their victory inhowever, brought the team fame. As Friedman pointed out, the Bears led the NFL in endorsements at that time; several, including Ditka, owned restaurants; and 13, including Ditka, had their own radio or television shows. Ditka was appearing on both television and radio. That season he led the Bears to a record and was named Sporting News Coach of the Year for the second time.

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