Mike Ditka, the Hall of Fame tight end who coached the Chicago Bears to their only Super Bowl title while living in Lake County, has died at age 86, his family announced Friday.
Jarrett Payton, whose father, Walter Payton, was the star running back on Ditka’s 1985 team, shared a statement from the Ditka family announcing Ditka’s death at age 86 Friday morning.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, Mike Ditka,” the family said in the statement.
“While the world knew Mike as a Hall of Fame football player, legendary coach, and leader of the Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl XX championship team, we knew him as the heart of our family. Mike will be missed beyond measure and remembered forever,” the family said.
Ditka, who was known as “Iron Mike” and later “Da Coach,” was born October 18, 1939, in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and grew up in nearby Aliquippa before playing football at the University of Pittsburgh.
The Bears drafted Ditka in the first round in 1961 and he was named the NFL’s Rookie of the Year after catching 56 passes for 1,076 yards and 12 touchdowns, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Ditka won the 1963 NFL championship with the Bears and played six seasons in Chicago before he was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles.
He finished his playing career with the Dallas Cowboys and scored the final touchdown in their 24-3 win over the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI.
Ditka spent nine seasons as a Cowboys assistant coach under Tom Landry before Bears founder George Halas hired him as head coach in January 1982.
The Bears were based at the original Halas Hall on the campus of Lake Forest College throughout Ditka’s 11 seasons as coach before the team moved to its current Halas Hall in Lake Forest in 1997.
Ditka lived in Grayslake during the 1985 season, when the Bears went 15-1 and beat the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX for the franchise’s only Super Bowl title.
He was named NFL Coach of the Year after that season and again in 1988, the same year he became the first tight end inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A heart attack sent Ditka from Halas Hall to Lake Forest Hospital, now Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital, after a morning workout on November 2, 1988.
He was released a week later to his Grayslake home and was back on the sideline 11 days after the heart attack.
The Bears finished that season 12-4 and reached the NFC Championship Game for the third time in five seasons.
Ditka and his wife, Diana, moved from Grayslake to Bannockburn in 1989.
The Bears fired Ditka in January 1993 after a 5-11 season, ending an 11-year run in which the team went 106-62 in the regular season and made the playoffs seven times.
Ditka worked as a television analyst for NBC before the New Orleans Saints hired him in 1997, at which time he and his wife sold their Bannockburn home.
He went 15-33 in three seasons with the Saints and later worked as an analyst for ESPN.
Ditka was a longtime member of Bob O’Link Golf Club in Highland Park. He suffered a minor stroke there while playing cards in November 2012.
The Bears retired Ditka’s No. 89 jersey in December 2013.
He suffered another heart attack while golfing in Naples, Florida, in November 2018. Ditka and his wife moved back to Chicago in late 2024 after selling their home in Naples.
Ditka’s death comes after Matt Suhey, a fullback on Ditka’s 1985 team, died September 6 at age 68, according to the Bears.
Ditka’s family did not announce a cause of death and funeral arrangements were not immediately available.