Mike Ditka is back in Chicago, which still feels like home

On an idyllic Chicago summer day, a coach looks out his high-rise window over the city that was his.

Mike Ditka is in a good place, yes, but more than that, he is where he belongs.

Dan Hampton and I take the elevator up and are greeted by the wagging tail and soulful stare of Bella, a biscuit-colored mixed breed who must have been sent here to lift spirits. Among the others in the welcoming committee are Diana, Mike’s devoted wife of nearly half a century, John Vincent, his figurative adoptive son, and Kira Novak, Vincent’s companion.

Hampton and Ditka, Chicago Bears legends, greet one another warmly. Then I step up. It had been about three years since Ditka and I were together.

“Here’s your antagonist,” a grinning Hampton says to Ditka.

Ditka’s blue eyes lock in on me like it’s the mid-1980s and I am asking him about William Perry’s weight.

Then he smiles that old smile.

“You shaved your head,” he says.

We chuckle. Well, I tell him, Father Time has done a number on me.

As he does to us all.

About four-and-a-half years ago, the Ditkas moved to Naples, Fla., where they had owned property since his heyday as coach of the Bears. Then almost two years ago, Mike and Diana put their Naples house on the market. Though he was raised in Aliquippa, Pa., and lived in Philadelphia, Dallas and New Orleans, there could be only one city for his coda.

The condominium is not far from the Gold Coast building that housed the once-hopping Ditka’s Restaurant, where Vincent made beautiful music and the chefs made signature pork chops with apple chutney and cherry jus. Before Ditka’s closed in 2020 (thanks, COVID-19), it seemed like the coach was almost always there in that corner booth near the entrance, never refusing anyone with a pen or camera, the rare celebrity restaurateur who actually could be touched in his establishment.

A Ditka’s Restaurant in Oak Brook remains open and features a cartoon image of Ditka on the menus. There was a time when Ditka was larger than life. It became satire.

Coach Ditka versus the hurricane. Who would win?

Ditka!

The man the restaurants were named for doesn’t get around much anymore. You couldn’t expect him to after enduring a dozen years of NFL violence long before anyone heard the term “player safety.” He had a hard limp 40 years ago, has had three hip replacements and is 86 years old.

Ditka still has a full head of hair combed back the way you remember it. His forearms remain thick like fire extinguishers. And he wears a delicate chain with a gold cross around his neck.

What should I tell people who ask about him?

“Tell them I’m good,” he says.

And he is. Oh, he has struggles. But good people are with him. Diana is his safe harbor. His children Matt, Mark and Megan check in on him frequently. A caregiver asks if he needs anything. And he never was one to complain. He used to like to say the going up is worth the coming down. He isn’t backing off that now.

Ditka remains as proud as he was that day in February of 1986 when, with a silver trophy in one hand and a lit cigar in the other, he led a parade down LaSalle Street wearing just a suit — no overcoat, hat or gloves — in a wind chill of 30 below. He made the City of Broad Shoulders stick out its chest a little farther, and now he deserves his dignity.

If we consider that he’s survived a heart attack and a couple of strokes, we might conclude he’s already in the overtime of his life.

Ditka has been losing contemporaries since July of 1964, when Willie Gallimore’s Volkswagen swerved and rolled, killing Gallimore and Bo Farrington in a training camp tragedy. A few hours later, Ditka, along with teammates Bill George and Rick Casares, went to the morgue to confirm their identities. So many have left him since — his dear friend Joe Marconi, his radio partner Mike Pyle and his fierce rival in golf, cards and racquetball, Dan Reeves. Gone, too, is former teammate Dick Butkus, with whom Ditka appeared in a 1988 Illinois Office of Tourism advertisement that reunited the two at Butch McGuire’s, set to “Calling Me Home, Chicago.”

Only seven living former Bears are older. Johnny Morris, with whom Ditka made spectacular television theater on postgame shows, is now the eldest Bear at 90. The others are Charles Howley, 90, Maury Youmans, 89, Bob Wetoska, 88, Justin Rowland, 89, Richie Petitbon, 88, and Richard Norman, 87.

Through it all, Ditka has been unyielding.

This is the Iron Mike who refused to go down on that play for the ages against the Pittsburgh Steelers the Sunday after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, leaving one, two, three, four defenders crumpled on the ground as his legs kept churning. He’s the same Iron Mike who set a tight end record in 1964 with 75 catches while playing the entire season with a dislocated shoulder. It’s the Iron Mike who was back on the sideline 11 days after that heart attack. The same Iron Mike wouldn’t even consider resting his starters when he had home field clinched, and the one who preferred to run it down your throat one more time than take a damn knee.

He still watches the Bears — his Bears — for whom he redefined a position as a player and then set a standard as a coach that they have not come close to reaching since. Not surprisingly, he likes Ben Johnson’s style. I tell him Johnson reminds me of him in his boldness, fearlessness and transparency. He nods.

Ditka isn’t as talkative as he used to be, and that’s all right. His eyes say what his words once did. They tell stories, like the one about him getting misty-eyed the first time he put on his Bears jersey in 1961, of how he sobbed when George Halas traded him to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1967, and of how, after playing for the Cowboys in 1969 and 1970, he asked Halas to trade for him so he could finish his playing career with the Bears. And his eyes tell the story about when he wrote that letter to Halas in 1981, asking to be considered if Halas ever needed a head coach.

Hampton dials a number and hands Ditka his phone. On the line is Jay McGreevy, who owned a company that sold kitchen appliances and befriended Ditka and many star Chicago athletes through endorsements and rounds of golf at an exclusive country club. McGreevy is 96 and asked Hampton to put them in touch.

“Hey, Jay,” Ditka says, clearly pleased to connect. “How are you?”

Hampton was recently in Canton, Ohio, for the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He was one of 127 Hall of Famers present, and it seemed like every one of them asked about the Hall of Famer who wasn’t there, Hampton’s old coach.

Hampton tells Ditka he and former Dallas Cowboy Randy White laughed hard about when Ditka was special teams coach of the Cowboys and was being tested by Hollywood Henderson’s habitual disinterest. White, Hampton tells Ditka, still can hear the echoes of Ditka on full blast.

Old stories, Hampton knows, are therapy.

Does Ditka remember the time he sent Jim McMahon home with film to study a new concept? Ditka couldn’t forget it. Hampton says the next day, Ditka asked McMahon if the tapes helped him understand. Yes, McMahon said. Then Ditka blew up, telling him the film was intentionally left blank.

Others come to see him, a benefit of being back in Chicago. His former players who have visited include McMahon, Jim Covert, Gary Fencik, Mike Singletary, Keith Van Horne and Tim Wrightman. Today, radio heavyweight Larry Wert stops by.

Vincent, grateful for all the love the Ditkas gave him when no one knew who he was, comes twice a week. His booming voice fills their living room with song — “The Summer Wind,” “What Is This Thing Called Love?” and “My Way,” never more appropriate.

Outside, there is the Chicago Water Tower. And the Hancock Building, or whatever someone who isn’t from Chicago renamed it.

We’re a short walk to Pizzeria Uno, where the first deep-dish pizza was made in 1943.

On the table, courtesy of Vincent, are Italian beef sandwiches and hot dogs.

All around, Chicago icons.

And then there is Ditka.

“He’s the best Chicago celebrity ever because he became Chicago,” Vincent says.

Why did he move back?

“Chicago,” Ditka says, “is my home.”

© 2026 The Athletic Media Company. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by New York Times Licensing.