Column: Chicago mourns Mike Ditka, the Pennsylvania kid who became the ultimate symbol of our town

To pigeonhole Mike Ditka as one of the great sports figures in Chicago history would be an injustice to his legacy.

To many he was the living, breathing image of Chicago, as much a part of our storied history as Mrs. O’Leary, Al Capone, the Water Tower, Muddy Waters, Mayor Richard J. Daley, Michael Jordan and Tom Skilling.

Ditka was everything we like to think we are as Chicagoans — tough, funny, mischievous, outspoken, hardworking and fun-loving. And he was sometimes everything we don’t often admit to being — stubborn, loud-mouthed, off-color, oversensitive and occasionally rude.

He wasn’t perfect, but he was perfectly imperfect, and Chicago loved him because he was Da Coach, and that is all that really mattered.

The eulogies will be spoken and the clips will be played as Chicago mourns the death of a beloved icon. All the great quotes, the NFL films highlights, the Super Fans skits.

In 1992 he got the rare opportunity to be a witness to his own “wake” when Bears fans mourned his firing as coach like we’d lost a member of our own family.

Ditka will go down as one of the best coaches in Chicago Bears history and remains the only one to win a Super Bowl. Truth be told, he was a very good coach, not a great one. Ditka was the right guy in the right place at the right time — the last big decision by“Papa Bear” George Halas— and was fortunate enough to inherit the most graceful running back in history in Walter Payton and the core of a defensive unit that would be revered forever for one special season.

That 1985 Super Bowl season was, of course, the greatest of all time. It’s an indisputable fact, like saying water is wet. And it most assuredly never would have happened without Ditka as the ringleader, creating his brand and letting his players’ personalities shine without exception. He could never replicate it with most of the same players, arguably getting outcoached by Joe Gibbs and Bill Walsh in playoff losses the following seasons.

But few blamed Ditka, because he was Da Coach, and that is all that really mattered.

Ditka was from Aliquippa, Pa., a steel mill town where my own father and grandfather were born and everyone worked until the job was done right. There are no shortcuts taken in a steel mill town, and those lessons served Ditka well. He was cut from his high school team for being too small, then grew into one of the most imposing tight ends in history, a Hall of Famer who rolled over the Pittsburgh Steelers defense on a 63-yard romp on one remarkable afternoon in November 1963, looking like a steamroller covering potholes.

“One of the greatest individual efforts I’ve seen in my 40 years of football,” Halas said afterward. “They had him stopped a half-dozen times, but his feet never stopped churning.” It was the quintessential highlight reel of his playing career, epitomizing one man’s refusal to go down. Little did anyone know that would be his life’s calling card, from special teams coach in Dallas to head coach of the Bears.

Ditka was a master motivator in many people’s minds, a “take no quarter” coach who threw clipboards and punched lockers, once breaking his hand after a 1983 loss in Baltimore. He insisted he wasn’t mad. “I get excited about a number of things,” he said. “It’s my nature. I would like to stand out there like (coaches Bud) Grant and (Tom) Landry. But I can’t.”

Ditka was also the one who in 1986 brought in diminutive quarterback Doug Flutie to play over beloved Jim McMahon and hometown kid Mike Tomczak, causing dissension for no real reason. “Ditka talks about being loyal to ballplayers who go through training camp.” McMahon said. “Tell me where the loyalty is?” Ditka’s response was a figurative middle finger. “I frankly don’t give a damn,” he said. “Wasn’t that a line in a movie?” He also tried to legitimize the “Spare Bears,” the scab team that pretended to be pros in 1987, spoiling the illusion of being a “player’s coach” and temporarily soiling his blue-collar image.

He also wanted to fight defensive coach Buddy Ryan at halftime of the famous game against the Miami Dolphins in 1985, when the Bears were still unbeaten and Ryan’s popularity in Chicago was just a notch below Ditka’s. The jealousy was unbecoming of a man of Ditka’s stature, and even after Ryan left for the Philadelphia Eagles job, their bitter feud lasted for years. But it eventually led to a reconciliation at the 25th anniversary of the Super Bowl season in 2010. “It took me a long time to get smarter and understand things,” Ditka told ESPN’s Melissa Isaacson. “You’re headstrong when you’re young … (but) I certainly have grown to understand and appreciate what these guys meant and what this coach meant, because his players related to him on defense like I’ve never seen before or since.”

Smarter and more forgiving, Ditka never stopped evolving.

The Ditka myth grew over the years, and “Saturday Night Live” added to the legend by supersizing Ditka’s reputation as an indomitable winner, making him into a cartoonish character with the Super Fans skits. He made dozens of commercials that typically played on his tough guy veneer, cashing in on anything and everything. He expertly played himself in the movie “Kicking & Screaming” and tried to capitalize on “The Super Bowl Shuffle” success with his own dance video, “The Grabowski Shuffle.” It was a cash grab that didn’t pan out, but so what?

We loved him anyway because he was Da Coach, and that is all that really mattered.

He was the star of eponymous “Mike Ditka Show” on Sunday mornings, which were taped on Thursday nights, often after the coach had a cocktail or two. Feisty Ditka was must-see TV before every Bears game, frequently beating the political talk shows in ratings, as were his postgame shows with ex-Bears teammate and sports anchor Johnny Morris. The shows were never scripted and always entertaining, especially if the Bears lost. Ben Johnson can only dream of being a TV star of Ditka’s magnitude.

Ditka was probably the man most responsible for Bears fans’ antipathy toward the McCaskeys and ultimately was fired in 1992 by the blue-blooded Mike McCaskey, who was as loathed in Chicago as Ditka was admired. McCaskey said the Bears needed “fresh ideas,” another way of calling him a football dinosaur. In his final TV appearance on WBBM-Ch. 2 before his firing, Ditka said: “The main reason Mr. Halas hired me was not to win football games. It was to restore pride.”

In the end, he did both, winning six NFL Central titles and 106 games in his 11 years on the clock. McCaskey later was replaced by his brother George, whose “fresh ideas” include a possible domed stadium in Indiana.

Oh, the irony.

Ditka basically invented the career of William “The Refrigerator” Perry, the jumbo-sized tackle who was put in the backfield one day in 1985 against the San Francisco 49ers because Ditka never forgot a slight from the previous year’s NFC title game. The Fridge became a household name, and even Mayor Harold Washington created a soulful cheerleading group named “The Refrigerettes.” But when Ditka gave the Fridge the opportunity to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl at the expense of Payton, it was a slight that lingered for years. “Sweetness” deserved his TD.

But we loved him anyway because he was Da Coach, and that is all that really mattered.

Ditka loved to spar with the media and was not adverse to giving fans the finger or throwing a wad of his already chewed gum at someone, as he once did at Candlestick Park. As a player he once shoved a fan who ran onto the field during a Bears-Rams game. These moments of sporadic rage made Chicago admire Ditka even more. Who hadn’t reacted the same way after being cut off by a clueless driver on the Kennedy?

In his post-football life, Ditka was a Republican-supporting citizen in a deep-blue city. The GOP asked him to run for Illinois senator in the Republican primary in 2004 to replace disgraced candidate Jack Ryan. Fortunately he opted not to run, saying: ”I don’t know how I’d do on the Senate floor if I got into a confrontation with someone I didn’t appreciate, or maybe he didn’t appreciate me.” It was a wise choice, and he likely would’ve lost in a landslide to a young state senator named Barack Obama.

Ditka was different things to different people. Not everyone was on board with his shtick, but it was hard for anyone to ignore him. As Chicago celebrates the life of a man who made us smile for decades, it’s safe to say Ditka always did things his way, like it or not.

Because he was Da Coach, and that is all that really mattered.