Mike Ditka May Be Dynamic, but He’s Always Had That Short Fuse

Mike Prisuta of the Beaver County Times in Pennsylvania, recalling Mike Ditka’s days at Aliquippa High School, wrote: “He was named most popular among the Class of ‘57, along with Margie Dougherty, whom he would later marry. He was also in the astronomy club, the varsity club and was class president.�

A model young citizen, right? You bet. Just don’t ask about his temper.

Wrote Prisuta: “One time we were playing Beaver Falls. One of our guys got his leg broke. It was a good, clean hit, but Mike, he just went out of his mind. He walked right in the other team’s huddle and said, ‘You know, that was my buddy and I’m going to kill every one of you guys.’ He stood there screaming at them, and they were all looking back at him like he was crazy.�

Prisuta added: “In his senior year, he became so enraged over missing a layup in a basketball game that he smashed his hand into a wall. The result was a broken wrist. He played the next few games with a cast on his hand.�

Charlotte Ditka, Mike’s mother, told Prisuta: “He still loses his temper, but he doesn’t punch walls anymore. Of course, they don’t make walls like they used to. Now, if you do it, your hand might go right through it.�

Add Ditka: A couple of seasons ago, after a loss, he punched an equipment trunk in the Chicago locker room and broke his right hand. Before the next game, according to the New York Times, he gave what he called his “win one for the Gipper� speech.

Doing his best Rockne impersonation with his right hand in a cast, he wound up by saying, “Now, let’s go out there and win one for Lefty.�

The players broke up. With that, they went out and won a rare laugher.

Gary Fencik, on why he knew things would be different when Ditka took over the Bears in 1982: “‘We had a mini-camp in Arizona, and it was more like a social affair until Ditka took over. In two days of mini-camp under Ditka, he ran us so much that I couldn’t walk down the stairs without holding onto the handrail.�

The Bears had 53 veterans in that camp. Only 13 remain today.

Trivia Time: New England’s Tony Eason will be the second quarterback from the University of Illinois to start in an NFL championship game. Who was the other? (Answer below.)

Reserve tackle Andy Frederick is the only member of the Chicago Bears with Super Bowl experience. He played for Dallas in 1978 and 1979.

He’s now on the threshold of picking up another $64,000 in postseason money, and he told Skip Bayless of the Dallas Times Herald: “I find it all pretty amusing. Before Dallas drafted me, I’d never played on a winning team. In fact, New Mexico was the only school that offered me a full scholarship. I never was that good an athlete.�

Add Frederick: Tom Landry, who has trouble with names--he once introduced Gary Hogeboom as Phil Pozderac and then changed it to Hoganbloom--often referred to Frederick as Frederickson.

Bayless wrote: “Once, Landry even called him Andy Anderson, confusing him with the outdoors writer for the Dallas Morning News.�

Trivia Answer: Tommy O’Connell of the Cleveland Browns in 1957. He was the NFL’s top-rated passer that year, but in the title game against the Detroit Lions, he came up short. Detroit won, 59-14.

Quotebook

Pat Haden, on his biggest regret as a quarterback: “I never could figure out why I always was breaking my hand. When you get hurt, you want to be carried off the field on a stretcher. Me, I always walked off holding my pinky.�