The Funniest Man in Sports? Da Coach! Mike Ditka!

Henry Hill: You're a pistol, you're really funny. You're really funny.
Tommy DeVito: What do you mean I'm funny?
Henry Hill: It's funny, you know. It's a good story, it's funny, you're a funny guy.
[laughs]
Tommy DeVito: what do you mean, you mean the way I talk? What?
Henry Hill: It's just, you know. You're just funny, it's...funny, the way you tell the story and everything.
Tommy DeVito: [it becomes quiet] Funny how? What's funny about it?

In this era of careful, corporate, and cardboard cut-out coaches; faceless, interchangeable men shuffled in and out every three years; men who are afraid to say anything that could possibly offend any one; Mike Ditka would be a tsunami of fresh air.

Sure Ditka couldn't develop a quarterback or a passing offense if his life depended on it but he was sure great with the one liners and the amusing put-downs.

What other coach could inspire a Saturday Night Live skit? Back when SNL was still funny? What coach today could start a DA Bears skit that infused itself into decade running skit embedded in our sports culture? A skit that outlived one its Super-Fans in the late Chris Farley, a Green Bay Packer fan by the way.

Who would watch the Tom Cable Show? Da Cable Guys? Well Cable will be in his own horror show but it will be like an HP Lovecraft one with an evil Al Davis cackling as he twists Cables coaching strings and dangles him in the hot NFL winds.

The Tom Coughlin show? Bleak, angry, and joyless. Don't sit on your helmet damn it!  Pass.

Ditka brought his own brand of humor to Chicago long ago when he warmly remembered  one of his favorite days as a Bear player. Not the 1963 Championship Game, no, the day he dangled an annoying and young Mike McCaskey, ball boy then owner now, by his feet over a toilet in training camp.

Wouldn't that be fun to do to Daniel Snyder?

Ditka, a great player, became a fiery but offensively challenged coach who provided many memorable moments.

Remember him roller skating into the metro-dome to annoy the Minnesota Vikings? Or calling a pass to DT William Perry to annoy his arch enemy: The always angry, always painfully, constipated looking, Green Bay Packer coach, Forrest Gregg. 

Ditka also used Perry to rub it in against the San Francisco 49ers, an organization and perhaps very city he despised. The Niners always had the last laugh with Ditka though smashing the Bears in two NFC championship games and taunting Ditka with laughter saying next time bring an offense.

Ditka had ill luck with the Niners. Once after he stormed off after the Niners massacred the Bears on Monday Night Football. Ditka was arrested for throwing his chewing gum at a taunting fan while giving them the finger.

Another time when the Bears managed to beat the Niners, Ditka announced on the plane home victory champagne for all! Most of it was consumed by Da Coach and he later was arrested for drunken driving going home from the airport as his players drove by honking their horns at him being handcuffed.

What coach would appear on his post game talk show, a bit besotted, and slur about his back up tight end Cap Boso: "Cap Boso? How the hell do you cut a guy named Cap Boso?"

His post game rages were precious. A favorite was the angry shout at an irritating reporter and a big air drawn zero "See that, that's your IQ buddy—ZERO!"

And there was the wonderful wedding dress with Ricky Williams in New Orleans. Imagine Andy Reid doing that with a draft pick?

Ditka, like Batman, had many arch enemies. Villains that taunted him and his beloved Bears.  His biggest nemesis, a sort of chunky evil version of the Joker, was Buddy Ryan.

Once when asked about a physical scuffle between the two men at halftime of the legendary Bears-Miami Dolphin Monday night game (the undefeated Bears were losing and Ryan insisted he ran the defense and Wilbur Marshall was going to cover Nat Moore no matter what Ditka said).

Ditka brushed off the story and said, "We all know who wins that one, DITKA hands down!"

With portly Buddy Ryan, Ditka occasionally called him the fat man, nearly expired by choking on a pork chop in a restaurant Ditka offered his condolences, and promoted his restaurant, by saying, "It wasn't a Ditka Pork chop!"   

Ditka also feuded with his QB Jim McMahon who often changed Ditka's plays and mocked his coach. Ditka said this, "We have a strange and wonderful relationship. he's strange and I'm wonderful!"

Ditka had a biting humor.

"George Halas throws nickels around like man hole covers!" Ditka, the player, on Halas. His own coach who was trading him to the Philadelphia Eagles over a contract dispute.

On Sportswriters:

Q:" What's the difference between a  puppy and a sports writer?"

A:" In six weeks, the puppy will stop whining."

On fighting when he was a player:

"I'm not a mean player. You'll notice I never pick on a player who has a number above 30."

On soccer:

"If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms."

On Buddy Ryan:

"He's just jealous. You know what they say. Empty tin cans make the most noise, and he's an empty tin can. This game is between the Bears and the Eagles, not Ditka and Ryan. We all know who would win that one. Ditka, hands down."

On his dog:

"There just me and my wife and dog and we feed him healthy choice also".

On his Bears:

"I don't think we come in favor with some people. There are some teams that are fair-haired and some that aren't. There are some teams named Smith and some named Grabowski. We're Grabowskis. The Rams are a Smith team."

And what other coach can dance like this?