For 40 years, Chicago Bears fans have talked about 1985 like it happened yesterday. The players, the defense, the Super Bowl Shuffle and a championship that an entire generation has spent waiting to experience again.
Through all those years, Mike Ditka was still there. The familiar mustache, the unmistakable voice and a personality that seemed far too big for any football sideline.
On Friday, Ditka passed away at 86, and Chicago lost someone who had become as much a part of the city's identity as the Bears themselves.
He wasn't everybody's favorite person. He could be stubborn, argumentative and occasionally his own worst enemy. But there was never much doubt about who Mike Ditka was or what he stood for.
And perhaps that's why Chicago embraced him the way it did.
Ditka gave Chicago something it still hasn't found again
The 1985 Bears were everything a football team could hope to be. They were talented, confident and completely uninterested in whether anyone liked them.
They finished the regular season 15-1, shut out both NFC playoff opponents and dismantled the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX.
Walter Payton was already a legend. Mike Singletary anchored one of the greatest defenses ever assembled. Jim McMahon brought an attitude that matched the city perfectly, while William Perry became a national sensation.
And somehow, Ditka managed all those personalities.
He wasn't the architect of Buddy Ryan's famous defense, and the relationship between the two coaches wasn't always pleasant. But Ditka was the head coach who held the entire operation together long enough to bring Chicago a championship.
What followed was something few NFL teams ever experience.
The Bears became part of American culture.
Four decades later, fans still wear the jerseys, watch the highlights and talk about that season as though another championship might somehow diminish what made it special.
It won't.
The 1985 Bears will always belong to Chicago, and Ditka will always be the man standing on their sideline.
He represented a different kind of Chicago
There's a reason Ditka connected with people who had never played football.
He reminded them of someone they knew.
Maybe it was a father who worked long hours and expected the same effort from everyone around him. Maybe it was an old coach who didn't believe in excuses. Or perhaps it was the guy at the neighborhood bar who had an opinion about everything and absolutely no interest in keeping it to himself.
Ditka wasn't polished. He didn't pretend to be.
He got angry. He made mistakes. He said things he probably shouldn't have said.
But he also cared deeply about the game, his players and the organization that had given him his start.
Long before he became Chicago's head coach, Ditka was already one of the greatest players in Bears history.
The franchise selected him fifth overall in the 1961 NFL draft. He recorded more than 1,000 receiving yards as a rookie, helped Chicago win the 1963 NFL championship and eventually became the first tight end inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He later won a Super Bowl with Dallas as a player and another as an assistant coach before returning to Chicago.
By the time he lifted the Lombardi Trophy as the Bears' head coach, Ditka had accomplished something extraordinary.
He had won championships as a player, assistant and head coach.
Yet ask most Chicago fans what they remember about him, and the answer probably won't involve statistics.
It'll be the sunglasses. The sweater vest. The shouting.
And that unmistakable look of disgust whenever something went wrong.
Forty years later, Chicago was still holding on
The Bears have spent decades trying to recreate what Ditka helped build.
Coaches have come and gone. Quarterbacks have arrived with enormous expectations, only to leave without delivering the championship everyone desperately wanted.
There have been playoff appearances, disappointing seasons and even another trip to the Super Bowl.
But nothing has quite replaced 1985.
For older Bears fans, Ditka was a reminder of what they witnessed. For younger fans, he was the man their parents and grandparents talked about whenever conversations turned to the greatest teams in NFL history.
That's a rare connection between a coach and a fan base.
Most coaches are eventually remembered by their records. Even successful ones can become little more than names in a franchise's history books.
Ditka never seemed in danger of that happening.
He remained relevant long after coaching his final game, whether appearing on television, making headlines with his opinions or simply showing up somewhere in Chicago.
Even the famous "Da Bears" sketches on Saturday Night Live became another reminder of how thoroughly he had entered popular culture.
He was larger than football, and everybody knew it.
Chicago says goodbye to one of its own
There will eventually be another championship parade in Chicago. Another coach will stand before thousands of cheering Bears fans, holding a trophy that has been missing from the city for far too long.
When that happens, people will celebrate a new generation of players and coaches.
But they will still talk about Ditka.
They'll remember the man who paced the sideline like every incomplete pass was a personal insult. They'll remember the coach who demanded toughness because he believed that was how football should be played.
And they'll remember the championship.
For all his accomplishments, perhaps Ditka's greatest achievement was giving an entire city something it could share for the rest of its life.
Parents passed those memories to their children. Those children grew up and shared them with their own families.
Forty years later, the stories are still being told.
That's something no losing season, disappointing quarterback or coaching change can ever take away.
Mike Ditka wasn't perfect. Nobody is. But he was authentic, fiercely competitive and impossible to mistake for anyone else.
He belonged to Chicago, and Chicago belonged to him.
The city will eventually move forward, just as it always has. The Bears will play another Sunday, another season will come and go, and the search for the next championship will continue.
But for those who grew up watching Ditka, or simply grew up hearing stories about him, something will always feel a little different.
Because Chicago didn't just say goodbye to a football coach on Friday.
It said goodbye to a piece of itself.
Rest easy, Coach. And thank you for 1985.
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