NFL legend Mike Ditka was a Catholic coach

Former professional football coach Mike Ditka, a practicing Catholic who occasionally served as lector at the 7 a.m. team Mass on game-day Sundays during his decade leading the Chicago Bears, died Friday. He was 86.

“Iron Mike,” as Ditka was known, had a famously explosive temper, which often boiled over on the sidelines and in postgame press conferences. Ditka, who led the Bears to a Super Bowl XX victory in 1986, once broke his right hand after punching a hard object over frustration with the play of a rookie offensive lineman — then, before the next game, told his team to “win this one for Lefty.”

Less well known was Ditka’s commitment to his Catholic faith, for which he credited his convert mother and the nuns of his parochial school in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, where he was raised.

“Growing up, the most important thing was the sacraments with my family,” Ditka told an interviewer with the Catholic website “One Peter Five” in August 2018. “We loved everything about the faith. Going to Catholic school and learning the faith, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

“I don’t care how many times I got hit by a nun,” Ditka said, “it was good for me.”

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