‘Da Coach’ Mike Ditka embodied Chicago, the city he adopted

Iron Mike. Oh, man.

A part of every football fan just died with “Da Coach” himself.

Myself, I can’t believe he’s gone. Mike Ditka died Friday at 86.

Somehow the guy seemed immortal, like an Easter Island statue, like a high rift in the granite mantle of the Earth itself.

Every Chicagoan is diminished in some way with Mike Ditka not here anymore.

Was the guy perfect? Ha! Not even close.

But, brother, was he a competitor, a character, a warm, caring, nasty, walking, talking whirlwind of ferocity, tenderness and crazy contradictions. Kind of like this city itself, the Chicago he adopted despite his roots in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.

I mean, Ditka didn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve. The dude wore it on a banner he carried high above him, daring anyone to say he was wrong about anything, to challenge him, to show they had more passion for his beloved game of football and winning and stomping the earth than he did.

A decade ago, I asked him about life moving so fast — days long, maybe, but years flying by. He grinned that slight, somewhat impish grin he had, behind that mustache he kept even when mustaches weren’t cool, the bristle brush that became part of his logo, in that face of his that truly resembled a bear’s. He’d thought about the ending.

“I’m coming around third in this life,” he said, “going for home with a headfirst slide.”

Is that not perfect?

Everything Ditka did — be it playing football, coaching, selling products, yakking on TV, golfing, dealing cards for gin rummy, pontificating on anything under the sun — he did headfirst. That’s the only way he knew to move forward.

Don’t forget he was a very good baseball player, too — and if he’d been as passionate about hitting a ball as he was about hitting safeties, it’s possible he could have gone far in that sport. Ponder this: You’re a catcher, and a full-tilt Ditka, sans helmet, is coming at you from third base, headfirst, flat-topped noggin looking like a blacksmith’s anvil.

Help!

I mean, here’s where we stop and laugh the good laugh. Which is what Ditka would want us all to do.

Because he had a sense of humor. And he was self-deprecating and able to make fun of his flaws and juvenile rages and petty grievances. When he broke his right hand after punching a locker after a tough Bears loss and then the next week told his players pregame, “Win one for Lefty,” that’s good stuff.

It’s why Chicago loved him. We love winners. We love guys who lay it all on the line. But we don’t like phonies or stuck-up snobs or cocky rich athletes who don’t appreciate hard work and the meaning of giving your all.

Sometimes Ditka went from one side of the fence to the other, and maybe even back again, depending on his mood. His dad was a steel mill union laborer in Aliquippa, but Mike continued to coach the Bears even when scab players crossed the picket line in 1987. Then he defended the union and all retired players when the head trauma issues came to the fore and too many ex-players faced physical and financial ruin.

He blamed himself often for his impetuousness. After he retaliated against the Lions in 1985 for a perceived slight in an earlier game by having Dave Duerson take out Detroit kicker Eddie Murray on a legal but unneeded hit, he felt guilty.

“I was younger and madder than they were,” he told me years later of the Lions coaches.

But anger isn’t his lasting legacy.

Genuineness is. And passion. And winning. (That Super Bowl XX championship team recedes like a vapor, doesn’t it?)

But above all, Ditka, oddly, reminds us of love. He had so much of it sometimes, for so many things, he nearly exploded.

What a lovely man he was.