Mike Ditka: The ‘ultra-ultra-ultra conservative’ coach who transcended the NFL

In the summer of 2004, the Republicans were in serious bother in Illinois. Midway through the campaign for a soon-to-be vacant US Senate seat, their chosen candidate Jack Ryan was alleged to have coerced his ex-wife Jeri, an actor who played Seven of Nine on Star Trek, to accompany him to sex clubs in New York and Paris. A scandal damaging enough back then to force him from the race, party apparatchiks scrambled for a replacement, desperate to prevent the Democrats’ rising star, some state senator called Barack Obama, from punching his ticket to Washington.

For a couple of weeks, Mike Ditka was in the frame. A self-described “ultra-ultra-ultra conservative”, pro-life and anti-gay marriage, he had famously warmed up a crowd for George W Bush during the 2000 election. Across 11 years coaching the Chicago Bears, he also helmed the legendary Super Bowl-winning team of William “The Refrigerator” Perry, the first NFL outfit to capture the Irish imagination in the mid-80s. In the Windy City, hero worship of him was so excessive it even spawned a recurring skit on NBC’s Saturday Night Live called The Superfans.