By Sabrina Mason
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Michael Keller Ditka (born Michael Dyczko; October 18, 1939) is an American former professional football player, coach, and television commentator. During his playing career, he was UPI NFL Rookie of Year in 1961, a five-time Pro Bowl selection, and a six-time All-Pro tight end with the Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles, and Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League (NFL); he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988. Ditka was the first tight end in NFL history to reach 1,000 yards receiving.
He was an NFL champion with the 1963 Bears and is a three-time Super Bowl champion, playing on the Cowboys’ Super Bowl VI team, winning as an assistant coach for the Cowboys in Super Bowl XII, and coaching the Bears to victory in Super Bowl XX. He has been named to the NFL’s 75th- and 100th-Anniversary All-Time Teams.
As a head coach for the Bears from 1982 to 1992, he was twice both the AP and UPI NFL Coach of Year (1985 and 1988). He also was the head coach of the New Orleans Saints from 1997 to 1999.
Ditka and Tom Flores are the only people to win an NFL title as a player, an assistant coach, and a head coach. Ditka, Flores, Gary Kubiak, and Doug Pederson are also the only people in modern NFL history to win a championship as head coach of a team for which they played previously. Ditka is the only person to participate in both of the last two Chicago Bears’ league championships, as a player in 1963 and as head coach in 1985.
In 2020, Ditka became the owner of the X League, a women’s tackle football league that was originally the Lingerie Football League.
He is known by the nickname “Iron Mike“, which he has said comes from his being born and raised in a steel town in Pennsylvania.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Lovely, summerlike days that occur around October 18 are called Saint Luke’s Little Summer in honor of the saint’s feast day. Around this time, Saint Luke’s feast day, there is a period brief period of calm, dry weather. Of course, it’s difficult to generalize today across the vast continent of North America, but the temperature is usually mild and the leaf colors are turning a gorgeous color. It’s a good time for a brief vacation or visit to a park. In Venice, Italy, they say: “San Luca, El ton va te la zuca” (Pumpkins go stale on St Luke’s Day), but here in North America, pumpkins are enjoying their finest hour. Saint Luke is the patron saint of physicians and surgeons so it seems only fitting that the good doctor give us these calm days. In olden days, St. Luke’s Day did not receive as much attention in the secular world as St. John’s Day (June 24) and Michaelmas (September 29), so it was to keep from being forgotten that St. Luke presented us with some golden days to cherish before the coming of winter, or so the story goes. Some folks call this Indian Summer, but that officially occurs between November 11 and November 20.
Alaska Day marks the anniversary of the formal transfer of the Alaska Territory from Russia and the raising of the U.S. flag at Sitka in 1867.
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Second Summer-like weather this time of year is called St. Luke’s Little Summer. (Formerly known as “Indian Summer.”)
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Died
- Pope Pius III –
- Lucy Stone Blackwell (suffragette) –
- Thomas Alva Edison (inventor) –
- Walt Kelly (cartoonist) –
- Bess Truman (U.S. First Lady) –
- Dee Dee Warwick (soul singer) –
- Colin Powell (politician, diplomat, and four-star general; served as U.S. secretary of state) –
Born
- Pierre Elliot Trudeau (15th Canadian prime minister) –
- Jesse Helms (politician) –
- Chuck Berry (musician) –
- George C. Scott (actor) –
- Mike Ditka (football player, coach) –
- Lee Harvey Oswald (alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy) –
- Martina Navratilova (tennis player) –
- Erin Moran (actress) –
- Doug Mirabelli (baseball player) –
- Zac Efron (actor) –
Events
- The boundary line between Maryland and Pennsylvania, commonly known as the Mason-Dixon Line, was finally settled–
- Ostend Manifesto of the US declares that if Spain refuses to sell Cuba to them, then the US will take it by force–
- Alaska was transferred from Russia to the U.S.–
- The British Broadcasting Company was formed–
- Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack announced his retirement–
Weather
- An early snowstorm over Lakes Erie and Ontario brought 48 inches of snow to the region just south of Buffalo–
- 47 inches of snow fell in Gouverneur, New York–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
