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Chicago loves La Bears By J. BRADY McCOLLOUGH CHICAGO | The drama has been building all week. In the papers, on the radio, it seems everybody has been talking about Mike Ditka. Who will he pull for when the Bears play the Saints in the NFC championship game on Sunday? Ditka coached both teams, and earlier this week, he said he didn’t know whom he’d support. According to the radio guys, those words have left Chicago paralyzed. On Thursday morning, Ditka would settle it once and for all on his radio show, which is broadcast each week from his steak restaurant on Chestnut Street in downtown. He walks into the sold-out room, sits down and lights a cigar. “Ditkapalooza,” as they’re calling it here, has officially begun. Immediately, the autograph line forms in front of Ditka’s seat. Some patrons have brought bags full of items for him to sign, but most have come for one thing: to hear Da Coach talk about Da Bears. “The key is who can stop the run,” Ditka says. Sounds simple enough, but coming from Ditka’s mouth in this room, it’s a gem of wisdom. Fifteen years after being fired, Ditka is still Chicago’s coach, and that probably won’t change, even if the Bears win the Super Bowl. Why the fascination? Well, as the host of the show, Steve Rosenbloom, explains to Ditka, “You are so much more interesting than the current coach.” ••• The current coach is not loud, that’s for sure. His name is Lovie Smith, in case you didn’t hear him the first time. Smith speaks in an easy Southern drawl that could put you right to sleep. Seriously, the guy couldn’t say “Da Bears” if he tried. Smith is the anti-Ditka. If he has a personality of any kind to speak of, it stays inside the Bears locker room or the walls of his Lake Forest home. Smith shuns attention, saying that he’s still just a “country hick from East Texas.” Smith grew up in Big Sandy, Texas, a one-stoplight town of 300 people. He grew up poor, loading hay onto watermelon trucks for 3 cents a bale during the summers. Smith’s mom, Mae, worked in a factory, and his dad, Thurman, was an alcoholic who struggled to hold down a job most of the time. Lovie’s parents had it hard, but they always preached education. “It was the only way he’d amount to anything,” says Betty Chalk Raibon, Smith’s aunt, who still lives in Big Sandy. “You weren’t looking for a rich uncle who died.” Lovie may not have been loud, but that didn’t stop him from earning people’s respect, especially on the football field, where he led Big Sandy to three state titles in a row. During his junior year, Big Sandy’s coach had to miss a game because of a death in the family. The two assistant coaches were both new and didn’t know the plays very well. Big Sandy trailed 6-0 at the half. The seniors decided that Smith, a linebacker, should call the defensive plays and his cousin, Gary Chalk, should call the offensive plays in the second half. The assistant coaches didn’t mind, and Smith took advantage. The Wildcats blitzed almost every play, and Big Sandy won the game 12-6. That was the first time Lovie Smith coached a football game. More than anything, Smith learned about team-building in Big Sandy. Schools were integrated when Lovie was in fifth grade, and racial tensions were high. Chalk recalls when a white player and black player got into a fight during their sophomore year. “Coach (Jim) Norman pulled them into his office,” Chalk says, “and he pricked both of their fingers, and they bled. He said, ‘See, your blood is the same.’ That message got to everybody. We’re the same.” ••• Mike Ditka’s first coaching job was with the Dallas Cowboys. He’d put together a Hall of Fame career as a tight end, and Tom Landry plucked him up as soon as he retired. Lovie Smith’s first coaching job was with the Big Sandy JV team. He was an All-American safety at Tulsa, but he didn’t get any interest from the NFL. He returned home devastated but not deterred. But Lovie Smith had a plan. He wasn’t going to hang around Big Sandy for long. He got a head-coaching job at a Tulsa high school and then joined the staff at Tulsa in 1983. Over the next 12 years, he coached as an assistant at six colleges, finishing up at Ohio State. Then, he got his big break. Tony Dungy, then the head coach at Tampa Bay, hired Smith to coach linebackers. It was in Tampa that Smith, with the help of Dungy and Herm Edwards, started perfecting that Tampa 2 defense. In ’01, Smith took over the formerly porous St. Louis Rams defense and turned it into an elite unit by his second year. It was only a matter of time before Smith would be a head coach, and the Bears came calling in ’04. Twenty-four years after coaching the JV Big Sandy Wildcats, Smith became the first black head coach in Bears history. The rebuilding Bears went 5-11 in Smith’s first year, but almost unbelievably, they flipped that record around the next year. Smith was chosen NFL Coach of the Year, setting the stage for this year. The Bears, led by Smith’s Tampa 2 defense, are in the NFC title game. Make no mistake, the people of East Texas are well aware. Chalk, a pastor, says that last Sunday’s 3 p.m. service didn’t start on time because the Bears went to overtime. “Everyone is wearing Bears paraphernalia,” Chalk says. “We’ve taken on the Bears as our adopted sons. We’re proud. We’re as proud as if it was us doing it ourselves. He’s an extension of us up there in Chicago. “When Ditka was there, they called them Da Bears. We call them La Bears. They’re Lovie’s Bears.” ••• These are Lovie’s Bears. Radio personalities wonder why this year’s team isn’t winning over the hearts of Chicago like the ’85 team did. It’s because they’re a lot like their coach. They don’t have the flamboyant personalities, the William “The Refrigerator” Perrys, the Jim McMahons, the Steve McMichaels. And, maybe most importantly, they don’t have Da Coach roaming the sidelines. But Chicago still has him. He’s here at Mike Ditka’s Restaurant every Thursday at 11, holding court and signing $25 autographs. So, Chicago, is Ditka pulling for the Bears this week? Ditka slicks his hair back and tells everyone what they already know: that, of course, he’s pulling for the Bears. “It was a smokescreen,” Ditka says. “Bears, 24-21.” And, he adds, “We’ll stay open. Win or lose.”
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J. Brady McCollough - jbrady@coveringsports.com (email) - 816-868-2621 (cell) |
