Larger than life 1985 Bears never will fade away Bears defense sacks the Patriots' Tony Eason in Superbowl XX. (Ed Wagner, Chicago Tribune / January 28, 2005)
Dan Pompei
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Mike Ditka Title teams come and go, but they truly were unique on and off field
Dan Pompei
On the NFL
7:46 p.m. CDT, November 4, 2010
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Reunite the 1985 Bears? They never really were apart.
Relive the 1985 season? We never stopped living it.
Listen to stories from 1985? We can recite every one of them.
The 1985 Bears never have gone away. We never stopped celebrating them. Many of us still have a VCR tape of the game on a dusty shelf in the basement, or yellowed newspaper clippings in a box in the attic.
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We couldn't get enough of them that year, and we still can't 25 years later. So Friday night, thousands are expected to pay up to $199 per ticket to see at least 25 of them at the Arie Crown Theater, where they will tell stories and, well, just be 1985 Bears.
I've been asked over the years about writing a book on that team. But there really isn't anything to tell you that isn't known. .
When Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan almost came to blows, we couldn't have known about it any faster if Ditka had Tweeted it.
Keith Van Horne had to be restrained from going after Ditka on the sidelines? Old news, really old news.
We know all about Jim McMahon getting acupuncture, Steve McMichael throwing a chair that struck a chalkboard and the squabbles over making the Super Bowl Shuffle.
On a typical morning, the current Bears try to conceal more things before the coffee gets hot than the 1985 team tried to hide all season.
There was a delightful transparency about those Bears. So Chicago really got to know them — as a team, as individuals and as an experience.
By my count more than 20 of the '85 Bears still live in the Chicago area. And at any given moment, one of them is signing autographs at your local supermarket, another is hitting his tee shot into the woods at a charity golf outing and a third is telling you what's wrong with the current Bears on a radio show.
The face of that team, and maybe the face of the city, was the coach. Chicagoans have asked Ditka to run for the U.S. senate and for mayor. People still stream into his restaurant on East Chestnut to pay $27 for a pork chop. Damn good pork chop, and it comes with mashed sweet potatoes and Michigan cherry jus.
Oh, and he sells wine, cigars, sweater vests, vacation packages, Arena Football League tickets, football wisdom and words of inspiration. And Iron Mike vitamins are coming to a store near you.
All because of 1985.
That year changed things in the Chicago area. It had not had a major professional sports championship since the 1963 Bears. And since then, the Bulls (six), White Sox and Blackhawks have won.
Ditka never has to buy a beer in this town, and not just because he is a spokesman for Coors Light. Neither do Jimmy Mac, Hamp, Ming, The Colonel, Samurai, Big O or even the Bruise Brothers.
If one of the '85 Bears shows up at an appearance with a current Bears player, the guy with the Super Bowl ring always gets the louder ovation.
He deserves it.
The passage of time has a way of glorifying sports legacies.
That hasn't happened with the 1985 Bears because there really wasn't anything to embellish about them. They are the same now as they were then.
They couldn't get any better than they really were. They couldn't be any more appreciated than they were.
The style of ball they played, the manner in which they dominated and the way they connected with the public made them unique in the history of pro football. There never could be another 1985 Bears. Couldn't be anything remotely similar, really.
That's OK though. We have our memories.
I was there in New Orleans in 1985. I know, you were too — even if you weren't.
The 1985 Bears brought us together. They made us feel good about being Chicagoans. And time hasn't changed anything about it.
dpompei@tribune.comhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/ct-spt-1105-bears-glory-chicago--20101104,0,7128252.column