an encyclopedia entry for “Old School Football Guy,” Mike Ditka’s picture would almost certainly be next to it. The cantankerous coach of the Super Bowl Shufflin’ 1985 champion Chicago Bears has parlayed his gridiron glory years into success in the cigar business - with successful restaurant/cigar lounges in the Windy City and Naples, Florida, and his own line of premium cigars, the Mike Ditka Championship Series, manufactured in the Bahamas by Graycliff. SMOKE caught up to the coach for a bull session about cigars, football, and anything else on his mind.
On his introduction to cigars:
“At about seven or eight years old, my buddy and I stole his grandpa’s homemade Parodis and smoked them. We both got sick as hell. Later on, I smoked every cheap cigar there was until I could afford the better ones. And then I smoked all of them. I was smoking cigars way before it was fashionable.”
On the celebratory cigar:
“Cigars were part of that [1985 Championship season] because that was the year the players got into it, too. After the Super Bowl win, we all lit up pretty good that day. Along with champagne.”
On Chicago as a smoking town:
“Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than California or New York. I mean, at least you can do it here. [As for] these so-called do-gooders and health nuts - my dad worked in the mill his whole life, and when we woke up in the morning the whole town had a coat of soot. Even if you’d washed your car the night before, it would be covered with soot from the mill. Now tell me how lighting up a cigar or cigarette is worse than that? A lot of society has forgotten that we have freedoms, and the freedom I choose is to smoke a cigar. Period. If you don’t like that, then don’t be around me.”
On the cigar business today:
“It’s almost like the automobile industry, where you’re forced to make a better product or you’re not gonna get business. [During the Boom,] you could roll anything between two leaves and call it a cigar. People who smoke cigars are pretty discerning, and pretty knowledgeable about what they like and don’t like.”
On today’s NFL:
“I don’t like the way the sport’s going in a lot of ways. I think players have got to respect the game more. It’s not all about ‘me’ and ‘I.’ This is a great game, great people have played the game before us, and all we’re going to do is be mentioned in 50 years that we participated. So, respect the game and give it more than you take from it.”
Talkin' Cigars with Mike Ditka
