The Josh Innes Show - Is Mike Ditka The Most Famous Coach In Sports History?

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Perhaps this is recency bias, but I think there is a strong case to be made that as far as celebrity coaches go, Mike Ditka is number one. Now, I'm not saying he's the greatest coach ever. What I'm saying is he may be the most famous. Josh Innes lays out the case for Ditka. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Ditka died, huh? How old is he? 86. Am I reading that right? 86 was Mike Ditka? Is it up for debate? And I'm not just saying this because it's recency bias, but is it up for debate that Mike Ditka is the most famous sports coach of all time? Is that debatable? Okay. Now let's get into that. I think this is an interesting conversation, because you have to think of all things, not just the most successful coach, because Mike Ditka's not the most successful coach. I mean, the Bears had a nice little run. They won one Super Bowl.

He goes to New Orleans. It's fucking awful. But like, he's not the best coach ever. He's not even up for debate as the best coach ever. But the most famous coach ever is a debate. Let's get into that. Let's play a couple commercials and let's get cracking. All right, so let's think about who would have to be on the category

of the most famous sports coaches of all time. They have to have crossover appeal. A lot of them have to be in an era where there's, if not social media, at least some form of media, but really it would have to be someone at least from the current generation or kind of close to the current generation because you'd have to be able to think like, okay, this person was on social media, or this person was in movies, or this person is known by a wide array of people in various generations of people, right? So you're not going to go to someone who's, you know, like, the John Wooden is not even

remotely close to the most famous coach of all time. Mount Rushmore of most success. successful sports coaches of all time, very possible. But not famous. If you ask someone on the street, hey, who is John Wooden? How many people? Like somebody walking down the street, have their earbuds in, listening to NPR or whatever the fuck they're listening to, and you stop them on the street, you pull their earbuds out.

You say, hey, I have a quick question for you, please. I was wondering, what do you know about John Wooden? How many people would even know John Wooden? You know what's wild about John Wooden? I'm fairly certain the last time John Wooden coached a basketball game was in the, what, mid-70s? Let's see, when is the last time John Wooden coached? We're talking 50-something years since John Wooden coached a basketball game.

I mean, he died in what, 29, 2010? His last game coach was 1975. That is the last time John Wooden coached a basketball game. 1975, that is 50 years ago. So you cannot put John Wooden in the category of the most. famous coach of all time. Maybe the greatest coach of all time, maybe. But I don't believe you can legitimately say, I mean, not even debate. Speaking of stopping people on the street, I was walking Ross around this lake area. And it was kind of in the middle of the day. There's not a ton of people

out there. It's like middle of the day on a Tuesday or something like that this week. So it's Tuesday, Wednesday. I forgot when it was. And we were walking. And I walked past this girl. I'm going one way. She's going the other. You know, smile high. And I got. my headphones on, cool, whatever. Continue making the loop. Our paths cross again. And this girl stops me and asks me to take off my headphones. I go, okay, hey, she goes, hey, do you speak English?

I'm like, sure, yeah, I speak English, what's up? And she goes, I don't know why I'm telling you this, but Jesus wanted me to let you know that he loves you. And I don't know how you respond to that. Do you say thanks? So I'm like, ditto. You know, let Jesus know I said ditto. Like, I don't know what you fucking say to that.

But, I mean, it wasn't, I guess it's a nice gesture. It's kind of weird, but I guess it's a nice gesture, you know. Who knows? She might have been pranking me or something. But she's like, I mean, I say she's pranking me. I mean, I'm fairly certain that Jesus didn't actually tell her to say that he loves me. So I guess it's not a prank, but she could also have just been bad shit crazy. Or she just might have been a nice person.

I don't know. But she stopped me and said, hey, just want to let you know, Jesus loves you. and thank you. So we've scratched John Wooden off the list. He can't be among the most famous coaches. Now, a trendy one right now is Sabin, because Sabin is in all of these commercials. We all know that he's in the goddamn Home Depot commercial

because every time it fucking comes on a doorbell rings and my dog loses goddamn mind. You would be amazed by the number of television shows and commercials that doorbells ring all the time. And every one of these doorbells drives my dog crazy. I move to have doorbells banned from television shows and commercials. That said, you can make a case for Sabin because he's the most successful college football coach in history, and Nick Sabin is in this era of social media and other things.

He's now buddies with Pat McAfee, so a certain generation knows him. He's got a docu series coming out tonight that I haven't watched yet, but you could argue that that's part of it. Maybe Nick Sabin's among the most famous coaches, but Nick Sabin also isn't doing bit roles and movies and shit. like that. Like Nick Saban has not spawned a generation of copycat fans who wear his exact clothing and everything like that. Like when he was at LSU, he was kind of known for wearing the mock turtleneck. But there wasn't a piece of clothing that he would wear that people thought about. Like when you see that sweater, you go, oh, that's it. And Sabin certainly never had an S&L group of people doing

whole skits about it. And that's also a huge part of it. You know, it's a multi-generational thing, but Da Baers never goes away. It lives on forever. And Da'a Baers never goes away. It lives on forever. and Da Bears is all in the Ditka universe. So Sabin's a very famous coach. Coach Prime. Dion Sanders, very famous coach. But he's not famous for being a coach. He's famous for being Dion Sanders,

who happened to coach his kid to win a couple games and that was God awful. But nobody looks at Coach Prime as a coach. And I say that respectfully. Nobody looks at Coach Prime as a coach. They look him as Dion Sanders. They see him as Prime Time. They don't see him as a coach.

So, I mean, he doesn't count in that list either. People who's one profession, the thing they know you most for is being a coach. Although Mike Ditka, very good player in his day as a tight end, but Mike Ditka is thought of as the coach, right? That's how we think of Mike Ditka. I would argue that there is not a more, Phil Jackson. Okay, Phil Jackson is famous because he coached Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Shaq. But like, I don't think of him as a famous guy. I just think of as a really good coach, but I don't think of him as a famous dude.

a celebrity that transcends out of the sports world. Phil Jackson doesn't transcend sports world. He's just coach. You know, Pete Carroll, he doesn't really transcend that either. Like, is there a baseball manager over history that would fit into that category? Not really. Maybe Billy Martin in the 80s, but nobody knows who the fuck Billy Martin is now. You know, and he was only famous because he would get fired by George Steinbrenner all the time.

There are no hockey coaches I would put into that category, no college basketball coaches I would put into that category. Like not the most, like not the winningness coach. Remember this now, as you think about this. It's not the coach that's the most successful or the winningness coach of all time. It is the most famous coach. Let's ask, let's Google that. Just let's see what Google thinks of this. Since I don't have a co-host in this, let's think about what Google thinks.

And I would ask Gypsy, but I think I used Gypsy up yesterday. I think Gypsy's all out of gas. Somebody sent me a message and said, Do you think Gypsy sounds Asian? She might be Asian. I thought Gypsy was black. I thought she was kind of like hip, trendy black chick. That's how I viewed gypsy, but whatever.

All right, let's see here. Who is the most famous sports coach of all time? Let's see. John Woodness, widely considered to be the greatest and most famous. Say, I don't buy that. I think that's bullshit. All the people I've listened, Vince Lambo. Now, you can make it.

argument for Vince Lombardi, but again, it's not like Vince Lombardi was in a bunch of movies. Belichick, like, well, you know, you talk about fame. Belichick kind of fits into the infamous category now because he's banging the much younger chick and he's a, you know, in a shitty situation at North Carolina, and he's attached to Tom Brady and they're the greatest dynasty of the modern era. So I guess Belichick can, Belichick's closer to the most famous coach of all time than John Wooden. John Wooden is not the most famous coach of all time. Again, the guy didn't coach a game after 1975. It's been 50 years since the dude coached a game. It was like 35 years

from the time he coached his last game to the time he died. He's got great philosophies on shit. And Bill Walton talks about him all. He did talk about him all the time. So I'm not saying, I'm not dismissing John Wooden. I'm telling you that John Wooden is not the most famous coach. I would argue. And I haven't seen Ditka pop up on this list. Vince Lombardi, Phil Jackson, Belichick, Scotty Bowman, not even close. Pat Summitt, no. Like, again, these lists are all telling me the 30 greatest coaches of all time. I'm talking about celebrity coaches, coaches that transcends sport. Ditka, S&L, Ditka, and that movie with Will Ferrell where he's the soccer coach,

what's it called, kicking and screaming, Ditka, Famous, Ditka, commercials, Ditka doing ESPN shit, Ditka. Like Ditka is arguably, again, try to think of it in that wavelength. Again, I'm not telling you who's the greatest coach, who's the winningest coach, who's the most successful coach. That is not what this is. Fame, straight up, celebrity, and fame. Because every list I'm getting here is the 30 greatest American college coaches of all time or sports coach of all time. Coach K.

But again, Coach K while he's famous, like Coach K doesn't transcend it. I think the thing that puts it over the top, two things. You've got the S&L thing that still lives on. They still roll with Da Bears. That's still an iconic thing. It's an S&L thing from the early 90s, of course, but it's still iconic. So you've got Da Bears, you got Ditka, and you got the sweater. Find me another coach outside of Bear Bryant and his houndstooth hat.

find me other coaches who are known for what they wore and people imitate them still to this day based on what they wore. They dress up like them. Find them. They don't exist. Basketball coaches mostly just wore suits back in the day so there was nothing really to mimic there. Now pro coaches all wear, you know, dry fit t-shirts and sweats and shit. Coach don't even look good anymore. They don't dress well anymore.

but think about Ditka in that there's two people that I really associate with the Ditka era sweaters. I think of Ditka and I think of Buddy Ryan. Like those are the two that pop into my mind when I think of that era of the sweater, you know, with the team name across the front and the multicolor. But I can't think, like there's not another coach that I can think of whose apparel is significant. You can think about features of them like, you know, Andy Reid's, mustache, you know, in his Hawaiian shirts, I guess. But as far as what you wear while you're coaching becoming so iconic that people are still doing it 25 years after you coached your last

football game in New Orleans, 20 seconds and closer to 30 years after you coach your last game in New Orleans, well over three decades since you coach your last game in Chicago, they still wear that sweater, they still wear the tie under the sweater, they still wear the mustache, they still wear the glasses, da bears. Mike did because the most famous coach is. The most famous coach, ever of any sport. Again, fame is different than best. Like, if I had to guess, where do you think Mike Ditka ranks

all time and wins among coaches? I'd say that Ditka's probably, well, I'm doing the math here. Who's the winningness coach of all time? It's not Belichick, yeah, right? It's never going to be Belichick if it's not him yet. Is it Lombardi? Who's the winningness coach of all time?

Whoever the fuck it is, okay? winning as coach of all time. That person's probably got close to over 300 wins, right? Ditka's probably in the neighbor. Didka's probably south of 100, if I had to guess, or slightly over 100. I'm going to guess that Ditkis probably, my guess is my guess, my guess, my guess, my Mike Ditka guess. Let's see where that goes.

NFL head coaches, all-time wins. I'm going, Ditka's 37th. Let's see the all-time wins ranking for coaches. your pro football reference so my bad don schula okay so don shula it's not lombardi lombardi didn't coach enough to have all those wins so don shula my bad 328 wins for don shula so 328 being the bar george hallis has 318 bellichick's got 302 andy reeds got 283 all right so those are your top four tom landry at two vivvy tom landry coached for 28 years 29 years i'm doing the math on this i believe that dittka was only the coach of the bears for

a decade, maybe less than a decade, and then coached the Saints for like two or three years. And let's say he averaged nine wins when he was the coach of the Bears, maybe 10. So he's probably somewhere around 90. My guess is that Ditka's somewhere around 104, 105 career wins would be my guess. I think I'm going to be way off on where he ranks too

because there's a lot of coaches with a lot of... Well, actually, no, let's see. Hold on. Let's see where... No, I take it back. Ditka's at 121 and he's 34th all time. Okay. So my guess was 37. he's 34th all time he's got a hundred twenty one wins he's number 34 all time and wins so he's clearly not the greatest coach of all time although

34th among all the guys that have ever coached in the NFL's kind of badass so he's 34th all time see where playoff now playoff wins where you really start to see guys bellichick andy randre don schula let's see where uh where our man was there how many playoff wins did get did get up with not really a lot uh he ended up with uh he ended up It's six, which has him 34th all time. So he's 34th in wins and 34th in playoff wins of all time. How about that? But my point is he is the most famous coach ever.

Now, if you want to argue John Madden. Now, John Madden is not famous for being a coach. He's famous for being the guy on the video game and the guy on TV. But just celebrity coach. I mean, I'll just look at these NFL coaches and tell me who's, he's more famous than Belichick. Andy Reed is famous because he's very successful and because one of his play. players bangs Taylor Swift. Tom Landry, the guy's been dead forever and he hadn't coached since

1988, although he was the coach. Now, you could argue as far as a celebrity goes in the 1970s, Tom Landry was probably one of the great celebrity coaches because there were three TV channels so you'd see him on TV all the time. I'm sure he was pretty fucking famous to everybody. Don Shula, no, Joe Gibbs, no, Chuck Null, no, John Harbaugh, no, Holmba, no, Holmgren, no, Kofflin, no, Cowher, no, Dan Reeves, no, Mike McCarthy, no, Pete Carroll. he's closer to being a celebrity, but only because, you know, if it's time really at USC, you know, I think that kind of goes farther. Sean Payton, no, Bud Grant, Sean McVeigh, Dungey, Paul Brown, Bill Walsh, Lombardi,

all these guys, like, now this, I can, now I'm kind of all over the place. Now I said Lombardi had the most wins. I wasn't close. That was my bad. I wonder if his winning percentage is the best all time. Now he's third in winning percentage. John Madden, second in winning percentage all time. remarkable, huh? But anyway, all that to tell you this. Mike Ditka is the most famous coach

that has ever coached in any sport. You want to debate it, send me a message. But we're going Ditka, Alzheimer. Rest in peace to the coach.