Losses Don’t Allow Ditka Much Chance to Mellow : Pro Football: One year after suffering a heart attack, the fire is back in the Chicago coach as he battles to right his struggling team.

When Mike Ditka showed up at RFK Stadium last Nov. 13, just 11 days after suffering a heart attack, he watched the game quietly from the sidelines and let assistant coach Vince Tobin run the team.

That was supposed to be the beginning of the new Mike Ditka, the rambunctious coach of the Chicago Bears.

“You will never see me yelling or screaming again. I want you to hold me to that,” Ditka said.

Ditka will be back at RFK Stadium Sunday, one year and 13 days since the Bears’ last game against the Washington Redskins. To nobody’s surprise, he has done some yelling and screaming on the sidelines again this year.

“I lie a lot,” Ditka said. “A leopard can’t change his spots, fellas. People like it or they don’t like it. I can only be myself.”

Ditka has changed, though. He sleeps more, he eats better, he exercises more.

“I don’t try to get by on five hours (of sleep) a night anymore,” Ditka said. “That’s the main thing.”

There’s one other important thing that’s changed in his life.

He’s not winning as much as he used to. He’s the coach who went five years without being out of first place in the National Football Conference Central Division, who lost only 11 regular-season games from 1985 through 1988.

Things are different this year.

Even the ranting and raving couldn’t stop the team from losing five of its last seven games after a 4-0 start.

He’s found out that it’s not easier to cope with losing after enjoying all that success. He’s found it’s tougher.

“I’ll tell you one thing you find out is that the highs aren’t quite as high anymore, but the lows are a lot lower,” he said.

He’s suffered several lows, blowing fourth-period leads in three games, and losing twice to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“We ended up not being able to hold the lead (in three games),” Ditka said. “That’s the disappointing thing. It’s disappointing if you don’t hold a lead.”

When his Bears take on Coach Joe Gibbs and the Redskins Sunday, both teams will be in similar positions, and it’s not the way it was when these clubs met three times in the playoffs since 1984. This time, it’s a battle for survival. The 5-6 Redskins will be out of the playoff picture if they lose. The 6-5 Bears may be out of their division race if they lose.

It’s been a long year for Gibbs, who has talked openly about losing his job. It’s been just as long for Ditka.

The losing is very tough.

“I think Joe would agree with that,” Ditka said. “It gets to be a very hard thing, the losses. People don’t understand coaches very well. The fans suffer and everybody else suffers, but nobody suffers as much as the people who are involved first hand.”

Nobody has been bigger in the sport in the last decade than Ditka. He has become a larger than life figure. He endorses more products than even he can count.

But it seems like a long time ago that the Bears went 18-1 in 1985 and won the Super Bowl.

“They (1985 Bears) aren’t around anymore,” he said.

Pro football isn’t the same as college football, where the top programs can keep recruiting the best players. There are no Bear Bryants and Joe Paternos who can win indefinitely. Even the Tom Landrys and Chuck Nolls lose eventually.

That’s the way the sport is designed and Ditka understands that, although it doesn’t make it any easier to cope with the losses.

“The league has tried to get everything to be as equal as possible,” he said.

With the losses come the criticism. A columnist in a suburban Chicago newspaper suggested last week that Ditka’s “behavior is becoming more irritating than entertaining.”

Ditka, annoyed with the fans recently for sitting on their hands, suggested that they should take a bus to Cleveland if they wanted to see real fans.

“All I was trying to do is get them revved up and evidently, I got them mad,” Ditka said.

“They like me one week, they don’t like me the next. If you win, you’re OK. If you lose, you’re not so good anymore.”

Ditka also caused a stir a couple of weeks ago when he spoke of walking away from the game.

“All I said was that I’m not going to do this forever, which I think we all understand,” he said.

“I think you have to analyze where you’re at in life and where you’re going.”

Ditka’s contract expires after the 1990 season and he makes it sound as if his future is up in the air after that.

“I really don’t know (what he’s doing to do),” he said. “I’ll be honest with you. If you’re asking me right now, I’d say, ‘yes,’ if the opportunity were the way I wanted it. If the opportunity is not the way I’d want it, then I’d say, ‘Well, maybe not.’ ”

What does that mean?

“If the job were presented to me in the right way and if I got to do what I wanted to do with the ballclub, I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t,” he said.

He seems to be suggesting that there is some problem with management. Ditka has had his differences with team president Mike McCaskey in the past.

“It’s foolish to try to speculate on what management’s views are this far in advance. I think it’s unfair to them. If for some reason they wanted to make a change, I’m the first one to understand that. I don’t believe the Bears can’t operate without Mike Ditka. They’ll operate very well without Mike Ditka. I’m pretty realistic about these things, fellas,” he said.

McCaskey, though, has said he wants him back. He can’t take any other position because of what Ditka has done although McCaskey kept him dangling in 1984 before extending his contract after the team made playoffs.

Ditka dances around the question of whether he thinks they’ll want him back.

“I’m not saying they do or they don’t. We never talk about it. I’ve got a contract so there’s nothing to talk about. It’s really media talk. I probably made a bad statement after the Green Bay game when I said I wasn’t going to be here forever. It got blown out of proportion,” he said.

He then clarified the situation without clarifying it.

“Let me say this and clarify it. If the good Lord is willing and if I can coach this game for a long time, I would do that. The factors that are going to come into it are how I feel and everything else. Right now, I feel fine,” he said.

How good does he feel?

“I feel I could play if I can get two good hips,” he said.

So the question is never really answered. Probably because even he doesn’t know. His feelings probably change from week to week depending on whether the team wins or loses.

The pressure drove out Bill Walsh of the San Francisco 49ers last February after he won his third Super Bowl, and Walsh never had to cope with a heart attack.

Ditka’s doctor, Jay Alexander, has said his sideline antics aren’t a danger to his health.

“I never told him he couldn’t get mad. He’s allowed to get mad. Nobody wants him to internalize.” Alexander also said Ditka’s personality probably had nothing to do with the heart attack.

“He smoked. He was overweight and he had high cholesterol. That’s enough. I’d be surprised if intensity had anything to do with it,” the doctor said.

The likelihood of Ditka having another heart attack is “very low,” Alexander said.

Meanwhile, there are signs he is mellowing. Ditka, who turned 50 Oct. 18, became a grandfather four months ago.

His daughter-in-law, Debbie, sometimes brings the baby, Lauren Ashley Ditka, who was christened Thursday, to his office at Halas Hall.

His secretary, Mary Albright, said: “I tell Debbie to bring the baby because it might be the only time I see him smile all day.”

When Ditka was talking to reporters at Redskin Park via a conference call the other day, he said, “My granddaughter is here right now and I want to see her so I’m going to hang up.”

When the baby comes for a visit, Ditka doesn’t growl. He purrs.

Maybe he has mellowed just a bit.