John Stefanik was hoping he wouldn’t have to do a speech in character. The 73-year-old Clarendon Hills resident had been cosplaying as former Chicago Bears player and coach Mike Ditka since the ’80s, but said he wasn’t comfortable acting like the coach outside of a conversational setting.
Talking before the crowd assembled at Pippin’s Tavern would probably feel like an awkward stand-up routine, he said.
Dressing as Ditka, however, always came naturally. Stefanik has a similar hairstyle, build and mustache as the legendary coach. He recalled an incident that happened around 1987: He stood outside the Chicago Theatre for his day-to-day sales job when a woman from Florida went up to him yelling, “Coach, coach!”
“She wouldn’t listen to me,” he said. “Finally, she was so relentless, I signed an autograph.”
Stefanik was the blowout winner of a Ditka lookalike contest Sunday at Pippin’s Tavern in the Rush & Division neighborhood. The event honored Ditka — the coach who led the 1986 Bears to the franchise’s only Super Bowl victory — following his death at age 86 on Oct. 9.
Four people participated in the contest, which took place during halftime of the Bears’ game against the Atlanta Falcons. Stefanik was joined by two men wearing mustaches provided by the restaurant and Bryan Drew, the Republican candidate hoping to fill the empty Illinois comptroller seat in November’s election.
Drew, wearing a gray blazer over Ditka’s signature Bears sweater, filmed social media videos for his campaign outside the tavern.
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There was also Mark Boetscher, sitting at the bar in a Ditka jersey. With only two contestants signed up during the first quarter of Sunday’s game, restaurant staff and patrons kept asking him to step into the ring.
Boetscher was a big fan of Ditka’s and said the late coach should’ve run for mayor because of his ability to bring different kinds of people together. The River North resident had gray hair styled similarly to Ditka’s and wore one of the handout mustaches.
But Boetscher didn’t compete. He said he liked to go about things quietly, and he was enjoying a conversation with a friend he met during the contest. “We’re gonna sit at the bar and do Malört,” he said.
After Drew, contestant Bill Myatt and a third unnamed contestant took turns shouting variations of “Da Bears” during judging, Stefanik overcame his earlier fears and broke into a speech.
At first, he did an impression of the coach, going on about Polish food, health operations and his time with the Bears. But then Stefanik called for a moment of silence and eulogized Ditka.
“The coach is the best; he’s an icon, and he’s become even greater since he passed,” Stefanik said, speaking past television cameras into a crowd of onlookers. “So I’m just hoping that I can carry on his tradition, maybe even just a little bit, and I can win a crown as Coach Ditka.”
Stefanik, like the Bears, won Sunday.