How Ben Johnson and Mike Ditka brought big gay energy to the Chicago Bears

One of the signature images of a stellar Chicago Bears 2025 season was coach Ben Johnson yanking off his shirt in the locker room to celebrate the team’s upset victory over the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles.

Johnson stripping down in a roomful of jacked, sweaty men became iconic in Chicago. But just as notably, in that moment, Johnson joined an important Bears coaching tradition: inadvertent big gay energy.

For perhaps the best example of this phenomenon, it’s time to go back into the team’s mid-80s glory days and legendary former coach Mike Ditka.

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Yes, that Mike Ditka — the cigar-chomping obscenity-spewing testosterone-fueled idol of every middle-aged straight football bro in the City of Big Shoulders.

Ditka’s 1985 Bears bulldozed the NFL on their way to an historic championship in Super Bowl XX. And recalling how his players turned themselves into national celebrities with the release of “The Super Bowl Shuffle,” Ditka decided to shoot his shot at a recording career.

Dear reader, with sincerest trepidation I give you…“The Grabowski Shuffle.”

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The song’s title came from one of Ditka’s spittle-laden rants to the media during a time when the coach was attempting to give the Bears’ smashmouth style of football a catchy moniker. 

“There are teams that are fair-haired, and those that aren’t so fair-haired,” Ditka proclaimed, “Some teams are named Smith, some Grabowski. We’re Grabowskis!”

Got that? Ditka wanted a name that conjured the hard-bitten blue collar (and very, very heterosexual) masculinity of the Reagan years. Based on his explanation, “Grabowski” was apparently a Polish word meaning “Hell yes, I go to Supercuts!”

When Ditka later decided to cash in and create his own theme song, “Grabowski Shuffle” seemed like a natural fit for hardcore Bears football fans everywhere. But after viewing the music video four decades later, it’s impossible to miss the faux-disco beat or the men’s choreo that seems to only have two moves: gyrate or thrust.

Indeed, Ditka’s single is absolutely dripping with inadvertent big gay energy.

What’s more, when it comes to its background characters, “The Grabowski Shuffle” is GIVING Village People.

After an opening scene with Ditka selecting a group of strongmen (and one token woman) out of the stands at a football game, the Grabowskis transform into a group of ludicrously costumed macho fantasy types who strut, spin, and twirl in unison down a nightclub runway.

Gosh, where have we seen that before?

As they introduce themselves, they start with the mustachioed ex-cop in flannels and “Grabowski Power” trucker hat who boasts, “I work like crazy then bop ’til I drop!” We can only assume he was kicked out of the police force for multiple violations of copyright law.

He’s followed by the even-more-mustachioed construction worker (oh come on!) in a skintight tank top and blow-dried hair. And how, you may ask, does this fellow identify himself?

Jackhammer George.

Yes, one of Coach Ditka’s machismo-dripping Grabowskis shares his name with a literal Chicago leather bar. 

What’s more, Jackhammer George declares, “I play it cool, never a fool when I’m using my tool.”Perhaps this is for the small but mighty community of gays cruising for “Doms who talk like Dr. Seuss.”

Hey, no shaming!

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Then the shuffle introduces us to a bodybuilder in a pec-hugging muscle shirt who asserts, “With a name like Jason, you’ve gotta be tough.”

Sure enough, the video attempts to prove Jason’s masculinity by cutting to a shot of him shirtless in mid-bench press. There’s no clear indication of the setting but it certainly looks like afterwards, Jason could get himself clean. Or have a good meal. Maybe even do whatever he feels.

Finally, we get something of an original character with the moving man whose name is Larry. As if sensing just how “macho macho man” the Grabowskis were getting, Larry insists, “But I call it straight.” 

Then gleefully adds, “…like Mr. D!”

The biggest upset of the entire song is that George Takei didn’t spontaneously materialize at this point to tack on an “Oh my!” 

Is now a good time to point out that Coach Ditka seems to have disappeared during this part of the video?

Add in dance moves that make The Grabowskis look even more like supermarket off-brand Village People and this became one of the campiest videos to emerge from the entire NFL in the 1980s. And at the heart of it all was Ditka, the model of football coaching masculinity.

Perhaps because of this incongruity, “The Grabowski Shuffle” disappeared almost as quickly as Bears championship hopes of the past four decades. But now that Ben Johnson has brought inadvertent big gay energy back to Soldier Field, the Monsters of the Midway might finally have what it takes to take home another Lombardi Trophy.

They can display it on biker night at Jackhammer.

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