Full transparency – I’m a huge Chicago Bears fan. I’ve been a Bears fan my entire life. I clearly recall Mike Ditka and defensive coach, Buddy Ryan leading the 85′ Bears to a Super Bowl victory, which was one of the greatest joys of my childhood. The late great Walter Payton is my absolute favorite NFL player of all time. With all that being said, I don’t care how much of a fan I am of the Bears, Mike Ditka may describe himself as “old fashioned” but I will just say he sounds like an old fashioned racist.
Mike Ditka, affectionately known as ‘Da Coach,” said in a recent interview with TMZ,” athletes who kneel during the national anthem should “get the hell out of the country.” This isn’t the first time he has said anything like that. Ditka strongly disagreed when Colin Kaepernick kneeled in 2016. Ditka has a long history of disagreeing with anything that goes against, “America,” He even said, “Black people haven’t been oppressed the last 100 years.” If you ask former Chicago Bear, Otis Wilson, he has always said Ditka had an issue with dealing with Black men.
“If you can’t respect our national anthem, get the hell out of the country,” Ditka said during this brief interview with TMZ.
“That’s the way I feel. Of course, I’m old fashioned. So, I’m only going to say what I feel … You don’t protest against the flag, and you don’t protest against this country who’s given you the opportunities to make a living playing a sport that you never thought would happen. So, I don’t want to hear all the crap.”
No one should be surprised by these comments because this is who Da Coach is by his own words. In the wake of all the uprising going on around the world, you would think that just maybe some people may start opening their eyes to other possibilities but I guess not in some cases.
