ESPN's Ditka enjoyed telling it like it is on Valley stop

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Those who saw Mike Ditka on Wednesday in Fogelsville found out that the NFL Hall of Famer is exactly the same guy in person as he is on ESPN.

His no-holds-barred style thoroughly entertained a room of 600 people on hand for the Thanksgiving Benefit and Awards Luncheon presented by the Lehigh Valley chapter of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants and LifePath.

Ditka serves his role well as the old-school curmudgeon on the "NFL Sunday Countdown" set, but he passionately believes in a certain set of principles and you could tell he's not a big fan of a lot of what he sees in the league these days.

At one point during Wednesday's Q-and-A, Ditka said: "I can't say all of this stuff on TV because ESPN wouldn't allow it, but I love to say it here."


Ditka, among other things, said he is disappointed in the manipulations of Brett Favre, can't stand Randy Moss and despises all of the long hair on display in the NFL.

It was refreshing to hear someone unload without worrying about being politically correct.

Perhaps the funniest part of his presentation was his rant on the long hair.

"This bothers me and I'm never going to get off it as long as I live and what I have to say has nothing to do with color, creed, religion or anything else," he said. "The hair coming out of the bottom of the helmet is going to get somebody hurt.

"It's wrong. I don't give a damn if you wear your hair down to your feet, keep it under your helmet on Sundays. You remember that I drafted Ricky Williams in New Orleans. You remember how long his hair was? You look back at all of the years he played for me and you never saw hair coming out of the bottom of his helmet."

Ditka was just getting rolling.

"I work with people who say you can't do it coach, they say it's the current culture," Ditka said. "In life you get what you tolerate. If you tolerate it in the NFL, you get it. I don't care if you're Samoan, Hawaiian, black, white, pink or purple — keep the hair under the helmet.

"Look at the guy in Green Bay [Clay Matthews]. He's a good football player, but I think he looks like hell. I'm sorry. That's my opinion and I am not going to change that opinion. Will it make him a better football player to keep his hair under helmet, I don't know, but it will make me feel a lot better."

Speaking of tolerance, you get the sense that Ditka tolerates the opinions of Cris Carter and Keyshawn Johnson on the ESPN show, but doesn't agree with a lot they say.

Ditka respects host Chris Berman.

"He's a real pro at what he does and he has been doing it a long time." Ditka said.

He also praised Tom Landry, Walter Payton and Vince Lombardi among others, and thinks Allentown's Andre Reed should be in the Hall of Fame.

But Ditka ripped the lack of loyalty among players and owners and says that while the NFL is doing the right thing by cracking down on illegal hits, he wonders where all the money from the fines is going.

"Why don't they give it to you guys at LifePath," Ditka said. "No, that would make too much common sense."

No Hawks sightings

There will be no TV coverage of Saturday's Lehigh-Northern Iowa FCS playoff game in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

We've heard from Lehigh fans who are disappointed they can't see the team participate in its first postseason game since 2004, but Lehigh's director of sports media relations Steve Lomangino said the cost of sending a production crew halfway across the country was prohibitive for the school.

"We explored all kinds of options with us doing the game or possibly sharing it with Northern Iowa and the Missouri Valley Conference, but it just became too expensive to pull it off," Lomangino said. "Should we win this game, we would play at Delaware next Saturday and that is much closer and arrangements for that would come together much easier."

Lehigh-Northern Iowa radio coverage is available on 1230 and 1320 AM and http://www.lehighsports.com, and the NCAA will stream game video on its website.

Thumbs up

Service Electric TV2 will be doing an "IronPigs Potbelly Stove Report" several times during the winter. It will include TV2 IronPigs announcers in a round-table discussion. The first show has aired several times already and will air again at 8 p.m. Tuesday and 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Thumbs down

ESPN said its ratings for Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup finale in Homestead, Fla., were about the same as for the 2009 finale, which isn't good. Both drew about 5.6 million viewers. This was the closest title chase in years and if it didn't attract more viewers, you wonder what will happen for a sport that has lost its mojo.

Going against the ratings giant NFL on Sundays is suicidal, but ratings were down all year.

http://www.mcall.com/sports/columnists/groller/mc-finetuning-1126-20101126,0,3314741.column?page=2