Mike Ditka honored with 'Ditka Day' in Illinois

Mike Ditka Day: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's office says today is 'Mike Ditka Day' in honor of 'Ca Coach' – the former Chicago Bears player and football coach whose jersey is being retired.

|
AP/File
This 1986 file photo shows Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka (top) reaching to shake hands with New England Patriots coach Raymond Berry after the Bears won Super Bowl XX in New Orleans. Ditka is being carried by William Perry (r.) and Steve McMichael.

It's Ditka Day in Illinois.

Gov. Pat Quinn's office says Monday that he's declared it "Mike Ditka Day" in honor of the former Chicago Bears player and football coach whose jersey is being retired.

The Hall of Famer's No. 89 is being retired during a halftime ceremony Monday night when the Bears host the Dallas Cowboys.

Dikta is the 14th Bear to have his number retired by the team.

In a statement, Quinn calls Ditka "the best tight end of all time." And he says "Da Coach" ''molded and guided arguably the best football team," referring to the 1985 Super Bowl champs.

Ditka was drafted by the Bears in 1961 and played for the team through 1966. He returned to coach from 1982 until 1992.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Mike Ditka honored with 'Ditka Day' in Illinois
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1209/Mike-Ditka-honored-with-Ditka-Day-in-Illinois
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe