Bears fans from business world flock to hear Da Coach

Legendary Chicago Bears player and coach Mike Ditka claimed home-field advantage as he shared philosophy, practical advice and other life lessons with a sold-out crowd from the Schaumburg Business Association at his Ditka's restaurant in Arlington Heights.

But today's breakfast event began with a disclaimer: "I'm a very ultraconservative person, and I don't want to say anything that will offend anyone," the coach said.

Nevertheless, the audience of business people was equally enthusiastic to hear what Ditka had learned about life through his entrepreneurship as on the gridiron.

While he said he felt every endorsement decision he made was sound at the time, his proudest foray into business is his restaurants.

"The restaurant business is a good business if you're honest," Ditka said. "There are too many good restaurants. If you're not good at it, you're going to be done in a hurry."

In business, sports and even life itself, people can't expect more than one shot at getting things right, he added.

"I think about our society," Ditka said. "People wonder, are we heading in the right direction or the wrong direction? This is a wonderful country. You're only guaranteed one thing - and that's an opportunity. What you do with that is up to you."

The audience was eager to hear Ditka's own analysis of the '85 Bears' success, as well as his opinion of the team's prospects 30 years later.

One of the key aspects to success in any decade is that players' character and attitude must be weighed as much as their talent, he said.

Bears head coach John Fox "is a good coach. He's a good man," Ditka said. "But it takes good players to do it. If you've got good people, you've got a chance at anything."

Ditka said he believes his former player Jim Harbaugh's head coach position with the San Francisco 49ers was frustrated by him not having enough players who matched his own level of competitiveness. Ditka said he hopes Harbaugh can find new opportunity with younger and more impressionable players at the University of Michigan.

"Jim Harbaugh is the ultimate 'I-can-do-it' guy," Ditka said. "He was the most competitive guy I've been around."

But Ditka's insider opinion on who brought the most to the game of football during his own career probably matches that of a lot of fans.

"The greatest player I've ever seen was Walter Payton," he declared. "And that was because of the whole package."

Ditka's opinion on the increased awareness of concussions in football is that the NFL is doing its best to address a phenomenon no one fully understood years ago. A football helmet is a sophisticated piece of equipment and probably inspired a false sense of security about the type of deliberate impacts that can be made with it on, he added.

"Football is not a contact sport. It's a collision sport," Ditka said. "The laws of physics take over."

Football built great lives for many people, but others experienced more than their share of consequences, Ditka acknowledged. While he wouldn't discourage a grandson from taking up the game, Ditka said he'd probably put a golf club in the child's hands first to see much he liked it.

One audience member asked why such a nationally known figure as Ditka continues to concentrate his business interests and activities in Chicago.

"I'm a Chicago sports fan," Ditka replied. "I grew up in Pittsburgh, but I'm going to die in Chicago. It's the city that's had the biggest impact on my life."