Former Bears center and coach Mike Ditka has seen what the disease can do first hand, and said he would try to push kids to play a safer sport, such a golf, rather than football.
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“Well, let’s say you’re a father right now, and you’ve got a 4- or 5-year-old, 6-year-old, 7-year, 8-year-old kid. So what do you tell them?” Ditka told the Chicago Tribune. “People ask me the question. I would never discourage my son from playing football or baseball or anything else, but I would probably say, ‘Hey, listen, you ought to try golf.’ Seriously. And I think that’s what’s going to happen to a degree. And that’s just the way it’s going to be.”
Ditka’s roommate from his days with the Bears, Mike Pyle, died in July at age 76. CTE was later discovered in Pyle’s brain. According to Ditka, talking to Pyle was like conversing with a child.
