TheDC recently spoke with former Chicago Bears head coach and Hall of Famer Mike Ditka about the New York Jets players’ alleged harassment of Mexican reporter Ines Sainz. The conversation proved to be quite spirited. Read the full text of the interview here:
Caroline May: I am looking into this sexual harassment charge against the Jets. They are going to be making the players and staff go through a sexual harassment training session and I was wondering if you had ever had to go through a course like that and what you thought of it.
Mike Ditka: You know, you saw the incident. All I’m saying is the guys were probably playing around and it became a little more serious. In today’s society you can’t kid around like that.
CM: The woman [Sainz] says she was not harassed, rather a third-party feminist group is bringing the charge.
MD: Well that’s what I’m saying, there is probably nothing to it. It was probably harmless fun and you’ve got somebody else coming in from the outside saying, “Oh, you’re abused.” It’s not sexual harassment; it’s nothing. She’s an attractive lady, they looked at her. Come on, stop it! She’s an attractive girl, that’s why she combs her hair, wears those tight jeans and all that make-up. She had no room in those pants. Why do you have them that tight? You want somebody to look at you. Come on! Let’s go!
The country is full of nonsense not common sense now! Let’s go back to common sense. Come on guys! And this women’s group and all these people trying to get on the New York Jets, they’re idiots! What are they doing? It doesn’t make any sense. They did nothing wrong, they were having some fun.
To me, it was probably a great compliment to her attractiveness.
CM: That’s what it seems like. She is probably going to be more famous now than she would ever be without this incident — the best thing that could have happened for her.
MD: Are you kidding me?!?! She is going to be in Playboy and everything else!
CM: Did you ever have to go through a sexual harassment training class?
MD: No, no. I think I learned when I was a kid, you know, you can go here, you can’t go here. You can touch this you can’t touch this. You learn it the right way, it’s okay.
CM: Well I just hope everything turns out okay for the folks involved. It seems like the Jets are one of the big victims in this story.
MD: Well, it just doesn’t make any sense. And they’re the victims, but not by her, by the media and this third-party group. And they are going to sensationalize it as much as they can and it is dead wrong. If they didn’t have this what would they be doing, watching “Days of Our Lives”? Come on! And that’s why they do it. Or “Let’s Make a Deal.”
I mean people get so caught up in the lives of others because their lives aren’t worth a crap.
CM: True. Its very cathartic to speak with you about this stuff — voice of common sense. I mean these women’s groups say, even if she was dressed like a slut, it is all the men’s fault — that she didn’t bring it on herself.
MD: You know what they say: “You look like one, you smell like one, you probably are one.”