Mike Ditka: The ‘ultra-ultra-ultra conservative’ coach who transcended the NFL
In the summer of 2004, the Republicans were in serious bother in Illinois. Midway through the campaign for a soon-to-be vacant US Senate seat, their chosen candidate Jack Ryan was alleged to have coerced his ex-wife Jeri, an actor who played Seven of Nine on Star Trek, to accompany him to sex clubs in New York and Paris. A scandal damaging enough back then to force him from the race, party apparatchiks scrambled for a replacement, desperate to prevent the Democrats’ rising star, some state senator called Barack Obama, from punching his ticket to Washington.
