Mike Ditka didn't want to answer any more questions about his Hall of Fame Assistance Trust Fund, and specifically a USA Today story reporting that of the $1.3 million collected by the fund since its inception only $57,000 had actually been given out to needy former players. So, today Ditka dissolved that organization, saying he preferred to focus on the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund, on whose board he sits, while promising to dispense whatever money remains with the Hall of Fame fund among several charities.

The original USA Today report was eye-opening. It said that, according to tax records, Ditka's fund had spent $715,000 putting on charity golf tournaments, including paying $280,000 to a Chicago firm that helped organize them, and giving $65,000 to various ex-football stars to get them to show up. In other words, the fund ended up paying $8,000 more to players already rich enough to participate in charity golf tournaments than to the down-and-out guys the thing was allegedly set up to assist.

Ditka initially tried explaining the whole thing away, whipping out an interesting excuse about the old-time players being too proud to accept the money, and not liking to fill out forms. But now I guess he figured the whole thing wasn't worth the headache and the fund is kaput.

I'm not going to sit here and accuse Ditka of running some kind of scam in the guise of a fund to assist poverty-stricken former NFL players, cause I don't think he did. What I will accuse Ditka of, however, is falling into the same trap a lot of people do when they embark upon these charitable endeavors - the trap of handing the operation over to irresponsible or incompetent or downright shady people. Guys like Ditka like putting their names on things like this cause it makes them look good, and it doesn't cost them anything to go on TV and radio and hump the thing. But, a fellow like Ditka is unlikely to get involved in the day-to-day operation of the project - he's got a life after all - so he finds people to do it for him, and they hire a bunch of business-types who only pay attention to bottom-lines, and before you know it you're handing money out to guys to get them to show up for golf tournaments, and paying huge fees to companies that handle this and that, and the point of the whole thing gets lost amid all this money-shuffling.

It actually happens to a lot of charities, good intentions ending with people stealing, paying off their buddies and basically running the thing into the ground. The problem for Ditka is that his name was on the fund so he's the one who's going to take the heat. It was probably a wise move for him just to dissolve the thing and promise to give the remaining money away. Hopefully he'll think longer and harder the next time he gets it into his head to help somebody out in a way that doesn't actually require him to do any of the work.