By Jim Coffman

It is not possible for folks who lived it in Chicago to look back at the almost decade of basketball success capped off by The Last Dance and not feel a wave of nostalgia. Of course, it was easy to be a sports fan in Chicago in the ’90s. For one thing, we didn’t have dimwitted cable/satellite/streaming channels making proclamations about who was an “authentic” sports fan. More on that later.
It was not easy to be a Bulls backer in the late ’80s and the spring of 1990. And then when the winning started the next year, it was hard not to believe that too many of the people you were celebrating with hadn’t suffered enough in the five years prior to call themselves Bulls fans. There were times you felt practically surrounded by bandwagoneers (if that isn’t a word, it should be, shouldn’t it?).

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Posted on April 29, 2020

Fred “Tex” Winter’s Baby

In case you were ever confused, here’s how it worked in all its glory, from K-State to Chicago to Los Angeles.

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Posted on April 28, 2020

By Thomas Chambers

With big-time sports standing on its head, the first Saturday in May roars upon us.
This year, it won’t be Kentucky Derby Day. Instead, Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas, will be the center of the horse racing universe. I couldn’t be happier, not once, but twice.

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Posted on April 26, 2020

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

A draft about nothing. Plus: The Latest Last Dance; Cubs Mailbag; The Minnesota Blackhawks; Sky Watch; GRONK!; and the World’s Greatest Race Car Driver.

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Posted on April 25, 2020

By Joshua D. Pitts/The Conversation

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is slated to be selected Thursday with one of the first 10 picks in the NFL draft.
Like all top prospects, Tagovailoa has been subjected to months of evaluation, with teams’ scouting departments measuring his athletic abilities, interviewing his college coaches and researching his personal life.
He’s also taken the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which, for about 50 years, teams have administered to prospects. This 12-minute intelligence test consists of 50 multiple choice questions measuring cognitive ability, with the score reflecting the number of correct answers. While all prospects take the test, the scores of quarterbacks – due to the belief that the position requires more brainpower – tend to generate the most media interest. The scores are nominally private, but every year they’re leaked and publicly reported on online databases.
Tagovailoa scored a 19 out of 50. Should that be a cause for concern? A debate rages among fans, analysts, players and pundits over the test’s usefulness as an evaluation tool.

Lol if ppl only knew how guys really treat the wonderlic. Lol no one cares! https://t.co/0WU52F2yQm

— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) April 17, 2020

But there’s very little actual research on its effectiveness. So my colleague Brent Evans and I recently conducted a study examining the relationship between a quarterback’s Wonderlic score and his NFL success.

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Posted on April 23, 2020

By Jim Coffman

Is there anything our man Ryan Pace could learn from The Last Dance as he heads into his sixth draft as general manager of the Bears? A fascinating subplot contained in the first two episodes of the 10-part story of the Bulls’ 1997-98 season looked back at the drafting of Michael Jordan in 1984.
The primary lesson to be learned in 1984 was obvious, as it had been many times before. And yet it was ignored by the Trail Blazers that year and it is being ignored again this year by so many of the folks who weigh in publicly on who should be drafted when into the NFL. Portland took Kentucky center Sam Bowie second way back then, allowing the Bulls to take Jordan third. Further study makes it clear that the pick wasn’t just terrible on its face, it was worse given several factors that have come to light since then. More on that later.
The overall lesson? Take the best player available! Or trade down for more picks. But yet again this year the vast majority of pre-draft yammering and scribbling focuses on teams’ specific needs and how they should fill them with the picks they currently have.

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Posted on April 22, 2020

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Players aren’t going to wear masks and only fans in Red America are stupid enough to attend games anyway. Plus: Michael Jordan Was Singularly Awesome And Also Was (And Remains) A Terrible Person – Just Like Jerry Krause (Though Krause Is Dead Now So He’s Only A ‘Was’ Not A ‘Remains’); Time For Wrigleyville To Panic Over Cubs’ Bad Start?; The Great Karnak’s New Bulls; Our Hapless Athletic Careers; Bears To Sit Out First, Third And Fourth Rounds Of Draft, and more!

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Posted on April 17, 2020

By David Rutter

Every story about the pandemic starts with some preamble of “I don’t mean to freak you out, but holy, Jumping Jehoshaphat!”
And then the story reveals facts that only an idiot would not transmute into panic.
So I’ll uphold our rules about pandemic panic alerts. Yes, be scared bleepless. It’s the safer approach.
If they exist, even sober sports fans are edgy, and how much reality can Chicago fans endure before unraveling emotionally?

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Posted on April 17, 2020

By Terry Greene Sterling, Jake Goodrick and Marie Baronnet via New America

Every day, Donald Benally golfs.
It takes his mind off the coronavirus outbreak pummeling the Navajo Nation, killing at least 38 and infecting 921 victims as of Wednesday.
Like many Navajo people, Benally wonders whether the dead and afflicted are undercounted. He wonders if the virus had anything to do with the deaths of his 82-year-old uncle and 66-year-old cousin, who both recently died from “heart attacks.”
He worries about elders, toughing it out in remote areas without enough food or water or medicine. He thinks about his daughter, Katelyn Rae, huddling in her Northern Arizona University dorm room in Flagstaff. She’s so alone, but he can’t bring her home. There’s no internet in his house in Steamboat, a remote community on the Arizona side of the Navajo Nation.
So Donald Benally plays golf, and the worries diminish for a little while. “I feel like I totally forget about what’s going on with this pandemic,” he said. “It helps.”

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Posted on April 16, 2020

By Jim Coffman

I did actually play some sports in between watching as many games as I could growing up in Chicago in the ’70s and ’80s. As I look back and try to figure out how it was that I came to care so much about Chicago teams that couldn’t have cared less about me, I remember that I was quite the competitive little cuss through eighth grade at least. I would rage against losing back then, especially at dear, old Camp Echo in Fremont, Michigan. It was and is the overnight camp overseen by the Evanston (McGaw) YMCA. How a couple of city kids ended up there with all the youngsters from the suburbs remains a bit of a mystery.

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Posted on April 15, 2020