Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Expansion? The Big Ten Dozen’t need it

The WISCH LIST

March 6, 2010

Just outside Chicago, not far off the Kennedy Expressway and within buzzing distance of O’Hare Airport, sits a nondescript two-story brick building neighbored by a cluster of modest homes and the machine yard of a suburban snow removal company.

It’s pretty safe to say that, upon first glance, the headquarters of the Big Ten Conference in Park Ridge isn’t quite what you’d expect.

In fact, the place kind of looks like it could use an expansion.

To which I’d tell the Big Ten, go for it.

Just leave the conference itself well enough alone.

In recent weeks, newspapers, talk radio and the Internet have been atwitter with reports – and wild rumors – regarding the proposed expansion of the Big Ten from 11 schools to 12.

Well, the Big Ten Dozen’t need it.

Not unless that new school is named Notre Dame or Texas, at least.

On Tuesday, media outlets reported that an initial Big Ten expansion study prepared by a Chicago-based investment firm had suggested to conference officials that expansion could be financially worthwhile.

The study analyzed whether five schools – Missouri, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Rutgers – would generate enough additional revenue to justify their inclusion in the Big Ten. Reportedly, the study concluded that by adding the right school, the league could indeed become wealthier.

And I don’t doubt that with the “right” school it could.

But, the only two schools that I feel fit that criteria – academic and athletic powerhouses Notre Dame and Texas – are longshots, at best, to shuck independence and the Big 12, respectively, and join the Big Ten.

If either did, the reason would be the same one behind most business decisions: Money.

According to ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” Big Ten schools in 2008 received a whopping $242 million in TV revenue from ESPN/ABC and the Big Ten Network, which breaks down to $22 million per university.

That big number looks even larger when compared to the $78 million generated in TV revenue by the Big 12, of which most members are said to receive about $6 million. Texas and Oklahoma reportedly receive larger shares because of more TV appearances.

Notre Dame football’s famed NBC TV contract, meanwhile, reportedly is worth $9 million a year – well short of Big Ten payouts.

Because of haughtiness (Notre Dame) and traditional rivalries (Texas), neither the Irish nor the Longhorns are expected to join the Big Ten.

But if they won’t, then why bother expanding at all?

With the other rumored candidates, risks outweigh potential benefits. Penn State’s membership makes it questionable whether Pitt would increase the Big Ten footprint in terms of recruiting and exposure. Missouri almost certainly would not.

This week, the Chicago Tribune reported that many officials believe Rutgers – the oddly named state school of New Jersey – would be the best fit for the Big Ten.

But I’d argue otherwise. For one, it’s Rutgers. There’s no cachet. And to say the addition of the Scarlet Knights – or fellow northeastern school Syracuse – would significantly extend Big Ten fandom and recruiting into New York and New England is pure folly.

Kids growing up out east dream of Madison Square Garden, not Madison, Wis. It’s the same here, where Midwestern kids fantasize about catching touchdowns at the Big House, not in the Carrier Dome.

Has having DePaul in the Big East increased that conference’s exposure in Chicago? Hardly. And it likely has hurt DePaul in recruiting local athletes who were raised on Big Ten tradition and are unfamiliar – or uninterested – with the Big East’s.

Ohio State University president E. Gordon Gee recently told his school’s student newspaper that, along with financing, the main reason for Big Ten expansion is “an inelegance in having 11 teams. We can’t play each other quite like we want.”

He likely was referring to the league’s inability to split into two divisions for football and hold a conference championship game. However, even if you assume each school would garner $1 million-plus with a conference playoff, I’m still not convinced of that game’s value.

In nine of the last 12 years, the Big Ten has placed a second school in the BCS series – and earned an extra $500,000 for all 11 members – largely because the league’s top two teams haven’t had to knock the other out in a conference title game.

With a league championship, that dual-berth regularity would vanish, while the difficulty of reaching the BCS title game would multiply with teams needing to win an additional conference game.

Without a conference championship, some feel that the Big Ten falls off the national radar during December and that its teams suffer from the monthlong break before bowl season.

But that’s just a convenient excuse for failure.

This past season, the Big Ten’s top four teams went 4-0 in bowl games, showing no signs of supposed rust. Fact is, if Big Ten teams are good enough, they’ll win bowl games.

And, barring the addition of a Texas or Notre Dame, the conference is already good enough as is. So, don’t add a lesser school, Big Ten.

No one wants to see a Dirty Dozen.

Saturday’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

In Kankakee, Olympic connections multiply

The WISCH LIST

Feb. 27, 2010

Sure, Olympic gold medalists Shaun White, Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller might be able to criss-cross snowscapes quicker than an avalanche.

But how fast can they multiply?

“One girl in my class, she did an amazing feat,” 12-year-old Jimmy Pentuic, a sixth-grader at Kennedy Middle School in Kankakee, explained earlier this week with an Olympic-sized dose of excitement. “She did 100 multiplication problems in one minute and 30 seconds. And she got them all right in that amount of time.

“I got them all correct, too. But it took me two minutes and 30 seconds.”

Hey, what’s a Perfect 10, when you’re talking Perfect 100s?

Last I checked, at the 2010 Winter Games– which wrap up Sunday evening in Vancouver – they had handed out Olympic medals for curling, ice dancing, speed skating a bevy of other frost-tipped sports, but there hadn’t been a single one awarded for math.

Or for art.

Or book reading, or essay writing.

Thankfully, though, those bases were all covered in Kankakee on Friday afternoon.

In conjunction with the Olympics, 18 classes of fourth, fifth and sixth graders at Kennedy spent the past two weeks staging their own brand of “Winter Games.” And on Friday, they capped things off with a “Closing Ceremonies” celebration at the school.

During the competition, students’ academic strengths were put to test in a variety of events that included writing essays either for or against Olympic sponsorship, keeping track of how many minutes they read during the Games and creating posters modeled after the Olympic theme, “With Glowing Hearts.”

Students also took part in athletic competitions in P.E. and each classroom was also assigned a foreign country to root on and learn about during the course of the Vancouver Games.

“The kids, it’s given them a lot more of a vested interest in the Olympics,” explained Maureen Sandusky-English, a sixth-grade teacher at Kennedy and the sister of United States Olympic Committee Chief Communications Officer Pat Sandusky.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a cool way to learn about the Olympics,” Pentuic echoed. “We have fun activities that go beyond just watching the Olympics. Instead, we’re actually learning about it and its history.”

One big way the students at Kennedy learned was via Pat Sandusky, who helped bring Vancouver to Kankakee by carrying a little piece of Kankakee to Vancouver.

Kennedy principal Betty Peters-Lambert sent to Sandusky a paper version of the school’s mascot, the Kennedy Brave. Pat and his wife then carried “Flat Kennedy” to several different Olympic events and spots all over Vancouver, snapping photos and e-mailing them to the school.

Sandusky also answered questions from the students via e-mail, educating them about the Olympic Games — “I didn’t now the Winter Olympics started within the last 100 years,” Pentuic said. “I thought it was really old. Kind of like the Summer Olympics are dating back to Athens.” — and wrote letters detailing his own Vancouver journey.

“I was able to attend the Opening Ceremonies on Friday night,” Sandusky wrote to the Kennedy students at the outset of the Games. “It was astonishing. As an Olympic spokesman I was able to ride the bus with the American athletes to the event.

“They were all so nice and I even was able to get a picture with Shaun White, a snowboarder nicknamed ‘The Flying Tomato.’ He’s a gold medal hopeful!”

Yeah, but let’s see him do his times tables.

iO on Chicago

When you think of Chicago Olympians, names like Shani Davis, Evan Lysacek and Patrick Kane are probably the first that come to mind.

And names like Chris Farley, Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert are probably about the last.

But the latter three are local Olympians, too.

Just of a different sort.

Chicago, world-renowned for its improvisational and sketch comedy thanks in large part to Second City theater, is also home to another famous improv theater, the iO, located at 3541 N. Clark St., just south of Wrigley Field.

Known as the “Improv Olympics” when the likes of Farley, Fey, Colbert and many other now-famous comedians trained and performed there, the theater changed its name in 2001 when the International Olympic Committee threatened legal action over it.

On Sunday – if you’re in the mood for an Olympic-themed road trip to watch the gold-medal hockey match at 2 p.m. – you might consider heading to Chicago and catching it at one of the many Wrigleyville pubs in the vicinity of Clark & Addison. You could then stick around for the 7 p.m. show at the nearby iO. Tickets are only $5.

And if you’re really looking to pull off an Olympic feat?

Three more iO shows begin at 10:30 p.m.

Make sure to stretch.

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

So, yah, maybe those Chicago winters aren’t so bad

The WISCH LIST

Feb. 20, 2010

I’m an Illinois boy, born and raised.

So, when it comes to surviving – and, heck, even thriving – in wintry weather conditions, I consider myself to be a pretty hardy soul.

I’ve shoveled my car out from my fair share of blizzards (including last week’s). I’ve stood atop “L” platforms in Chicago and stared down the howling winds off Lake Michigan with nary a flinch. And I’ve even frozen myself stiff in the grandstands at Wrigley Field.

In late June.

During this past month, for business purposes, I’ve covered more of the map than Rand McNally. And my travels have given me the opportunity to witness both the yin of winter in North Carolina, where a 35-degree day prompted a local to correct me, “Chili is something you put on a hot dog. This is cold.”

And the yang – or would that be the “Yah?” – of it in North Dakota, where I discovered this week that winter isn’t just a season.

It’s a lifestyle.

“Ya know, Fargo wouldn’t be so bad,” Blair Halvorson, a lifelong resident of the city famous for its accents, frigid temps and cinematic wood chippers told me this week as we pondered the piles of snow outside our hotel. “If we had a summer.”

Summers, of course, are what make living in Chicago from, say, November through March (or later) bearable.

I’ve always believed – or, perhaps, rationalized – that the wicked winters the Windy City experiences actually serve an important purpose for its citizens: They make Chicagoans appreciate summertime more than people in other towns.
But then I met the folks of Fargo, whose appetite for summer is perhaps rivaled only by their appetite for steak.

I learned from locals with names like Fridfinnson, Vandenberghe and MacGillvray that in North Dakota six-foot snowbanks can sometimes still be found standing in May – and are known to rise up again as early as September.

“It can get up to 100 degrees in between, though,” explained Lynn Kadlec, a native of the 39th State. “But then you get the mosquitoes.”

I can assure you, there were no triple digits (or mosquitoes) popping up in Fargo this week, something I was reminded of as I stood in line for security at O’Hare prior to my departure Monday morning.

“There are only two cities colder than Chicago, and you’re going to one of them,” the TSA employee said to the girl ahead of me in line, ribbing her about her trip to Minneapolis.

“Well, then, I must be going to the other one,” I said with a laugh, as I informed him I was bound for Hector International Airport in Fargo.

“Yes,” the TSA worker replied with a smirk. “I think that would be it.”

Apparently, the rumor got around quick. My United Express flight was delayed for an hour at O’Hare as the airline had to “recruit a flight attendant” for the trip up to the Great White North.

The original one was probably hiding beneath her bed, wrapped in quilts.

Upon arrival in Fargo, I found it to be about what you’d imagine with sharp winds whipping across barren, snow-packed plains. The rental car counter even had a sign warning: “It’s Freezing Out There!”

On Tuesday, it was Mardi Gras. I didn’t make it out on the town, as I was fighting a cold (imagine that). But I figure it was probably a pretty PG-rated affair, as any flashing in Fargo likely would have involved pulling up two sweaters … to reveal the third sweater underneath.

In some ways, I’m actually a fan of cold weather. I find it fascinating. On my iPhone, I often check the temperature in Barrow, Alaska, located 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle. When it’s minus-33 up there, I find 33 above in Chicago to feel much warmer.

On Wednesday morning, however, when I awoke I learned it was minus-6 degrees in Fargo.

And 5 above in Barrow.

Chilling … literally.

In spite of the long, harsh winters, North Dakotans love their state. Last week, a new Gallup poll showed that its residents lead the nation in satisfaction with their standard of living, with 82.3 percent of them saying they’re happy with “all the things you can buy and do.”

Gallup forgot to add “with mittens.”

(Illinois, for the record, was right in the middle of the poll at 25, with 73.9 percent of residents satisfied.)

That doesn’t mean things are peachy for everyone in Fargo, though. The local newspaper this week featured a front-page story with the headline “PEEK-A-BOO STREETS” that detailed how towering snowbanks are severely hampering driver visibility at intersections in town.

So much so that area resident Rodger Whitford told the paper that he planned to put his winter defensive driving skills on ice and flee south.

“I’m heading to Arkansas at the end of the week because I’ve had enough,” Whitford said, adding,” “I don’t know if I’ll be back.”

I actually liked North Dakota, so I very well might be.

Although, if I do, it’ll be in July.

And I’ll still bring a scarf.

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Find the love, Illini fans

The WISCH LIST

Feb. 13, 2010

I spent this past week in North Carolina, where tobacco fields, merciless traffic laws and college basketball are king.

Now, I don’t smoke. And while in the Tar Heel State, I kept my driving to a bare minimum. But I did make like the locals and take part in their proud tradition of college hoops hysteria.

Even if it was during an NBA game.

On Tuesday night, while seated about 20 rows off the floor at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, I watched former University of North Carolina star Raymond Felton drain a pull-up jumper with 1.9 seconds left to lift the hometown Bobcats to a 94-92 victory over the Washington Wizards.

It was pretty exciting.

But my big cheer – one that turned a few nearby heads and just might have sparked that earthquake back in Chicagoland – had come about 15 minutes earlier.

That was when I learned via text message that the University of Illinois had pulled off a stunning upset at Wisconsin, propelling the Illini (17-8, 9-3) into a first-place tie with Michigan State atop the Big Ten.

Three weeks ago, when Illinois sat at 12-8 overall and 4-3 in conference, few things – save, perhaps, a Midwestern temblor – could have seemed less likely.

But, as they say, good things come to those who wait.

And I think there’s plenty of good on the horizon for Illini hoops.

I’ve held off on writing about Illinois basketball so far this season, mainly because I just haven’t known what to make of this vexing team. But I also haven’t wanted to jump to any conclusions about it, something that too many Illini fans often seem very apt – and eager – to do.

Granted, the 2009-10 Illini have been more up and down than flights at Midway. They’ve lacked the toughness and defensive intensity of Bruce Weber’s past squads. And you’ll find more bulk on display at a Sam’s Club.

All of that coupled with bad early-season losses to Bradley and Utah, along with disappointing ones to Georgia, Missouri and Gonzaga, provided more than enough reason to question the future of this team and Bruce Weber’s program, in general.
But there was no good reason to condemn it.

While a lot of fans might not like to hear it, college basketball is often about patience. Personally, that’s one of the things I love most about the sport – the opportunity to watch players develop over four years.

And Bruce Weber has proved that he’s one of the best at developing players, particularly guards. From big talents Deron Williams, Dee Brown and Luther Head to lesser ones in Richard McBride, Chester Frazier and Trent Meacham, each of them improved under Weber’s tutelage and maxed out their ability by the end of their careers.

Demetri McCamey now appears to be on that same path.

Certainly, in college hoops, there are superstars who bolt to the NBA after just one or two seasons, and they’re great to have. But most programs are built around players who stick around long enough to become veterans.

And, quite simply, this year’s Illini squad lacked enough vets to excel at the outset of this season.

Illinois boasts just one senior in Dominique Keller, and he’s a junior college product who’s been in the program for less than two years. The Illini also began the season with two freshmen guards (D.J. Richardson and Brandon Paul) in the starting lineup. And, while the team’s core of juniors may have had considerable game experience, they did not yet have leadership experience. Last season, the team relied on seniors Frazier and Meacham to fill that crucial role.

With one-time records of 8-4 and 12-8, Illinois might have disappointed to begin this season, but it didn’t underachieve. Rather, the expectations were simply too high too early for this bunch.

Many people discounted the impact of losing to graduation Frazier, Meacham and Calvin Brock, the team’s best three defenders.

And no matter how talented the current players might be, they still needed to learn how to lead and play as a team.
And the Illini still are learning, no doubt.

It would be nice if their fans could learn a bit, as well.

Illinois hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament yet, but it also hasn’t yet lost out on a Big Ten championship, either. Whatever does happen from here on out, I’d just caution Illini fans in the future to not so quickly count out a Bruce Weber-coached team.

Or program.

Let things play out. See where a full season takes you. And allow young athletes time to fully mature and develop as players and leaders.

Weber isn’t perfect (no coach is). And neither are his players (ditto). But their future – both for this season and beyond – does appear to be bright.

It doesn’t hurt to show a little patience.

And on this, the day before Valentine’s Day, it doesn’t hurt to show a little love, too.

From the Monday, Feb. 8, edition of the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Pat Sandusky named Olympics communications chief

By DAVE WISCHNOWSKY
Special to the Daily Journal

Feb. 8, 2010

Late last month, while sitting in his office on the campus of the United States Olympic Committee’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, Pat Sandusky kidded about his job title since mid-October as the organization’s acting Chief Communications Officer.

“Until you can do the job,” the 35-year-old Bourbonnais native said with a chuckle, “you just act like it.”

As first reported Jan. 30 in the Daily Journal and officially announced last week, Sandusky proved to the USOC during the past four months that his “acting” chops were more than up to snuff.

On Feb. 3, he was formally named as the full-time CCO of the coordinating body for all Olympic-related athletic activity in the United States.

A 1993 graduate of Bishop McNamara High School, Sandusky becomes only the third person since 1979 to serve as the organization’s head of communications and just the fourth since the job’s inception.

“It’s incredibly humbling,” Sandusky said last Friday while in a cab en route to O’Hare International Airport where he caught a flight to Canada for 2010 Winter Games, which begin this Friday in Vancouver.

“This job is not something that I looked at lightly,” Sandusky continued. “It certainly has some gravity to it, and I’m very excited about it.”

The former head spokesman and Vice President of Communications for Chicago’s 2016 Olympics bid, Sandusky will report directly to new USOC CEO Scott Blackmun.

Prior to Chicago 2016, Sandusky spent 10 years at the global public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, where he was Vice President of the firm’s sports marketing practice and managed large-scale, multi-national communications programs for both the Chicago and London offices.

In addition to his work with the Olympics, Sandusky – who played football at Northern Illinois University – has worked on projects related to Wimbledon, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, English Premiership, NASCAR and NCAA football.

Sandusky did not disclose the salary for his new position. According to tax filings released annually by the nonprofit USOC, Sandusky’s predecessor as CCO, Darryl Seibel, earned $367,779 in 2008. At the time of his resignation in May after serving 6½ years as CCO, Seibel was the USOC’s third-highest paid employee.

Unlike nearly all the 205 national Olympic committees that carry membership in the International Olympic Committee, the USOC receives no government funding. Rather, it makes most of its income from a lucrative deal with NBC, which is broadcasting the Vancouver Games, and contracts with 18 corporate partners, who use the committee’s iconic five-ring logo.

Sandusky, who has split his time between Colorado and Chicago since taking over as the USOC’s acting CCO, said he and his wife have begun looking at homes in Colorado Springs. They plan to relocate with their infant twins by the end of the summer, he said.

“We are extremely happy that Patrick has joined the USOC family for the long-term and that a leader of Patrick’s caliber is moving to Colorado Springs,” Scott Blackmun said last week in statement. “Having him on our team since last October has had a positive impact for the USOC, and I believe that both the Colorado Springs community and the Olympic Movement in the U.S. will benefit by Patrick and his family moving to Colorado Springs.”

Sandusky said the change in his job title won’t change his role with the USOC a great deal, but “I think it will have a little more permanency. The title of ‘acting’ carries a certain level of temporariness. But now, longer-term thinking will be applied.”

In Vancouver this month, Sandusky will manage daily press conferences for American athletes during the Winter Games and serve as the head spokesman for any news involving the U.S. delegation.

As for his rise to the top ranks of Olympic leadership in the U.S., Sandusky credited his upbringing in Kankakee County for providing the launching pad he needed.

“Kankakee is such a sports-mad area, and that rubbed off on me at a very early age,” he said. “From [Bradley-Bourbonnais] Little League baseball to high school football at Mac, it was just a sports-crazy town to grow up in.

“There are a lot of great people involved in sports. And I can tell you, I wouldn’t be here today [with the USOC] without the leadership of the community.”

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Valentine’s Day? This year, put your heart into it

The WISCH LIST

Feb. 6, 2010

It’s a week from tomorrow, fellas.

Yeah, you know … Valentine’s Day.

Remember?

A few years ago, I interviewed an employee at a Hallmark shop for a story who told me that you’ll never see so many men inside a gift card store as you will in the days leading up to Feb. 14.

Many of them stream in two days before Valentine’s Day. Even more arrive on the day before. And some of them?

They roll in on the day of.

Poor saps.

Well, to save you from that 11th-hour fate and help ensure that your lovebird enjoys the holiday this year, I thought I’d provide some Chicago-related Valentine’s Day ideas and give you eight full days to plan.

Rather than, you know, eight hours.

According to Regena Thomashauer, a lot of guys can probably use the help. As the proprietor of Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts in New York City, Thomashauer claims that most men don’t have a clue when it comes to Valentine’s Day. She formerly operated a toll-free “911″ hotline for the romantically challenged where men — and, yes, women — could call for advice on what to do for their sweethearts on Feb. 14.

Thomashauer says the biggest question from men was, “What do women want, and why won’t they tell us?”

And the women?

They wondered, “How come he doesn’t know what I want?”

Good luck. It looks like we all can use it.

Dust off your duds at Field Museum

If you still have your dress and tux from your wedding day – and can still fit into them – then you can walk into the Field Museum free of charge on Feb. 13, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Actually, it doesn’t matter if your gown or tux is vintage or brand new. The Field Museum (1400 S. Lake Shore Dr.) is welcoming people of all ages to take part in a 2:30 p.m. toast in Stanley Field Hall to celebrate past, present and future brides and grooms.

Champagne and wedding cake from The Fairmont Hotel will be served as part of this event designed to get guests to visit the museum’s new exhibition, “The Nature of Diamonds,” and the newly refurbished “Grainger Hall of Gems.”

As an added perk, anyone who does show up dressed in wedding attire will have a chance to win several prizes, including two sets of round-trip airline tickets from United Airlines and deluxe stays at the Swissôtel in downtown Chicago or the The Talbot Hotel in the Gold Coast. Entrants must be at least 18 years old to be eligible.

Remember your affair at Bin 36

There’s no shortage of restaurants offering Valentine’s Day specials in the Windy City. But, if you’re looking to enjoy a romantic dinner and a movie – at the same time – the downtown wine bar and restaurant Bin 36 (339 N. Dearborn St.) will be screening “An Affair to Remember,” starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, on a large digital projection screen in its loft beginning at 6:30 p.m.

During the film, guests can enjoy a three-course menu featuring Waldorf salad, wood-roasted chicken with butternut squash and kale, milk chocolate and berry semifreddo popsicle along with wine pairings for $48. For tickets, visit www.bin36.com/binschool.html.

Take your date on an Odyssey

Cruising around Lake Michigan in February might not sound particularly appealing.

If you’re on a sailboat.

However, if you find yourself inside a luxury cruise ship, that’s a different story.

Chicago’s Odyssey cruise ship, which docks at Navy Pier, is offering $124.90 dinner cruises on Feb. 13 and Feb. 14 and a $54.90 brunch cruise on Feb. 14. Champagne, a red rose, live music and dancing – as well as panoramic views of the Chicago skyline – are included.

For reservations and more information, visit www.odysseycruises.com.

Become a real bleeding heart

Not everyone is into romance on Valentine’s Day.
And if you – and your significant other – happen to fall into that category, then you may want to consider making a pit stop at Tommy Gun’s Garage (2114 S. Wabash Ave.) next weekend.

On Feb. 14, the 1920s-themed dinner theater will be delving into the more macabre side of Valentine’s Day with an authentic reenactment of Chicago’s famous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. For more information, visit www.tommygunsgarage.com.

Or call 733-RAT-A-TAT.

Fitting, huh?

Sweets for your Sweet

Rather than bringing chocolates to your sweetheart on Valentine’s Day this year, why not instead bring her to them?

On Feb. 13 and 14, Chicago Chocolate Tours is offering 2½-hour guided Valentine’s Day walking and tasting tours of select chocolate shops, bakeries, and cafes in the city. The $40 tours – which include Magnificent Mile and Lakeview routes – are intended to be fun and educational, as you discover some of the city’s secret chocolate treasures and learn about the city’s history of chocolate.

I hear it’s rich.

For locations and more information, visit www.chicagochocolatetours.com/tours.

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Sandusky’s Olympics career heads into thin air

The WISCH LIST

Jan. 30, 2010

COLORADO SPRINGS – It’s been four months since Chicago 2016 packed up its ball and trudged home from Copenhagen a stunned Olympics loser, but Pat Sandusky is still playing Games.

It’s just not the ones that he originally imagined.

“It was very disappointing,” Sandusky, a Bourbonnais native and the former spokesman for Chicago 2016, said about the city’s failed Summer Olympics bid, which in October finished a shocking fourth in IOC voting behind Madrid, Tokyo and winner Rio de Janeiro. “I think as I’ve had time to process it and look back on it, though, there’s nothing we could have done differently. It was just the time to go to South America.

“It was no shortfall of Chicago or the USOC. It was just a great bid and campaign by Rio. Once they proved their economy was strong enough and that they could pull it off, that was it. It’s a world-changing type of event, having the Games in South America [for the first time], like it was having the [2008 Summer] Games in China.

“I feel more comfortable now, looking back.”

In large part, that’s because Sandusky now has so much to look forward to.

Just two weeks after the IOC decision in Denmark, Sandusky was named the acting chief communications officer for the United States Olympic Committee and began focusing his energies on helping the USOC prep for next month’s 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

On Friday night, Sandusky informed me via text message that he is removing the “acting” from his job title and has accepted a full-time position as the USOC’s chief communications officer. Sandusky said he will be moving his family to Colorado Springs, were the USOC is based.

Last week, while out in Colorado on business, I got the opportunity to pop in on my former Pony League teammate at his office on the campus of the U.S. Olympic Complex, which once was the home of ENT Air Force Base and the North American Defense Command (NORAD) before being transformed into the USOC headquarters in 1978.

Tucked in the heart of Colorado Springs with a snow-capped Pikes Peak looming in the distance, the unassuming compound features a sports medicine and sport science center along with an athlete center that includes two residence halls and a dining hall, where “you’ll find a lot of carbs, a lot of protein,” Sandusky said with a chuckle.

On the menu last week: roast turkey, pasta with roasted winter squash and North Woods bean soup – all featuring detailed nutritional information for the calorie-conscious Olympian.

At the complex, the USOC is able to provide housing, dining, recreational facilities and other services for up to 557 coaches and athletes at one time. Sandusky said about 200 athletes – most of them Summer Olympians – are full-time residents at the training site.

Since assuming his role with the USOC, Sandusky has been busy helping the USOC buff a reputation that has long been hounded by accusations of being more interested in making money and winning medals than goodwill.

“So far, things have been good,” Sandusky said. “We’ve made positive headway on the media side of things … And, hopefully, we’ll do quite well and get that pride restored.”

He’s also been busy preparing for the Winter Games, which begin Feb. 12 when just over 200 American athletes will gather with thousands more from around the globe as the Opening Ceremonies kick off in British Columbia.

“It’s a different kind of busy,” Sandusky said, comparing his duties with Chicago 2016 to those with the USOC, where he oversees a media and public relations team of about 20. “It’s similar, but a slightly different pace because [with the USOC] it’s longer term and a broader organization.

“Even if Chicago had won the games, that would have ended in 2016. Here, we’re looking at the short-term and the long term, 25 to 35 years out.”

In Vancouver, Sandusky will fill the role of head communicator for the U.S. delegation, managing daily press conferences dealing with news and events on the fly.

“When things happen, whether positively or negatively, it’s my job to help massage the message,” he explained.

With the U.S. having finished behind only Germany in total medals won at both the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics, Sandusky hopes to have plenty of positive news to talk about. Considering that NBC is spreading 835 hours over coverage over five networks and its Olympic Web site – more broadcast hours than the last two Winter Games combined – there will certainly be no shortage of people watching.

From everywhere.

Consider this: On the promenade at the U.S. Olympic Complex, colorful flags line the sidewalk from all 205 Olympic member nations. That tally numbers 13 more than even the United Nations.

“That’s what’s so great about working with the Olympics,” Sandusky said. “It’s a global movement. And once you get down to the games, very little of it’s about politics. It’s all about focusing on sport.”

And with that, Game on.

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Why the Bears could use a shot of Champaign

The WISCH LIST

Jan. 23, 2010

Back in 2002, the Chicago Bears and Fighting Illini shared more than team colors, Dick Butkus bragging rights and cool logos.

They shared a playing field, as well.

While Soldier Field was undergoing its dramatic disfiguration, er … renovation up in Chicago, the Monsters of the Midway spent the season patrolling the prairie as they hosted NFL opponents at Memorial Stadium in Champaign. Eight years later, the Bears and U. of I. football again hold more in common than mere orange and blue.

They both have head coaches whose heads many fans would like to see roll.

Three seasons ago the Bears were in the Super Bowl versus the Indianapolis Colts, who find themselves back in the AFC Championship Game this weekend.

Meanwhile, the Bears are just trying to find themselves.

Illinois football, which has fallen hard since reaching the Rose Bowl two years ago, is trying to find itself, too. But, as it turns out, the Illini are doing a much better job of it.

Mainly because they’re at least trying.

When it comes to seeking out – and actually hiring – new coordinators, the folks in the Bears’ front office would have been wise to follow the game plan that Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther used to pluck his preferred choices off the job market.

Instead, though, the Bears are bumbling their way through a coordinator search that’s now on to, what, Plan C?

It’s no secret to anyone that neither lllinois head coach Ron Zook (8-19 record since the 2008 Rose Bowl) nor Bears head coach Lovie Smith (23-25 since Super Bowl XLI) should probably still have their jobs. And don’t be fooled, the main reason that they do is because it would require shelling out millions of dollars to buy out their current contracts.

In an economic climate where the budget-crunched University of Illinois is forcing faculty to take unpaid furloughs, while the labor contract-crunched NFL is facing a possible lockout in 2011, I understand that.

I might not like it, but I do understand it.

What I don’t understand, though, is why the Bears’ so-called brain trust of team president Ted Phillips and general manager Jerry Angelo is unable – or unwilling – to see the true flaws of the head coach that they’ve decided to retain and then do something proactive about it.

Ron Guenther did it.

With many Illinois fans howling for Zook to be fired following a dismal 3-9 season, Guenther made the unpopular decision to retain his head coach, instead opting to fire most of his staff. The move seemed to sentence Illinois to a 2010 season without any hope or even reason to watch.

Why, after all, would a legitimate coordinator decide to work with a head coach who has little job security?

Guenther, though, surprised everyone by hiring highly regarded offensive coordinator Paul Petrino from Arkansas and then swiping Kansas State defensive coordinator Vic Koenning, who was coveted by Georgia.

He did it by paying big bucks ($435,000 for Petrino and $325,000 for Koenning). But also by giving the new coordinators total control, while wisely stripping it from a head coach who had proved he no longer deserved it.

Gone from Illinois next season will be Zook’s preferred spread offense in favor of Petrino’s pro-style attack, while Zook’s porous defensive schemes will be replaced by Koenning’s new aggressive attack.

With a fierce schedule and questionable talent, it’s still unlikely that Illinois will reach a bowl next season, but at least there’s now a new reason to watch.

Guenther tried to do something different, unlike the Bears who instead are merely pretending to do so.

“To bring in two new coordinators is quite a massive change,” Ted Phillips said recently. “We’ll get the right people in here that can embrace the systems that Lovie wants to put together on both sides of the ball.”

But can’t Phillips see that’s the entire problem? It shouldn’t be who Smith wants on both sides of the ball. It should be who he needs.

Like Ron Zook, Lovie Smith has proved that his systems no longer work. They should be scrapped in favor of something new that’s imagined by dynamic coordinators looking to shake things up.

No dynamic coordinators, though, want to take a job where they’ll be stuck running the failed schemes of a head coach who’s a year away from being fired.

As a result, the Bears will most likely end up hiring third-tier coordinators willing to obey Smith. And what that means is that, next season, Bears fans will find themselves watching a team resembling Bill Murray in the movie honoring a holiday arriving soon.

You know, “Groundhog Day.”

I see 16 more weeks of mediocrity.

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Anchors Aweigh at Sinatra’s favorite Chicago joint

The WISCH LIST

Jan. 16, 2010

One of the things I love most about living in Chicago is that so much history lives right there with you.

For example, just around the corner from my apartment is a hardware store that once was a billiards hall where John Dillinger was known to have shot pool.

When he wasn’t shooting a Tommy gun.

Down the street closer to Wrigley Field, sits an old hotel where showgirl Violet Valli put a bullet in Chicago Cub shortstop Billy Jurges in 1932 during an incident that’s believed to have formed the basis for parts of Bernard Malamud’s famous novel, “The Natural.”

And a few miles farther to the south, I once worked in a Loop skyscraper where during Prohibition Al Capone reportedly ran a speakeasy out of a restaurant on the building’s domed top floor.

Yes, as a history buff, Chicago is definitely my kind of town.

And as he once told us in song, it was Frank Sinatra’s too. Although, Ol’ Blue Eyes might have had different reasons beyond the city’s history.

Like its ribs. Specifically, the kind you find at Twin Anchors.

Sinatra may have never crooned about the rib joint in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood, but ever since I moved to the city 4½ years ago plenty of others have sung the praises of the cozy restaurant where the Chairman of the Board was a regular patron from the early 1950s well into the 1970s.

And as an aforementioned sucker for Windy City history, not to mention a great rack of ribs – “The best in the city,” more than one friend told me about Twin Anchors – I decided this week to finally visit Sinatra’s favorite Chicago haunt.

And scare up an appetite.

Established in 1932, Twin Anchors (1655 N. Sedgwick St.) is tucked beneath a green-and-white striped awning on a quiet corner just a few blocks off bustling North Avenue. As one of the oldest restaurants in Chicago, the building is filled with character (during Prohibition it, too, was a speakeasy known as “Tante Lee Soft Drinks” that provided refreshments with a bit more of a bite than a Nehi) and with characters (Jason Alexander, Chris Farley and Joan Cusack are among the celebrities whose autographed menus hang on the walls).

Chicago author Bill Zehme one wrote about Twin Anchors, “I love no place quite like I love this place. It is everything Chicago is supposed to be: Familiar, old, neighborhoody, friendly, and kind of an open secret, but one that requires some protecting.”

Some time during the early 1950s, Sinatra made his first visit to Twin Anchors, and after tasting the establishment’s baby-back pork ribs bathed in its zesty barbeque sauce, he kept coming back.

Whenever Sinatra did, legend has it that once his party was seated in the back of the restaurant near the pair of wooden anchors mounted on the wall, Sinatra would post one of his bodyguards at the pay phone to keep patrons from calling friends and causing a mob scene.

On Monday night, I entered Twin Anchors as a mob of one when I popped open the front door, shook off the January cold and snagged a seat at the bar beside a framed photo of Sinatra himself, clad in a fedora, a pinky ring and a big smile.

These days, first-person accounts of Sinatra – who passed away in 1998 at the age of 82 – are hard to come by at Twin Anchors, as the last waitress to serve the legend retired a decade ago. But, from his tunes softly wafting above the bar to the restaurant’s dimly lit, Sinatra-smooth vibe, Ol’ Blue Eyes’ presence can definitely be felt.

And his favorite rack of ribs, of course, can still be ordered.

So, naturally, I did it (my way: with the zesty sauce and a baked potato). What I received in return was a platter with enough ribs to make “Sue” the T-Rex at Field Museum envious.

And after just one bite into meat so tender that it didn’t fall off the bone, the bone fell off it, I instantly understood why Sinatra returned to Twin Anchors for so many encores.

It may indeed have the best babyback ribs in the city. I can’t say for sure. But I can tell you the restaurant’s backstory is as good as it gets.

That’s just me being frank.

Sinatra, probaby ribbing someone