Saturday’s front-page Wisch List newspaper column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Gut Check: Will the Bears leave Bourbonnais?

The WISCH LIST

June 27, 2009

When you pull off University Parkway in Romeoville and roll past a sweeping brick entrance onto the campus of Lewis University, it’s immediately apparent how serious the 1,200-student Catholic institution takes its athletics.

There, on your left, sits Brennan Field, home of Lewis Flyers baseball. Just ahead, a sign points the way to a summer basketball camp. And, if you turn the corner, you’ll weave your way past the Division II school’s softball diamond, soccer fields, tennis courts and track.

In sum, there are 16 varsity sports teams – including a nationally-ranked men’s volleyball squad – at Lewis. But that still doesn’t mean strapping junior Ken Hare gets to play his favorite sport at school.

“I’d like to,” said Hare, 20, of Chicago Heights, who’s spending his summer manning the university’s security booth. “But Lewis doesn’t have football.”

Yet, Lewis wants to host a football training camp.

Namely, the Chicago Bears’.

Make sense to you?

If not, you’re in good company (or, at least, my company). Because, I too found it something of a head-scratcher how a school can set such lofty goals.

When it doesn’t even have a set of goalposts.

Come July 31, the Bears will kick off their eighth summer of staging training camp at Olivet Nazarene University, and by all accounts the move to Bourbonnais from Platteville in 2001 has been nothing but a smashing success.

The locals love it. The crowds that flock from the city and the suburbs love it. The Chicago media loves it.

And I love it, too.

Not just because the camp has been well run and fan-friendly each time I’ve come down to visit, but also because the Bears’ presence at ONU has officially put my hometown on the map.

These days, it’s far less often that I get a puzzled looks from Illinoisans less geographically savvy than myself when I tell them that I hail from Bourbonnais.

“Where’s that?” has instead become, “Oh, sure, where the Bears train.”

There’s no doubt that hosting the Bears is a source of civic pride. And that’s surely one big reason why Romeoville and Lewis want them.

This August, the Bears’ current two-year contract with ONU expires. And although it includes an option for 2010, the Lewis Flyers – who have an aviation school and airport on campus – apparently sensed an opportunity to swoop in.

On June 11, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that, although the Bears likely will remain in Bourbonnais for their 2010 training camp and perhaps beyond, sources say the team is interested in moving camp closer to Chicago.

Now, personally, I think that the whole idea of holding camp should be to get away from home, not to simply set up a tent in your own backyard. But, nevertheless, officials from Lewis and Romeoville traveled to Halas Hall last week to hold talks with the Bears that team spokesman Scott Hagel described to the Daily Journal as “informal.”

Following that meeting in Lake Forest, the Chicago Tribune reported that Romeoville has proposed building a sports complex on Lewis’ campus, but that it isn’t even in the beginning stages of construction.

The complex was originally described as being a 40-acre site with at least eight baseball fields and modeled after New York’s Cooperstown Dreams Park. But Romeoville mayor John Noak has now said it could be outfitted to accommodate an NFL camp, apparently buying into the notion that a Dreams Park works even better as a Field of Dreams.

If you build it, the Bears will come.

But even if that were true, someone still has to pay for the thing.

And, while Lewis is rich in open spaces – its existing buildings take up only 130 acres of the 375-acre campus, leaving plenty of room for 300-pound NFL linemen to roam – the Joliet Herald-News said that constructing the proposed complex could cost between $10-$16 million and take several years.

Noak indicated in February that funding for the complex could include sponsorships, partnerships and usage fees. But $16 million is a big number in any economy. In this one, it’s huge.

Now, I admire Lewis’ moxie. Inscribed on its brick entrance is the Latin phrase “Signum Fidei,” which translates to “sign of the faith.” And there’s no doubt that in its pursuit of the Bears, the school is showing plenty of that.

But, regarding this issue, I actually found another sign on campus to be more fitting. It offered a list of “Common Sense Safety Awareness Tips” to students, with the last item encouraging them to “Go With Your Gut.”

Mine says that Bears Camp likely isn’t going anywhere.

At least not to Lewis any time soon.

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Me and Michael Jackson?

We go way back.

To 1983, to be exact, when for my seventh birthday, my parents gave me his “Thriller” album as a gift.

And that night, during my sleepover party, my friends and I turned off all the lights in the living room, climbed inside our sleeping bags and fired up the album’s title track on my dad’s record player.

To a bunch of second-graders, the song’s lyrics coupled with Vincent Price’s haunting voice about darkness falling across the land and whatnot was quite the, ahem, thriller.

Twenty-two years after that birthday — a million miles for Jackson — I interviewed a woman who met Michael when he was about the same age that I was when I became the owner of his iconic album.

On June 7, 2005 — when Jackson was in the midst of his child molestation trial in California, and I was working as a columnist at The Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill. — I sat down with local hairdresser Kay Halterman.

Halterman, 85, had recently celebrated 60 years of working as beautician, a milestone that earned her local and statewide accolades, as well as a front-page feature story in the Chicago Tribune.

But, perhaps, even more interestingly was that Halterman had befriended a young Michael Jackson back in the late 1960s when her eldest sister, Thelma Finkeldey, was the future King of Pop’s teacher in Gary, Ind.

“He was eight years old, and in the third grade,” Halterman told me, recalling the day that she took a trip to visit her sister’s classroom. “He was the cutest darling. Very, very shy … He had the cutest pug nose.”

At the time, Michael was performing locally with his brothers as the youngest member of the Jackson Five, and Halterman remembrered that: “There was a picture on the billboard (in the classroom) — something from the newspaper about the Jackson Five — and Thelma said to Michael, ‘Why don’t you get that and tell my sister about it.

“I then said, ‘What can I do for you, Michael?’ And he told me, ‘Your sister never has her picture taken for school photos. I’d like to have a picture of her.’ ”

Halterman said that day she instantly became enamored with Jackson’s softspoken demeanor and gentle personality. Upon returning to Ottawa — and getting clearance from Thelma on a suitable photograph — she said she eventually mailed a picture of her sister to the budding superstar, who had begun to truly bloom.

“At that point, they (the Jackson Five) had already been discovered,” Halterman. “And I got a thank-you note from Michael (for the photograph) that said they were going to appear on the ‘Ed Sullivan Shoe.’

“S-H-O-E. That’s how he spelled it.”

Likely because that’s the way Ed Sullivan himself famously pronounced the word.

Halterman told me that in Decembrer 1969 when the Jackson Five made their debut on Sullivan’s legendary variety show, she was watching from her home in Ottawa.

And she recalled that, “Just before I met Michael, I had been at a hairdressers’ convention in Hawaii and had a charm bracelet with a little Tiki god on it. And that day I met him, he kept looking at the bracelet. I told Michael that I had another one, and asked if would he like to have this one. He said he would, and I gave it to him.

“Then, when the Jackson Five was on the Ed Sullivan Show, we all got around the TV at home, and — sure enough — when Michael came out, I saw this little Tiki god dangling off his wrist.”

Now, on this YouTube clip of the Jackson Five’s December ’69 debut on the Ed Sullivan Show, you can clearly see (particularly at the end, when Sullivan shakes Michael’s hand) that Jackson is indeed wearing a bracelet. But I don’t see a Tiki god hanging from it.

Perhaps, I just can’t spot the thing. Or, more likely, Halterman — watching the show on a 1960s TV set (not exactly high-def) — mistook the bracelet for her own.

Nevertheless, Halterman said that moment didn’t mark the end of her friendship with Jackson, as a few years later when Michael was 15, she and her sister renewed acquaintances with the Jacksons.

“We got tickets for a Jackson Five show in Chicago, and made arrangements to see them backstage,” she said. “And when we got there, (Michael’s older brother) Marlon (who also was one Thelma’s former students) ran up and said, ‘I remember you! I remember you!’

“And then Michael came up and said quietly, that he remembered us too. He was such an introvert. Except when he got behind the microphone, and then was an extrovert.”

During the backstage reunion, Halterman said she also met the Jacksons’ pint-sized little sister, Janet, who was decked out in a feather boa that day, and headed for eventual superstardom herself. The Halterman sisters visited with Michael’s mother, as well.

“Mrs. Jackson was with them,” Halterman recalled, “and Thelma told her that Michael always used to bring her presents. Mrs. Jackson said, ‘That’s where my costume jewelry went!’

“It was a nice visit.”

Although there was one part of it that Halterman said she regrets.

“I brought along the thank-you note in which Michael spelled show, ‘S-H-O-E,’ ” she said. “And the Jacksons’ tutor asked to keep it in order to show Michael how he used to spell when he was younger.

“I wish I had kept it. But, I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I mean, who knew he would go on to become, not just U.S. famous, but world famous?”

Since that time, Jackson — in spite of his acquittal during his 2005 trial — also went on to become world-infamous. Halterman told me it saddened her to see the little boy she once befriended change so much, both physically and otherwise.

“I know that he didn’t have a normal childhood at all,” Halterman said. “And their father was very demanding, always making them perform, always wanting to make money … (The Jacksons) were dysfunctional, but talented.

“And Michael, he had this cute, little puggy nose and this sweetness in his eyes. You just saw it. It just breaks my heart to see what’s happened with him now, especially because I’ve seen the other side of Michael.

“He was just such a sweet, cute little kid.”

Before I head off to Wrigley Field — yep, again — for this afternoon’s Cubs-Indians ballgame, here’s today’s Wisch List newspaper column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

How to make yourself at home at Wrigley

The WISCH LIST

June 20, 2009

I don’t just die with the Chicago Cubs.

I live with them.

Like, literally.

Up in Wrigleyville, my apartment sits just blocks away from the Friendly Confines. Last season, I attended 30 Cubs games. And this March, for the first time, I took a trip with my family out to Arizona to catch a few spring training games – and some sunshine – in Mesa and Tucson.

Then, I really put my game face on.

On April 6, I flew down to Houston for the Cubs’ season opener. Five days later, I was up in Milwaukee for a game at Miller Park. And, after taking in a Cubs-Cardinals tilt at Wrigley on April 18, I road-tripped south one week later to do the same at Busch Stadium.

Yes, if Cubs baseball is an addiction, then I’m Amy Winehouse.

But rather than try to make me go to rehab, many of my friends just joke that I actually keep an apartment at Wrigley Field.

I don’t.

But only because they aren’t renting.

(I kid, I kid.)

Two weeks ago, though, I did find myself getting more comfy on the corner of Clark & Addison than ever before. That’s because one of the better kept secrets in Chicago – and out of it – is that from May to September on most days that the Cubs aren’t playing or are out of town, fans can take behind-the-scenes tours of Wrigley Field.

Tickets, which cost $25 and could make for a great belated Father’s Day gift, are available at cubs.com.

I’d say the tour is worth every penny. Because, after all, it’s not every day you get a chance to roam all about the ballpark where White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen claims to see rats and this week, prior to the Crosstown Series, added that:

“I puke every time I go there. That’s just being honest. And if Cub fans don’t like the way I talk about Wrigley Field, it’s just Wrigley Field. I don’t say anything about the fans. But Wrigley Field, they got to respect my opinion.”

Not really, Ozzie.

But, anyways, much like the ballpark itself, the Wrigley Field tour is a gem.

Beginning with a video narrated by Chicago TV news legend Bill Kurtis, you’ll learn that – in addition to serving as longtime home to the Cubs, and formerly the Bears – Wrigley Field has also hosted a variety of events ranging from wrestling to soccer to a ski jump competition.

The 90-minute tour then takes you through 95 years of history (Wrigley Field opened April 23, 1914, as Weeghman Park) as you weave your way from the right field bleachers through the visitors clubhouse, up to the press box, back down through the home clubhouse and finally onto the hallowed field.

Along the way, I discovered (yes, Ozzie) just how tiny the visitors clubhouse in fact is. To imagine a Major League squad getting dressed in there is difficult. To think of an NFL team doing so is inconceivable.

In the clubhouse, you’re allowed free reign to explore everywhere, except for the bathrooms. Perhaps, it’s because they wouldn’t want anyone to walk off with traces of any Major Leaguer’s DNA.

Right, Sammy?

Next stop on the tour is the press box, where you can see the pipe organ, the WGN-TV and Radio booths and the big red “COUGH BUTTON” that Ron Santo pushes (or, sometimes, doesn’t) during broadcasts.

I was interested to learn that the Cubs actually were ready to equip Wrigley Field with lights way back in 1941. But then, that December, a little thing happened in Pearl Harbor and the organization donated the lights to the War Department, instead.

Also amusing to discover is that only men are allowed to work inside the Wrigley Field scoreboard. Why? Well, because the only bathroom facilities up there consist of a PVC pipe and a copper funnel.

The Ladies Room is downstairs.

You next trek down to the Cubs clubhouse, where the players’ jerseys hang in the lockers awaiting their return. Some things, however, never leave the clubhouse. Most notably, the many dents on doors surely delivered by a player’s spikes – or bat – following a particularly frustrating outing.

Finally, it’s up onto the ivy-laden field to take in the most beautiful vista in all of sports.

Although, of course, Ozzie may disagree.

Speaking of which, I did notice on their Web site that the White Sox offer similar tours of U.S. Cellular Field. It doesn’t appear, however, that Guillen ever moonlights as a tour guide.

Rats.

And I really had my hopes up.

This week’s Wisch List newspaper column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Chicago aldermen kick the Bucket (Boys)

The WISCH LIST

June 13, 2009

I swung down to Michigan Avenue last Saturday afternoon in the hopes of chatting up a Bucket Boy.

But I couldn’t find any.

Chicago’s summertime staples – known as “Bucket Boys” because of the white plastic utility buckets they use as drums to pound out intense, rhythmic beats – were tougher to locate downtown than a functioning parking meter.

And that’s tough.

Now, maybe the Bucket Boys weren’t at their usual stomping (thumping?) grounds on this day because of the drizzling rain.

Or, maybe, it was because of the aldermen.

Last week, the Chicago City Council approved a noise ordinance targeting Bucket Boys and other street musicians (but, really, Bucket Boys) that allows the city to revoke a street performer’s license – yes, even Bucket Boys are supposed to have licenses – if they get two violations for excessive volume in the span of a year.

Currently, the license can be revoked after three violations, although in extreme cases a performer’s permit could be pulled at the first violation.

The ordinance was introduced by Chicago Alderman Brendan Reilly, whose 42nd Ward includes the Magnificent Mile. Reilly said that he’s received complaints from people working in the office buildings along Michigan Avenue who claim they often can’t concentrate on their jobs during the summer months because of the noise on the street below.

He didn’t say how many of them can’t concentrate during the summer when the sun is shining outside.

(But I’m guessing the numbers would be pretty even.)

Now, the controversy over the Bucket Boys and their performances downtown – as well as around Wrigley Field on Cubs game days – is nothing new in the Windy City.

In fact, it seems to blow through most every summer.

But last week word of this new ordinance sparked the debate anew as commenters on city news sites and Chicago-related blogs began beating their drums on both sides of the issue.

“I find it sad that they may have to crack down on ALL street performers, when as far as I’m concerned it’s only the Bucket Boys that are annoying,” one person wrote on the popular blog chicagoist.com. “It’s not just that they’re loud, they’re also not particularly talented or interesting. How about getting some real drums?

“Get a real percussion ensemble going and learn some new rhythms, maybe something that people could actually dance to, instead of that one constant, rapid-pounding which appears to be the only thing one can do with a plastic bucket.”

Another commenter, however, came back with the retort, “Do you know how many movies that have … featured them [the Bucket Boys] as background? I would suggest that perhaps they should be considered part of Chicago’s unique (or what passes for unique) culture. These kids are not begging or gang banging on a street corner but are playing music (on recycled buckets).”

Yet another argued, “I still think [the Bucket Boys are] a net-positive … they bring a bit of  ‘native wonderland’ to the suburban shoppers, making their trip to the big city all the more exciting.”

Perhaps when you visit the Mag Mile, those are your thoughts, as well.

Or, perhaps, not.

But, either way, here’s my take on this topic: You don’t move to Chicago – or work there – for the peace and quiet. You’re there for the energy. And complaining about noise on Michigan Avenue – where I once did work – whether it’s from Bucket Boys, saxophone players, ambulances, honking taxis, construction equipment or something else just seems pretty silly to me.

It’s like moving to Wrigleyville and then griping about the crowds.

Don’t act like you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into.

Last week on the “Clout Street” blog at chicagotribune.com, one reader wrote about the Bucket Boys debate: “This city has become so sanitized and boring. I don’t know if it’s because of an intrusive government or whether it’s because … yuppies have moved to the city from the ‘burbs and [are] trying to make Chicago like one … I don’t know.

“But part of the beauty of living in a city of 3 million people is the diversity and ability to express individuality. Of course, the price to pay is that you’re going to run into things you don’t like or nuisances. But guess what … somebody here thinks you’re a nuisance too. It’s part of the deal.”

It is.

And, I’d argue that rather than trying to make the Bucket Boys kick the bucket, Chicago’s City Council should have bigger fish to fry. Let the Bucket Boys play. They are, after all, part of what makes Chicago, Chicago.

Even if not everyone approves.

“I work in a high rise across from where the Bucket Boys play,” another reader wrote at chicagotribune.com. “I can’t hear car horns but I can hear the Bucket Boys loud and clear and it is very difficult and distracting.

“There are several horn-playing musicians on Michigan Avenue but you only hear them as you walk by. I hear the Bucket Boys 17 floors up. I would be happy to get peace and quiet in the summer.”

If that’s really the truth, then, hey, I feel for the guy. But instead of pining for The Day That Street Music Died, here’s my advice:

Buy headphones.

For seven years both during and after college, I was a sports writer.

So I figured now that I’m back in the newspaper game, I might as prove my sportswriting chops early — and defend my the coach that U of I is lucky to have (even some people may never see it).

And with that, it’s on to the second installment of my Wisch List column from the Saturday, June 6 edition of the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Weber a bright spot in dark week for U of I

The WISCH LIST

June 6, 2009

When it comes to tarnished Land of Lincoln icons, I swear (you know, kind of like her) that even Patti Blagojevich had a better week than my alma mater.

And she swallowed a dead tarantula on TV.

Over the past several days, the University of Illinois has had it pretty rough, absorbing blow after well-deserved blow from the Chicago Tribune’s investigative series that exposed a secret and preferential admissions process for high school students lucky enough to have political connections.

Because of this self-made mess, you can’t say right now that U of I exactly stands for University of Integrity.

But, thankfully, the school’s basketball coach still stands for something.

Largely lost this week in the shroud of scandal that blanketed the state’s flagship university was that Illini hoops coach Bruce Weber quietly had one of his brightest weeks ever.

All because the spotlight from yet another education-related controversy – this one involving Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose – wasn’t also shining on Champaign.

In case you somehow missed it, Rose – recently named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year – has been accused by the NCAA of knowingly allowing an impostor to take the SAT for him so he could qualify for admission to the University of Memphis where, as a freshman in 2008, he led the Tigers to within a whisker of a national championship before jumping to the NBA.

Additional published reports also claim that during high school at Chicago’s Simeon Career Academy a grade was changed from a D to a C for Rose’s collegiate transcript and that his older brother, Reggie, received more than $2,200 in illegal benefits from the University of Memphis.

On Tuesday, Memphis responded to the allegations with the claim that it had found “insufficient evidence” to reach the same conclusion as the NCAA that Rose did not take the SAT himself.

Although the university also couldn’t prove that Rose did take the exam. And it acknowledged that a forensic document examiner hired by the NCAA did determine that the student in question (identified in media reports as Rose) “probably did not write the questioned hand printing or cursive writing on the exam form.”

Maybe he just drank too much caffeine that morning.

Now, I’m not here today to debate whether we should care about the high school academics of an athlete who’s now making millions of dollars (although we should), or if Derrick deserves to be labeled as the shadiest Rose since Pete (he at least has a better haircut).

Rather, I’m just glad none of this nonsense is the University of Illinois’ problem.

And for that I thank Bruce Weber.

Two years ago, Weber was slammed in many circles of Illini Nation for failing to hang on to prized recruit Eric Gordon (who at the last minute was lured to Indiana by coach Kelvin Sampson) and his inability to reel in Rose (who opted to instead play for John Calipari at Memphis).

Bruce Weber can’t recruit, they said.

(Perhaps you said.)

To which I’ll say, thank goodness.

Because, if being able to “recruit” meant that Weber needed to do what it took to haul in the likes of Gordon and Rose, then I don’t want that guy as my basketball coach.

Yes, the Hoosiers got Gordon – and along with him a boatload of sanctions after IU fired Sampson following a slew of recruiting tactics either illegal (impermissible phone calls) or unethical (giving associates of the Gordon family jobs on the IU basketball staff). Today, the Hoosiers program is in shambles as new coach Tom Crean continues to pick up the pieces.

Now, first-year Memphis coach Josh Pastner, who took over when Calipari bolted for the head job at Kentucky in April, may find himself dealing with a similarly sorry situation.

We’ll see what happens. But we already know what didn’t happen on Weber’s watch.

“We understood what was going on (with Rose) all along,” University of Illinois athletics director Ron Guenther told the Champaign News-Gazette last weekend. “The sport of men’s basketball has issues that the NCAA has been trying to address. There are many tentacles to the problem, so there is no magic bullet to solve it. It has been a focal point for discussions in this conference for more than 10 years. We’ve had task forces looking into the AAU, the shoe money, the agent.

“One of the reasons I feel so strong about Bruce Weber and his staff is that I know they’re going to do it the right way. Nothing that has happened in the Rose case has been a surprise to me.”

Me neither.

Although I’ve always been surprised – and disappointed – by Illinois fans that have simply failed to see what they have in a coach with Bruce Weber.

Sure, without Gordon or Rose, Illinois suffered through a brutal 16-19 season two years ago. But thanks to Weber’s coaching, the program bounced back strong this past season and with back-to-back blockbuster recruiting classes the future of Illini hoops couldn’t be brighter.

So, while Illinois basketball may have given up some wins because it failed to reel in Gordon and Rose, it didn’t give up its integrity.

And, in my book, that counts for a lot.

You might even say that Bruce Weber passed a big test.

And did it all on his own.

Imagine that.

There are Books for Dummies. And, now, there’s “Reading” for them them thanks to this amusing spoof about the “Kindle 3″– so advanced, even illiterates can use it!