Category Archives: TSR

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The seven-day trip to suburban Chicago is over. I have a few more days to go before returning to work.

The Shy-town visit was highlighted by quality time with all of the immediate family. My youngest brother and I put deep dents in his couch watching the Ryder Cup on television. We also hit a couple football games.

On Friday night, we traveled to Hillside, IL for a West Suburban Conference contest between Proviso West and Glenbard West. The two schools are just 11 miles apart. Glenbard West’s student body has very few black students (5.7-percent) and sits on a hill in a neighborhood of expensive homes in the suburb of Glen Ellyn. Proviso West’s student body is just three-percent white and 55.8-percent of its students (about 2500 total) come from low-income families according to a survey compiled by the Chicago Tribune.

Why did we choose this game from a slate of hundreds across the area? Well, my brother recently moved to Glen Ellyn and the community there treats its football team with great reverence. Signs and flags bearing the school’s logo can be seen in shops and homes all over town. Glenbard West is among the best football teams in the state and has a storied history. In an effort to understand this part of suburban Chicago previously unfamiliar to both of us, how better to get a feel for this part of the world than attend a high school football game? A bus departing from one of Glen Ellyn’s taverns takes fans to some of the road contests. We drove.

Before kickoff at Proviso’s bumpy grass field with crooked painted yardage lines, parents of senior players were introduced to the crowd. Moms were handed a rose. A large cloud of smoke from barbeque grills on the home side blurred the lights shining on the playing surface. It was a cool evening without any kind of breeze. Adult admission was $5. Seniors got in free.

The Proviso stands were occupied almost entirely by people of color. The road bleachers were near full of white fans who traveled the eleven miles to get there. Blacks on one side. Whites on the other. A strange, somewhat perplexing sight in 2012, but not at all unusual in a city that seems to still live this way more than others its size.

Glenbard West routed Proviso West 41-14 with a well balanced attack. I was relieved when Glenbard removed its starters in the third quarter to prevent a display that would embarrass their opponent.

It should be noted that Proviso’s band provided the night’s best moment with a rousing, well-choreographed halftime show. As a show of respect, Proviso football players gathered and paused near the stadium’s entrance at the start of the game. With helmets off, Proviso players waited until the band filed in before making final preparations for kickoff.

The public address announcer provided many humorous moments during his descriptions from the Proviso press box. A Glenbard onside kick in the first half (recovered by Proviso) prompted the raspy-voiced PA man to declare the play “Trick-Er-Ation!” White Sox game updates were frequent.

The next day, my brother and I went to Evanston, IL for Northwestern’s Big Ten opener vs. Indiana. We bought tickets from a re-seller a block from the stadium. $15 a pop for seats on the 30 about 30 rows behind the Northwestern bench. It was a picture-perfect day and the Cats racked up 704 yards of total offense en route to a 44-29 win over Indiana. The Hoosiers had the ball down a score after being down 27 and made a game of it. NU quarterback Kain Colter operates as runner, catcher and passer in a dynamic option offense that rotates in more traditional signal-caller Trevor Siemian on passing downs. Colter ran for 161 yards and picked up 131 receiving yards.

We parked the car near the Main Street CTA stop on the Purple Line and took the train to and from the game.

During frenetic in-game signal-calling by both offensive and defensive coaches, Northwestern players hoist a large purple flag to block views of the sign-flashing from behind. This seems to be an overly paranoid attempt at secrecy.

The Saturday football game came less than 48 hours after the body of 18-year-old Northwestern sophomore Harsha Maddula of Long Island was pulled from Wilmette Harbor, just a mile and a half away. Maddula went missing five days before he was found. His mysterious disappearance and ensuing search efforts dominated newscasts during my visit. It’s still unclear how Maddula ended up in Lake Michigan but his cause of death was ruled a drowning. Both his wallet and cell phone were found on his person. You can bet law enforcement’s investigation of this tragedy will eventually spell out how such a promising life ended so abruptly.

As for the Ryder Cup outcome, I told my brother Saturday night that it was no cinch the US would score the four and a half points (from a possible 12) necessary to nail things down Sunday. The only remotely legitimate second-guess one could make about Davis Love’s decision-making was leaving the red-hot Keegan/Phil duo on the sidelines during the Saturday afternoon session. I suppose you could question why a stiff like Jim Furyk made the team, but I think the better, more cohesive squad won this Cup.

One more thing about the Ryder Cup: I can’t stand the arbitrary nature of putt concessions. There’s very little rhyme or reason for putts conceded. In a competition so tightly contested, the random displays of generosity by its participants often lack reason or logic.

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Greetings from suburban Chicago.  I’m here for a week visiting the family.

The timing of when I exercise my generous allotment of vacation is set late in the previous calendar year through a bidding system at the job.  When I chose this particular week, it was my intention to attend the Ryder Cup golf tournament with my brother Chris.  I’ve always wanted to attend a Ryder Cup and the fact that it’s at Medinah here this year made it a logical place to see it.

Turns out we both failed in the lottery for tickets and offerings on the resale market are out of our price range, so we’ll probably just watch it on TV.

We’ll hit a high school football game on Friday night and then take a ride up to Evanston on Saturday morning to see Northwestern open its Big Ten slate.

Chris’s television is wired to a dish that allows him to get all the NFL games on Sunday afternoons, so there will be some of that to enjoy too.  I’d expect the league’s locked-out game officials back on the field this weekend or next.  The Golden Tate TD moves the union into a position of serious leverage.  Stalled negotiations on a new deal resumed hours after the blown call.  The amount of money at stake on an annual basis if the league caves completely on all bargaining points is peanuts relative to the total revenue pie.  That’s what has made this lockout such a waste and failure.  The stubborn NFL owners who gave commissioner Roger Goodell marching orders on how to approach a new deal with the union blew this situation horribly.  The relative lack of controversy after week 1 appeared to embolden the owners but it’s all come crashing down.  The mighty National Football League – the greatest of all professional sports leagues – has unnecessarily inflicted damage on its product.

I’d imagine the league’s television partners will have some input on this.  Game mismanagement by the replacement refs has added significant length to the duration of many 1 PM contests and that throws a wrench in the network’s ability to roll ads sold for play during the important four o’clock window.

There’s one associated issue I’d like to comment on – and that’s usage of the word “scabs” when describing the men officiating NFL games in the absence of those locked out by the league.  I personally think “scab” is a strong word with a powerful negative meaning.  I would never, ever allow myself to be in a situation where I’d be referred to as a “scab.”

But the guys working these games are scabs.

I’ve heard some say that the replacement officials aren’t technically scabs because they don’t cross picket lines to perform the work.  My definition of scab is a bit different.  Workers who enable employers to gain leverage or an otherwise unavailable advantage in a labor dispute with union employees are scabs.  There’s no picket line from the union in this instance because the players wouldn’t dare cross it.  The union refs believe they can win a new deal without shutting the league down and soon they will.

That’s not to say I don’t understand the motivation of the replacement refs.  The replacements are getting an unexpected shot at practicing their craft at the highest level of competition.  They’re suddenly on the game’s biggest stage without getting there based on merit, experience or breaks.  They know they’re scabs and they rationalize it however they can.  In the long history of labor disputes in this country however, scabs inevitably reveal their relative lack of experience and know-how. resulting in lower quality of output.

Strikes or lockouts almost always become public relations battles that obscure the substantive and legitimate areas of disagreement.

An example of what scabs are not came two weeks ago here in Chicago.  When public school teachers went on strike and manned picket lines at schools across the city, union janitors showed up for work.  So did non-union employees who were asked to staff cafeterias serving free breakfasts and lunches desperately important to poor kids.  These people are not scabs.  Yes, they crossed lines to do these tasks.  But union teachers already had much of the leverage they needed thanks to significant negative public opinion about the mayor’s bullying imposition of new terms of employment.  The teachers didn’t need union janitors to stay home to voice objection to Rahm’s ram job.  Continuation of the lunch/breakfast program didn’t detract or distract from the core issues in dispute.

Organized labor has been whittled down to near-nothing in the private sector in large part due to efforts not unlike what the NFL is engaged in.  The league’s playbook is the same as the one used by airlines, coal companies, manufacturers and steel corporations.  NFL owners believe they can get their way by outlasting the union.

What’s different about this battle is that the performance of the scabs is on television every week.  Those watching it expect a certain level of fair play.  They’re not getting it.  It’s a great lesson in labor-management relations.

When one of the country’s most vociferous opponents of unionism (Wisconsin governor Scott Walker) voiced support for the return of the NFL’s union officials because his state’s beloved Packers got screwed by scabs, labor could only laugh.  It was an acknowledgment by the staunchest scab of all that the pawns put out there to help the league stave off pay and benefit advancement for regular officials isn’t working.