Short-term the Bulls might be OK without White and Williams this season, but long-term the injuries they are dealing with are a big step back in their development.

At some point in November, Coby White and his surgically-repaired shoulder will be re-evaluated and given an updated timeline.

Maybe December, maybe it will carry on into January, but the guard is expected back at some point in the regular season.

Patrick Williams isn’t as fortunate.

The Bulls power forward had surgery on Sunday to repair torn ligaments in his left wrist, and was given a recovery time of four-to-six months. Best-case scenario, he can make it back late in the regular season, and into the postseason if the Bulls can reach that finish line. Worst-case? His second season is a wash.

That’s a problem currently staring this organization in the face.

The 2021-22 campaign was essential for the continued development of the organization’s last two high first-round draft picks. Spending more time in the training room than on the court was never the plan for White and Williams.

“Anytime you lose good players it’s tough,” coach Billy Donovan said. “Both those guys were key pieces going into this year. Coby is obviously going to play this year at some point. Their development, especially with a veteran group, would have been really important. Anytime you lose good players, any team, there’s things you have to overcome.

“The biggest thing is I just don’t know, because I really haven’t seen Coby yet against any contact, how far is he set back in terms of getting back to his normal what he’s been? And did he lose a development piece with this injury and being out so many months. And the same thing with Patrick. Not only is he losing a season, but he’s losing a period to develop.”

Credit the organization for building a roster in the offseason that can cover up those losses short-term.

The additions of Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso moved White down the depth chart a few spots anyway, while Williams was off to a slow start, and was arguably being outplayed by reserve Javonte Green.

Long-term, however, continuing to develop White and Williams was a high priority for executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas.

That was one of the secret sauces for Denver when Karnisovas was an assistant general manager. Draft smart, but develop smarter.

White was selected No. 7 overall in the 2019 draft, while Williams was No. 4 overall in the 2020 draft. A franchise picking that high can miss on one top 10 pick from a development standpoint, but having the growth of back-to-back top 10 picks stunted in the same season? That’s rough to overcome.

That’s the Bulls’ reality, however.

No wonder Donovan and several veteran players were concerned with Williams’ mindset as he starts the rehab process. Enough so that forward DeMar DeRozan gifted Williams a book called “The Undefeated Mind” to help him through the process.

“That book just taught me a lot about just being calm, how to channel my energy, how to stay even-keeled through the ups and downs,” DeRozan said. “Understanding that life, you can’t pick and choose when you’re going to have a good or bad day. So when those days come, understanding how to channel your energy. I think it will be something that’s beneficial.”

As will keeping Williams and White in the same head space. Donovan feels that the two can lean on each other with White finishing up his rehab and Williams in the early stages of it.

“I think we’ve got to as best we can organizationally help those guys get back and utilize this time as best they can,” Donovan said. “But it’s certainly not the most ideal situation for their development.”

Read More

Read More

Jon Bon Jovi performs with his band in 2018 at Chicago’s United Center. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

The pop star, 59, canceled a Florida show after testing positive.

Rocker Jon Bon Jovi canceled a concert on Saturday in Miami Beach, Florida, after learning he has COVID-19.

The musician, 59, had been scheduled to perform an “acoustic storyteller performance” at a Runaway Tours event at Loews South Beach.

A rep for Bon Jovi confirmed that the rocker had tested positive and that he’s “fully vaccinated and feeling fine.”

Would-be audience members were told of Bon Jovi’s diagnosis by brother Matt Bongiovi prior to the show. “There was a lot of disappointment from the fans but understanding that Jon’s health is more important,” said fan Kerry Splitter.

A reporter posted a video of a masked Bon Jovi leaving what appeared to be a hotel lobby on Saturday. The show was part of the Runaway Tours “Halloween Weekend Getaway.”

The coronavirus has previously hit close to home for the members of Bon Jovi. Band members David Bryan and Everett Bradley both tested positive for COVID-19, and Bon Jovi’s son, Jake, also had a coronavirus scare.

In turn, Bon Jovi became the rock ‘n’ roll epicenter in the battle against COVID. When a group of Chicagoans wanted to unify the city with a city-wide sing-along from their window as a way of showing solidarity while Illinois was in a “stay at home” order due to the pandemic, Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” was the song they chose.

Jon Bon Jovi is scheduled to receive an Intrepid Lifetime Achievement Award on Nov. 10 at the Salute to Freedom Gala, which will take place on the U.S.S. Intrepid in New York City.

Read more at usatoday.com

Read More

Former Boston Red Sox player and broadcaster Jerry Remy, wearing an oxygen tube, throws a ceremonial first pitch earlier this month at Fenway Park. Remy died of cancer on Oct. 30, 2021. He was 68. | Charles Krupa/AP

Remy was a former smoker who had a yearslong battle with lung cancer, including surgery for the disease in November 2008. His struggle with the illness was well known to baseball fans.

BOSTON — Jerry Remy, a Boston Red Sox second baseman who went on to become a local icon as a television broadcaster, has died of cancer. He was 68.

The Red Sox confirmed that Remy died on Saturday night. He had a long and public struggle with lung cancer, and drew thunderous applause at Fenway Park earlier this month when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a playoff game while using an oxygen tube.

Remy was a former smoker who had a yearslong battle with lung cancer, including surgery for the disease in November 2008. His struggle with the illness was well known to baseball fans. Support from Red Sox fans helped him as he underwent years of treatments for the disease, he told reporters in 2018.

“It’s amazing the impact that you have when you’ve been around 31 years. That you have on people,” he said. “Red Sox fans especially, who welcome you into their home for that long. It’s kind of a nice feeling. It’s kind of a nice feeling that they care.”

Remy had spent 10 seasons in the majors — the first three with the California Angels and the last seven with Boston — before retiring after the Red Sox released him on Dec. 10, 1985. Remy hit .275 with seven homers and 329 RBIs in 1,154 games.

But it was as a Red Sox announcer, a job he began in 1988, that he captured the hearts of fans. Combining sharp analysis and a sense of humor that sometimes led to long, on-air bouts of laughter involving him and former Boston play-by-play announcer Don Orsillo, Remy gained a legion of listeners.

Remy “left an indelible mark on this club and on an entire nation of Red Sox fans,” Red Sox principal owner John Henry said in a statement Sunday.

“He devoted his entire career to baseball and whether from his seat in the clubhouse or his perch above the field in the broadcast booth, he took generations of rising Red Sox stars and a multitude of fans along for the ride with him,” the statement said.

Known as “RemDawg” by generations of New Englanders, Remy was elected by fans as first president of “Red Sox Nation” late in the 2007 season. The club had decided to capitalize on the passions of followers who were known by that name by creating a formal fan club.

Born in Fall River, Mass., and raised in nearby Somerset, Remy returned to his local team after three seasons with the Angels in which he hit .258 while averaging 148 games a year. He was traded to the Red Sox on Dec. 8, 1977 for pitcher Don Aase and cash, became a free agent on Nov. 13, 1981 and re-signed with Boston on Dec. 8, 1981.

Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski, who played with Remy in Boston, remembered his former teammate on Sunday as a “very, very hard worker” and a good friend.

“He made himself an outstanding player. He carried those same work habits over to the broadcast booth,” Yastrzemski said in a statement.

Read More

Michigan State’s Kenneth Walker III (9) rushes against Michigan’s Josh Ross during the first quarter of Saturday’s game. Michigan State won 37-33. | Al Goldis/AP

Georgia is a unanimous No. 1 for the fourth straight week.

Michigan State moved up to No. 5 in The Associated Press college football poll and Wake Forest became a top-10 team on Sunday for the first time in school history.

Georgia is a unanimous No. 1 for the fourth straight week in the AP Top 25 presented by Regions Bank. The rest of the top four was unchanged from last week, with Cincinnati at No. 2, Oklahoma at No. 3 and Alabama at No. 4.

Star running back Kenneth Walker and the Spartans jumped three spots by beating Michigan in the weekend’s biggest game. The last time Michigan State broke into the top five was 2015 when the Spartans made the College Football Playoff.

The first CFP selection committee rankings of the season will be released Tuesday night.

In the AP poll, Ohio State slipped a spot to No. 6 despite holding off Penn State and Oregon was No. 7.

No. 8 Notre Dame, Michigan and Wake Forest rounded out the top 10.

POLL POINTS

The Demon Deacons have their best ranking in program history, topping the No. 11 they reached in 1947. Wake Forest had been the only team in a Power Five conference that had never been ranked in the top 10.

The Demon Deacons reached another first on Saturday, improving to 8-0 with a victory against Duke.

IN

— No. 20 Houston is ranked for the first time under coach Dana Holgorsen after handing SMU its first loss of the season. The last time the Cougars were in the Top 25 was 2018.

Houston is the 45th different team to appear in the Top 25 this season.

— No. 24 Louisiana-Lafayette is back in the Top 25 after being in the preseason poll and falling out after losing its opening game.

— No. 25 Fresno State also returned to the rankings after handing San Diego State its first defeat in a crucial Mountain West game.

OUT

— Pittsburgh dropped from No. 17 to out after losing at home to Miami.

— Iowa State is out again after losing at West Virginia. The Cyclones jumped back into the rankings last week, but it turned out to be a brief stay.

— San Diego State fell out after a four-week run.

CONFERENCE CALL

Two Power Five leagues, the Atlantic Coast Conference and Pac-12, have just one ranked team while two from the Group of Five, the American Athletic Conference (three) and Sun Belt (two), have multiple teams ranked.

SEC — 6 (Nos. 1, 3, 12, 13, 15, 18).

Big Ten — 5 (Nos. 5, 6, 9, 19, 22).

Big 12 — 3 (Nos 4, 11, 14).

American — 3 (Nos. 2, 20, 23).

Sun Belt — 2 (Nos. 21, 24).

Mountain West — 1 (No. 25).

ACC — 1 (No. 10).

C-USA — 1 (No. 16).

Pac-12 — 1 (No. 7).

Independents — 2 (Nos. 8, 17).

RANKED vs. RANKED

No. 12 Auburn at No. 13 Texas A&M. Third time the Tigers and Aggies have met while both are ranked since A&M joined the SEC in 2011.

THE TOP 25

1. Georgia 8-0

2. Cincinnati 8-0

3. Alabama 7-1

4. Oklahoma 9-0

5. Michigan St. 8-0

6. Ohio St. 7-1

7. Oregon 7-1

8. Notre Dame 7-1

9. Michigan 7-1

10. Wake Forest 8-0

11. Oklahoma St. 7-1

12. Auburn 6-2

13. Texas A&M 6-2

14. Baylor 7-1

15. Mississippi 6-2

16. UTSA 8-0

17. BYU 7-2

18. Kentucky 6-2

19. Iowa 6-2

20. Houston 7-1

21. Coastal Carolina 7-1

22. Penn St. 5-3

23. SMU 7-1

24. Louisiana-Lafayette 7-1

25. Fresno St. 7-2

Read More

Over a dozen people were shot, two of them fatally, at a Halloween party early Sunday in Joliet Township. | Adobe Stock Photo

Gunfire erupted early Sunday near a DJ booth that was set up in the backyard of a home, authorities said. Witnesses reported that two gunmen opened fire “from an elevated position on a porch looking down over the crowd” of more than 200 people.

More than 12 people were wounded, two of them fatally, in a shooting early Sunday at a Halloween party in Will County, authorities said.

The shooting erupted about 12:40 a.m. near a DJ booth that was set up in the backyard of a home in the 1000 block of East Jackson Street in Joliet Township, according to a statement from the Will County sheriff’s office. Witnesses told detectives that two gunmen opened fire “from an elevated position on a porch looking down over the crowd” of more than 200 people.

A patrol sergeant who was in the area heard as many as 12 gunshots ring out near Jackson and Walnut streets and began investigating, the sheriff’s office said. The sergeant then saw over 100 people rushing east on Jackson, and he was directed to the home.

Police officials ultimately found over a dozen people suffering from gunshot wounds in the backyard and at nearby residences, the sheriff’s office said. As authorities were investigating, additional shots were heard in the area.

Two of the victims succumbed to their wounds, while four others suffered injuries that were thought to be life-threatening, the sheriff’s office said. Those who died hadn’t been identified by Sunday morning because their families hadn’t yet been notified.

One of the suspected shooters was described as a Hispanic male with facial hair and a medium build who was seen wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, a black flat-billed hat and dark pants, the sheriff’s office said.

The other suspect, who donned a ski mask, was described as a male — possibly Hispanic or Black of a light complexion — with a medium build, the sheriff’s office said. He was seen wearing a yellow hooded sweatshirt.

The sheriff’s office is seeking further assistance identifying the shooters. Anyone with information, including cellphone photos or video of the party, should contact Detective Danielle Strohm at (815) 727-8574 or [email protected]. Tipsters who wish to remain anonymous can submit a tip to the sheriff’s office’s website or contact Will County Crime Stoppers at (800) 323-6734 or its website.

Read More

Read More

Brother Rice’s Aaron Vaughn (5) cuts a run upfield as the Crusaders play Wheaton-Warrenville South. | Allen Cunningham/For the Sun-Times

Brother Rice’s defense steps up, Public League struggles, DuKane dominance and a record-setting game in Rock Island.

The playoffs opened with a bang, at least for everyone that was at Brother Rice on Saturday. Khary Shaw saved the Crusaders’ season by breaking up Wheaton Warrenville South’s two-point conversion attempt with 46 seconds to play.

Quarterback Jack Lausch and Brother Rice’s offense was limited by the Tigers. Lausch had his least accurate game of the season, but was still a force on the ground and Aaron Vaughn ran well.

It should concern the rest of Class 7A that the Crusaders were able to gut out a relatively low-scoring 27-26 win. It was the first time all season that Brother Rice scored fewer than 40 points.

“This shows the offense can have an off day and we can still win,” Shaw said. “The defense is here to prove a point. We’re going to do that the next four games.”

Next up for Brother Rice is a trip to Yorkville for the second round.

Big numbers

It wasn’t a misprint in Saturday’s paper. Springfield really did beat Rock Island 94-72 in a Class 6A playoff game.

Here’s a look at the stats, which were compiled by Drake Lansman of the Dispatch Argus in Rock Island.

The teams combined for 1,269 yards and 24 touchdowns.

The previous record for points in a Class 6A playoff game was 72, set by Joliet Catholic in 2005. Rock Island scored that and lost the game.

The 166 points scored by Springfield and Rock Island is the most scored in a playoff game in any class. Springfield’s 14 touchdowns was also a record in any class, as was the combined total offense and Springfield’s total of 724 yards.

According to Lansman, the teams combined for 63 first downs, 139 offensive plays and just three punts. It must have been a complete nightmare compiling all these numbers on the sideline.

Senators quarterback Rashad Rochelle, a Rutgers recruit, threw for three touchdowns and rushed for six. Rock Island running back Quonterrion Brooks rushed for 300 yards and five touchdowns. He also had a kick return touchdown.

Springfield will host undefeated Lemont in the second round.

Public League struggles

Chicago Public Schools teams went 3-10 in the first round. Phillips, Morgan Park and Clark were the three teams to pick up wins. A lot of the losses were lopsided.

The Public League had a record 26 teams qualify for the state playoffs, but this wasn’t a surprise. The pandemic hit Public League football hard and I wouldn’t have been surprised if no teams survived the first round.

Next week won’t be any easy for the surviving Public League teams. Morgan Park will be a heavy underdog against undefeated Kankakee in the second round. Phillips has to travel to Kewanee for a Class 4A second round game and Clark faces a touch challenge at Reed-Custer in a Class 3A second round game.

DuKane pride

The DuKane conference is looking good after the first week of the playoffs. Batavia, Wheaton North, Glenbard North and Geneva all won first round games. The Vikings traveled down to Collinsville and picked up a victory.

Wheaton Warrenville South was the only team that lost, and that was the heartbreaker at Brother Rice.

Batavia, which won the conference, will be at Mount Carmel in the second round on Friday. That should be the best game of the week.

Read More

Former video coach Bradley Aldrich, seen here in February 2010, allegedly assaulted Blackhawks prospect Kyle Beach during the team’s run to the Stanley Cup. Team officials waited weeks to act on the allegations. | Al Podgorski/Sun-Times file photo

Sexual assault and harassment are often mishandled by organizations, legal experts say. The consequences are steep for victims.

Team leaders’ fumbling response to sexual assault allegations against a Blackhawks assistant during the team’s 2010 Stanley Cup was an all too common story in the corporate world a decade ago.

And the story remains a common one today, said Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of law and author of “Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers.”

The team’s handling of allegations leveled against video coach Brad Aldrich by former top draft pick Kyle Beach mirrored the way many corporations have shirked the duty to protect employees, especially low-ranking ones, from harassment and abuse in the workplace, Teurkheimer said.

That the Hawks’ tarnished title run happened before the #MeToo movement gained momentum is no excuse, she said.

“These are all very familiar dynamics,” Teurkheimer said. “These stories are important because they describe someone’s reality, but they also reveal our real failures to systemically confront that reality.

“There was plenty of awareness 10 years ago that sexual assault was wrong and prohibited, and employers had a responsibility to deal with it.”

Employers’ obligations to address sexual assault and harassment in the workplace, whether an NHL stadium or a Starbucks, has been made clear in employment law dating back to the 1990s, said Michael LeRoy, a labor law professor at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and author of “Collective Bargaining in Sports and Entertainment.”

Indeed, LeRoy notes, the team policy in place then mandated a swift investigation. The fact that, according to several accounts from executives in the report, team President and CEO John McDonough announced he would handle things rather than the team’s human resources department was atypical — and a bad sign, LeRoy said.

“Frequently, when there is a scandal of this kind of upsetting nature, HR is kind of out of the picture,” LeRoy said. “They’re either told what to do, or organizations create a bypass around them.”

The motivation for the delay seemed to be preserving “team chemistry” during the championship run, though LeRoy isn’t sure it would have been handled much differently at another point in the season.

“There’s never a good time for a sports team to have a scandal,” he said.

After a decade in the shadows, the scandal tarnished the Blackhawks’ first Stanley Cup win after a four-decade title drought and had career-defining fallout for some very successful executives. McDonough was fired last year, which LeRoy said likely had nothing to do with the allegations that only become public when Beach filed a lawsuit against the team this summer.

But General Manager Stan Bowman’s resignation last week almost certainly did, as did former Hawks coach Joel Quenneville quitting his job as coach of the Florida Panthers.

When McDonough did tell Hawks human resources staff about allegations against Aldrich days after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, the situation — at least for the team — seemed to resolve itself quickly, said University of Chicago Law School professor M. Todd Henderson, an expert in corporate law and a Hawks season ticket holder.

Aldrich was told the allegations and given a choice to stay on while the team conducted an investigation or resign. While Aldrich maintained his encounter with Beach was consensual, he opted to resign.

“They were three weeks late, but I don’t know that the outcome would have been any different,” Henderson said. “If they sat him down on day one, as they should have, and said ‘We’re going to do an investigation or you can resign,’ it appears he would have tipped his hand and resigned.”

Teurkheimer noted the three-week delay was not inconsequential for Beach. In interviews, Beach has said he was appalled to see Aldrich with the team throughout the playoffs and join team celebrations. Beach, a former first-round draft pick for the Blackhawks, never developed into an NHL player.

“It’s really important for people to understand that the aftermath of abuse, this kind of lack of response, is often described as being as bad as or even worse than the abuse itself,” she said.

“It’s not uncommon for someone who’s been abused in a workplace setting to suffer all kinds of intangible consequences, and that’s especially true when the response from the community is lacking. It’s just a huge betrayal by the organization.”

The discreet handling of Aldrich’s dismissal also allowed the coach to find other jobs. Aldrich worked briefly at Miami University in Ohio, where an investigation by the school turned up allegations Aldrich had assaulted a summer camp intern and an undergraduate who worked at the ice rink. Aldrich in 2013 pleaded guilty to charges of sexual conduct involving a 16-year-old on a high school hockey team Aldrich coached.

That also fits a familiar pattern, Teurkheimer said.

“That’s not atypical, and by no means am I saying it is not a big deal,” she said. “Our failure to take seriously these kinds of allegations can result in this kind of movement from job to job, because nobody wants to intervene.”

Read More

St. Rita’s Ethan Middleton (84) runs 78 yards in the first quarter against Rolling Meadows. | Kirsten Stickney/For the Sun-Times

Three teams join the rankings, one making its season debut.

We’ve reached the point in the season where the rankings are pretty easy to do. At least for this week. First round losing teams drop out for good and everyone moves on. That eliminates Bolingbrook, York and Naperville North this week.

No one will be shocked that I’ve added Glenbard North back into the rankings. I haven’t seen the Panthers play this season, but I keep ranking them whenever possible. It’s because of the schedule. Glenbard North has beaten Naperville North, Geneva and St. Charles North and now Bolingbrook. Nice wins, but nothing spectacular. But the losses are intriguing. The Panthers lost 21-20 at Batavia and 21-20 vs. Wheaton North. Those are two of the area’s best teams.

Glenbard North lost at Wheaton Warrenville South 10-7 in Week 9. That dropped them out of the rankings, but doesn’t look so bad now after what the Tigers did on Saturday at Brother Rice.

Can Glenbard North finally get a major win? Beating Warren in the second round would certainly qualify.

Glenbard West is also back after beating Oswego and Crete-Monee makes its season debut.

With record and last week’s ranking

1. Loyola (10-0) 1

8A: at No. 11 Naperville Central

2. Joliet Catholic (10-0) 2

4A: vs. Wheaton Academy

3. Brother Rice (8-2) 3

7A: at Yorkville

4. Maine South (10-1) 4

8A: vs. Plainfield North

5. Cary-Grove (10-0) 5

6A: at Grayslake Central

6. Batavia (10-0) 6

7A: at No. 10 Mount Carmel

7. Warren (9-1) 7

8A: at No. 20 Glenbard North

8. Wheaton North (9-1) 8

7A: vs. Hoffman Estates

9. Neuqua Valley (9-1) 9

8A: at Palatine

10. Mount Carmel (7-3) 10

7A: vs. No. 6 Batavia

11. Naperville Central (7-3) 11

8A: vs. No. 1 Loyola

12. Hinsdale Central (9-1) 12

8A: vs. Glenbrook South

13. Fenwick (8-2) 13

5A: at Rockford Boylan

14. St. Ignatius (9-1) 14

6A: vs. No. 22 Crete-Monee

15. St. Rita (8-2) 15

7A: at Geneva

16. Lincoln-Way East (8-2) 16

8A: at Minooka

17. Lockport (9-1) 17

8A: vs. No. 25 Glenbard West

18. Lemont (10-0) 18

6A: at Springfield

19. South Elgin (10-0) 19

8A: at Marist

20. Glenbard North (7-3) NR

8A: vs. No. 7 Warren

21. Kankakee (10-0) 23

5A: at Morgan Park

22. Crete-Monee (7-3) NR

6A: at No. 14 St. Ignatius

23. Morris (10-0) 24

5A: vs. Morton, IL

24. Richmond Burton (10-0) 25

4A: vs. Stillman Valley

25. Glenbard West (8-2) NR

8A: at No. 17 Lockport

Read More