Player, School, Year, Position, Height, Weight

Yaser Al-Awadi, Maine East, Sr., OL., 6-8, 300

Jordan Anderson, Joliet Catholic, Sr., RB, 6-3, 215

Jared Badie, Oswego East, Sr., LB, 6-5, 212

Austin Barrett, St. Charles East, Jr., OT, 6-6, 275

Jacob Bostick, Palatine, Sr., WR, 6-3, 170

Henry Boyer, Brother Rice, Sr., TE, 6-6, 250

Kaleb Brown, St. Rita, Sr., WR, 5-11, 177

Saveon Brown, Thornwood, Sr., DB, 6-1, 187

Jalen Buckley, Batavia, Sr., RB, 6-0, 205

Trevor Burnett, Glenbard South, Sr., RB, 6-3, 215

Sebastian Cheeks, Evanston, Sr., LB, 6-3, 210

Ben Clawson, Hersey, Sr., RB, 6-0, 190

Kaden Cobb, Fenwick, Sr., QB, 6-3, 180

Luke Dalton, Marian Central, Sr., OT, 6-5, 300

Maurice Edwards, Warren, Sr., RB, 6-0, 198

Malik Elzy, Simeon, Jr., WR, 6-3, 198

Valen Erickson, St. Rita, Sr., OT, 6-6, 280

Reggie Fleurima, Naperville Central, Sr., WR, 6-2, 200

Mark Forcucci, Wheaton North, Sr., QB, 6-1, 190

Paolo Gennarelli, St. Charles North, Sr., OG, 6-3, 275

Aidan Gray, Naperville North, Jr., QB, 6-2, 175

Tysean Griffin, Morgan Park, So., WR, 5-11, 165

Nathan Hayes, St. Charles East, Sr., QB, 6-4, 195

Nick Hissong, Cary-Grove, Sr., FB, 6-1, 230

Malachi Hood, Joliet Catholic, Sr., LB, 6-2, 210

Mack Indestad, Lemont, Sr., OT, 6-7, 265

Dontrell Jackson Jr., Marist, Sr., QB, 6-0, 180

Tyler Jansey, Batavia, Jr., LB, 6-1, 215

Jashawn Johnson, Hoffman Estates, Sr., WR, 5-10, 165

Tre Jones, Oswego East, Jr., QB, 6-2, 180

Jack Lausch, Brother Rice, Sr., QB, 6-3, 195

Jimmy Liston, Fenwick, Sr., C, 6-4, 310

Marco Maldonado, Loyola, Sr., RB, 5-11, 183

Jalil Martin, Kenwood, Sr., WR, 6-3, 195

Carter McAlilly, Brother Rice, Sr., OG, 6-1 290

Deuce McGuire, Marist, Sr., OT, 6-5, 270

TJ McMillen, St. Francis, Jr., DL, 6-4, 235

Chris Petrucci, Maine South, Sr., TE, 6-5, 210

Roderick Pierce, Brother Rice, Jr., DT, 6-3, 275

Tony Phillips, Bishop McNamara, So., RB, 5-6, 170

Eian Pugh, Fenwick, Sr., WR, 6-4, 170

Eli Reed, Downers South, Sr., WR, 5-11, 180

Max Reese, Fenwick, Sr., WR, 6-3, 200

Gabe Rosen, Evanston, Jr., OT, 6-5, 330

Jameson Sheehan, Cary-Grove, Sr., QB, 6-4, 190

Deakon Tonielli, Oswego, Jr., TE, 6-6, 215

Tommy Ulatowski, St. Rita, Sr., QB, 6-2, 180

Aaron Vaughn, Brother Rice, Sr., RB, 5-10, 185

Damon Walters, Bolingbrook, Jr., S, 6-1, 175

Roy Williams, Shepard, Sr., DL, 6-7, 245

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A man was shot and killed late Wednesday morning in Lawndale on the West Side.

Someone in a passing car opened fire as the man stood outside around 11:40 a.m. in the 2700 block of West Flournoy Street, Chicago police said.

The man, 27, was struck in the back of his head and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died, police said.

No arrest was made. Police did not provide a description of the gunman.

The shooting occurred in the 11th police district, which covers parts of Lawndale and East and West Garfield Park. The district has seen 284 shootings so far this year through Monday, 3% higher than the 275 shootings seen during the same period last year, according to police statistics. Compared over a two-year period, shootings have risen 43% in the district.

Meanwhile, reports of robbery, aggravated battery and burglary in the district have seen double-digit percentage drops over 2020.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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It’s hard to believe (especially with this week’s heat), but summer is already coming to an end and I’m looking forward to fall. It’s been a strange year in Chicago dining, to put it mildly, but as we head into the second half of the year, there are some exciting events and openings coming that you should keep an eye on. You already know that Chicago Gourmet will be back — here are four other standouts.

Underground Wine Bar

For those who remember Quiote, the cool modern Mexican spot in Logan Square that closed in late 2019, you may also remember Todos Santos, the bar in the basement that had one of the most ambitious tequila and mezcal programs in the city. Well, the concept is no more, but the fun space is about to get a new tenant this fall, as Soif Wine Bar is opening in there (under what is now Testaccio). Details (and dates) are scarce, but the spot promises “natural wines, grower Champagnes, funky yet classic cocktails and small plates of wine-friendly bites.” Keep an eye on this one.

Worth a Drive

I love a pop-up market, and this one promises to be particularly fun. Barkada MARKET: Chicago is a local iteration of a New York event which bills itself as “NYC’s Foremost Filipino-American Community Block Party.” Taking place on August 28 in Des Plaines (at Brew Lounge), the event boasts more than 30 vendors including food, art, music, and more. It combines both New York and Chicago vendors, so even if you are familiar with the Filipino food scene in Chicago, you’ll have a chance to encounter some new tastes. For details, check out the Project Barkada Instagram page.

South American Feast

El Che remains one of my favorite restaurants, and their pivot to retail during the pandemic was pretty darn awesome. El Che Meat and Provisions is still going strong, selling high quality meats and kitchen tools (order online), but now they’ll be holding a special market to provide even more offerings. Every month, they’re hosting a market paying homage to the San Telmo market in Buenos Aires, and the next one is on September 11, featuring a variety of vendors (including kitchen tools, knives, plants, pet treats, and more). The market runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and is free — but if you sign up for a ticket, you get free wine!

Food and Drama

Rick Bayless is at it again with his continuing theater career — this time, instead of starring in a play, he’s written one. A Recipe for Disaster is a comedy focused on the hijinks that happen during influencer night at a hot restaurant (which honestly sounds pretty great), and tickets to the play also include a fully immersive experience with a tasting menu and paired drinks. The play opens on October 6 and tickets are on sale.

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NEW YORK — Players at the U.S. Open will have access to licensed mental health providers and quiet rooms as part of an initiative announced Tuesday by the U.S. Tennis Association.

The USTA said it seeks to “ensure that a comprehensive and holistic approach will be taken with all aspects of player health, including mental health.”

“Our goal is to make mental health services as readily available to athletes as services for a sprained ankle — and with no stigma attached,” said Dr. Brian Hainline, a USTA first vice president. “We will provide an environment that fosters wellness while providing the necessary resources to readily allow mental health care seeking.”

Reigning U.S. Open champion Naomi Osaka brought attention to the topic when she pulled out of the French Open in late May to take a mental health break, then sat out Wimbledon, too. She said she has “huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media and that she has “suffered long bouts of depression.”

Other athletes in tennis — and other sports — also have discussed their concerns.

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“The legend is if you say his name five times while looking in the mirror, he appears in the reflection and kills you … so I thought we could summon him.” — Really bad idea expressed by a particular character in “Candyman” (2021).

From the opening moments of Nia DaCosta’s gory yet strikingly beautiful and socially relevant “Candyman,” it’s clear we’re in for an especially haunting and just plain entertaining thrill ride.

Before we even settle in for the main story, we hear Sammy Davis Jr.’s version of “The Candy Man” from 1972 mixed with the sounds of a swarm of bees, and we see mirror images of the various studio logos, including the MGM lion, involved in this film. After a prologue set in the Cabrini-Green Homes in 1977, the opening credits flash over a montage of the Chicago skyline — as seen from below, through a dense white fog, in the middle of the night. It’s almost as if we’re on a gurney, looking straight up. This, too, is a kind of mirror image of the opening titles in the 1992 “Candyman,” where the camera swooped directly ABOVE the streets of Chicago.

Buckle up, kids. And be careful what you say into that mirror.

“Candyman” is billed as a spiritual and direct sequel to the 1992 original (ignoring the events of the two forgotten “Candyman” follow-ups from the 1990s), and director/co-writer DaCosta, along with co-writer and producer Jordan Peele (“Get Out”), have delivered a worthy successor with far superior production values and an equally powerful story combining traditional GOTCHA! horror moments and some suitably gory splatter moments with running themes about institutional racism, social class warfare and how unreliable narrators will shape and shift urban fairy tales to suit their world views.

Oh, and it’s also wickedly funny at times, as when a young woman says she just might say “Candyman” five times into a mirror, and the creepy guy trying to hook up with her retorts, “Do it. Necrophilia has always been on my bucket list.”

This “Candyman” is set primarily in the present day and specifically in the gentrified Near North Side neighborhood that a generation earlier was the site of the notorious Cabrini-Green complex. (One character explains the transformation in the voice of planners saying, “Hey, you artists, you young people, you white[s] preferably, please come to the hood, it’s cheap. And if you stick it out for a couple of years, we’ll bring you a Whole Foods.”) In a powerful and resonant performance, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Anthony, a celebrated young artist (who is almost always labeled “a Black artist”) who lives with his girlfriend Brianna (Teyonah Paris, doing fine work), an art gallery director, in a posh apartment.

Artist Anthony (Yahha Abdul-Mateen II, right) lives in the former Cabrini-Green site with girlfriend Brianna (Teyonah Paris)

Anthony has been struggling for the last couple of years and is looking to explore new themes, and he’s intrigued when Brianna’s younger brother Troy (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) tells the urban legend of Candyman through a shadow box presentation. It’s not accurate to the “real” events as we know from the original film, as the Helen Lyle character is now painted as the real villain, who went on a killing spree and tried to sacrifice a baby in a bonfire, when we know she gave up her own life to save the child. But it’s still one chilling story.

Anthony’s curiosity about the Candyman turns into a full-on obsession after he hears more about the legend from Colman Domingo’s William Burke, who claims to have had an encounter with the hook-handed specter when he was a child. (There’s also the matter of a bee stinging Anthony’s hand, leading to a horrific infection that’s a little reminiscent of what happened to Jeff Goldblum in “The Fly.”) Anthony has a burst of feverish intensity as he creates a series of paintings depicting violence and racial injustice — and that’s right about the time the body count starts piling up, as a looming figure guts an art gallery owner and his assistant, then takes out a number of girls at in the bathroom of a North Side college prep school. Director DaCosta does a brilliant job of alternating the visuals of these kills; sometimes we see the murders in silhouette, while on other occasions it’s more about crackling sound effects and dripping blood than hardcore close-ups.

Colman Domingo plays a storyteller who claims he had a childhood encounter with the Candyman.Universal Pictures

This is a visually striking film, containing establishing shots of Chicago at its most beautiful, and interior scenes brimming with eye-catching artwork on the walls, and color-coordinated rooms and hallways in shades of blues and oranges and greens and stark whites. Even something as simple as Anthony navigating a curving hallway to visit the apartment of a noted art critic has a claustrophobic, vaguely nightmarish journey. There are a number of callbacks to the original film that add layers to the story, and constant reminders of how the Candyman legend is something that sprung up from decades of very real, racist violence — starting with the story of Tony Todd’s Daniel Robitaille, who in the 19th century was tortured and murdered by a mob after falling in love with and impregnating a white woman. The social commentary is not subtle, but it’s legitimate and justified. We end up looking in the mirror on a number of levels.

If you want to say “Candyman” five times, go ahead. I think I’ll stop at four just to play it safe.

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Patrick LoDuca remembers two things from racing his first regatta in Chicago: the way the wind picked up that afternoon as if to test his knowledge, and taking home two”bullets,” or first place medals.

“I can still feel the thrill of that day,” he says. “Looking back, it was really the beginning of a decade of racing for me that still continues today,” he says.

LoDuca, who was born with spina bifida, learned to sail through the Judd Goldman Adaptive Sailing Program, which provides sailing classes for people with physical disabilities to help them become more independent and boost their self-esteem.

The program was founded in 1990 by Peter Goldman and was inspired by his father, Judd, who found a passion for sailing after contracting a serious bone infection.

Provided photo.

“My father quickly found that, unlike many sports, sailing makes you feel like an equal — you can race just about anybody regardless of any physical limitations.

“Thirty years later, the program continues to recreate that same feeling for its participants — teaching them to become comfortable and confident skippers with the goal of total independence on the water. Dozens of program participants have gone on to sail on their own and even race in regattas with the best sailor s in the world.

“The program teaches sailing as a practice for your mind, body and spirit,” says LoDuca,

who is now also an instructor in the program.

“It challenges you mentally to learn techniques and tactics, it’s great exercise and it lifts your spirits. I think anyone new to sailing will find it irresistible.”

For more information on the program and ways you can become involved, visit www.juddgoldmansailing.org. And to find volunteer opportunities in your community, visit www.createthegood.org.

To listen to an interview with Peter Goldman and Patrick LoDuca and for more stories like this, subscribe to the “Creating the Good with AARP Illinois” podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or any where you listen to podcasts.

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A FedEx driver was shot in the arm when a gray Porsche pulled up and someone inside fired at her truck in North Center Tuesday afternoon.

The Porsche sped off but crashed about a mile away at Giddings Plaza, according to Chicago Police. One suspect was arrested and another was being sought. Two guns were recovered, police said.

The driver of the truck, 25, had been driving north when she was attacked around 2 p.m. in the 4200 block of North Western Avenue, police said.

He was shot in the arm and was taken to Swedish Covenant Hospital in good condition, officials said.

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Consider the names Mike Ditka, Joe Maddon, Ozzie Guillén, Joel Quenneville, George Halas, and Phil Jackson. When you look at that list, it’s no secret that Chicago teams had some pretty incredible coaches in their time. And those names are just some of the best Chicago coaches who’ve achieved the ultimate accomplishment in sports. Winning a championship. Some of those guys won it all more than once during their time and went on to coach for many years. But, does coaching tenure in professional sports have an impact on team success?

Our gut says it does. But we don’t want to just go with our instincts here, we want facts! Thankfully, the sports fanatics over at SportsBettingDime had the same questions we did about coaching tenure in professional sports. Does longer tenure lead to larger numbers in the win column? And how much do fans think coaches contribute to team success? The answers to all of these questions and more can be found in SportsBettingDime’s recent research dive into coaching tenure in professional sports.

Professional Sports Coaching Tenure Research

The research on coaching tenure in professional sports led to some pretty insightful findings. For starters, tenure certainly has an impact on team success. In their research, SportsBettingDime looked at data from the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL from 1990 and beyond. They also surveyed fans of each of those leagues, resulting in four separate surveys with 300 respondents each.

So yes, coaching tenure in professional sports impacts a team’s success positively. But how much? When looking at the data, the four-year mark appeared to be significant. SportsBettingDime found that a teams winning percentage is higher in all four professional leagues when you compare coaches with tenures below four years, and tenures above four years. The MLB saw the lowest difference between the two, with tenures of four years or less having a winning percentage of .476, and four years or more at .519. The NHL was next with a .441 winning percentage for the shorter coaching tenures, and .506 for the longer ones. Where you see the most discrepancy between winning percentages at the 4-year mark is in the NBA and NFL. In the NBA, head coaches with a tenure of four years or less had an average winning percentage of .438 compared to .566 when they were tenured longer than four years. For the NFL, the difference in winning percentages showed the largest spread, with .412 for the shorter tenure, and .568 for the longer tenure.

The Fan Findings

With that data, it’s pretty clear to see how coaching tenure impacts professional sports. In their research, SportsBettingDime also surveyed sports fans  to gauge how they felt a coach impacts a team’s success, and who they felt the best active coach in each league was. For the MLB fans, 39% of them indicated that former Chicago Cub manager Joe Maddon is the best MLB manager. They attributed MLB managers to 50.8% of their teams success. In the NHL, 44% of their fans think Barry Trotz is the best active head coach, and attribute their coaching to 57% of the team’s success. That was the highest attribution percentage out of all the leagues, which makes sense considering all the line changes and goalie pulls that can happen in an NHL game.

Fans of the NBA considered Gregg Popovich to be the best coach in the game today, with 53% surveyed feeling this way. This is despite Steve Kerr having the highest active win percentage of .692. Popovich’s winning percentage falls right behind Kerr at .672. NBA fans attributed coaching to 51% of a team’s success. The final set of fans surveyed were NFL fans, and 65.7% of them said Bill Belichick is the best active NFL coach. No surprise there. NFL fans attributed coaching to 55.5% of a team’s success in that league.

How Do Chicago Coaches Fare?

Pretty well actually. Since 1990, the majority of our teams in the four major leagues have a winning percentage above .500.

Since 1990, the Chicago Blackhawks have had 12 head coaches with an overall win percentage below .500. Former head coach Joel Quenneville is the 5th winningest active head coach.

The Chicago Bulls have also had 12 head coaches since 1990, and their winning percentage is above .500. Current head coach Billy Donovan is the 5th winningest active coach, and former 90’s dynasty coach, Phil Jackson, is the most winning retired coach.

As for the Chicago Cubs, who are in need of some major fixing, they’ve had 15 managers since 1990. Their win percentage is below .500. The White Sox have had 8 managers since 1990, and fans labeled Tony La Russa as the 3rd best active manager in the league. Would his players agree though…?

And finally, the Chicago Bears. They have had 7 head coaches since 1990, and their win percentage is also above .500 in that timeframe. Nagy is coming up on the magical year four mark. Will he survive past then or will the franchise look elsewhere after this season is all said and done? With the addition of Justin Fields, we hope the team finds some success past the Wild Card and he stays. Plus, according to the data, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have a coach with a longer tenure.

To read up on the full research and findings, read the Managerial Reign in Sports by SportsBettingDime. SportsBettingDime is a platform that makes sports betting more accessible for the everyday fan, and more profitable for seasoned bettors.

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