The divorce proceedings between former Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler and his soon-to-be ex-wife Kristin Cavallari are starting to get a little messy.
The post Jay Cutler: Divorcee…and Fashion Business Owner? first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More
Jeff Reinebold, special teams coordinator of the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats and his nearly 40 years of coaching experience joins the 100 Crew to talk Chicago Bears football
The post Keepin’ It 100 – North of the Border first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More
Keepin’ It 100 – North of the BorderStephen Johnsonon June 3, 2021 at 4:22 am Read More »
Although the Sox maintain a 2.5 game lead in the Central, they left Cleveland with a sour taste.
The post Good Guys Talk Back – Episode 104 – Tame the Tigers first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More
Could the Chicago Bulls and Derrick Rose reunite one more time this offseason? The point guard is expected to be a free agent this offseason.
The post Could Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls reunite this offseason? first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More
Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields has a great response when talking about the team’s rival, the Green Bay Packers.
The post Chicago Bears QB Justin Fields already dislikes the Green Bay Packers first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More
The event will be a virtual affair this year, during which the two industry powerhouses will participate in a conversation led by Steppenwolf ensemble member Carrie Coon.
Actress Annette Bening and film industry pioneer Sherry Lansing have been named the 2021 Women in the Arts honorees by Steppenwolf Theatre Company, it was announced Friday.
The event will be a virtual affair this year ,during which the two industry powerhouses will participate in a conversation led by Steppenwolf ensemble member Carrie Coon at 12:30 p.m. June 22. This year’s celebration will be a free event and open to the public. Streaming will be available via Steppenwolf’s YouTube and Facebook pages. Advance reservation are encouraged (but not required) at steppenwolf.org/wia21.
An audience Q&A will follow the conversation and attendees are invited to submit questions when making reservations.
Bening’s theater career includes her Tony Award-nominated turn in “All My Sons” (opposite Steppenwolf ensemble member Tracy Letts), and a film career boasting 40 movies including “Bugsy,” “American Beauty,” “20th Century Women,” “The Kids Are Alright,” “The American President” and “Captain Marvel.”
Lansing’s three-decades Hollywood career spans more than 200 films and various industry roles from TV actress (“Frasier,” “Dan August,” “Ironside”) to producer (“Fatal Atraction”) to history-making studio head responsible for spearheading the Academy Award-winning films “Forrest Gump,” “Braveheart” and “Titanic.”
The high-profile, defining moments throughout his basketball career were endless, some even surreal.
The phone rang Thursday morning at 7:36 a.m. with Jon Scheyer’s name popping up.
Basketball icon Mike Krzyzewski would be doing a retirement press conference on ESPN a few hours later that day. Scheyer would have his own press conference a day later, officially introducing the Illinois high school basketball legend as the coach-in-waiting at Duke.
When talking about a personal sports whirlwind, that’s about as whirly as you’ll ever get.
The former Glenbrook North superstar, who has as big of a reputation as any high school player who has ever laced them up in this state, would be the next Duke head coach when Coach K stepped down at the end of the 2021-22 season. The 33-year-old assistant would be replacing the biggest name and winningest coach in college basketball history.
We talked briefly about the job, even commiserating on past and recent job openings and hiring processes that the two of us had discussed in recent years and even months. There were certainly some “What if?” questions on my end.
But this call was a lot more about business. Scheyer was doing what he does –– his homework in recruiting, checking in and discussing players, grinding away in preparation for his life-changing day.
I hung up from that early Thursday morning phone conversation and all I could think about was the kid I interviewed 18 years ago, early in his high school career. This was just before he became a true household name in Illinois, because anyone who even followed sports at all in Chicago at that time knew the name Jon Scheyer.
That story I wrote on a very young Scheyer, titled “Believe the hype,” was my introduction to the makeup of a rare high school basketball player. I talked extensively with Jon and his dad, Jim Scheyer, for what was a lengthy feature story. That began a two-decade-long run of watching and following Scheyer and, later, getting to know him as an adult and college coach.
I remember listening to Jim Scheyer talking about his son’s start in the game, detailing the early beginnings of his son’s playing days –– first on the Little Sport basketball hoop in the foyer of the house as a 2-year-old to joining a league in Evanston called FAAM (Federation of African American Men), where Jon was the only sixth-grader playing on an eighth-grade team.
Now that same kid is the next head coach at Duke? Pretty remarkable.
Scheyer is without question one of the greatest high school basketball players the state has ever produced. Some would argue the greatest. The numbers are staggering. He scored 3,034 career points which is fourth all-time in state history.
The high-profile, defining moments throughout his career were endless, some even surreal.
He averaged 33.5 points a game in the state title run in March of his junior year, including the 48-point explosion in a super-sectional win over Waukegan. He followed that with 35 points, 12 rebounds and five assists in a state quarterfinal win over Bobby Frasor and Brother Rice.
He would hit big shot after big shot with one monster performance after another, all while playing against gimmick defenses. At the midway point of his senior season Scheyer was averaging 37 points a game; he finished his senior year averaging 29.2 points a game and scored 996 points –– in one season.
The Jon Scheyer-Derrick Rose state quarterfinal matchup in 2006, where Simeon ended GBN’s reign as state champion? You won’t find many games that were more highly anticipated than that one.
And I was lucky enough to be in the gym at Proviso West for one of those surreal basketball moments. It was also one of those, “Thankfully I picked this game to go to tonight” sighs of relief. That’s when Scheyer became a national sensation by scoring 21 points in 75 seconds in the closing moments of a holiday tournament game, finishing with 52 points.
Scheyer also did it in the most professional way. He played with energy and excitement, but with no me-first antics, trash-talking or showboating. None. He just went out and played like an assassin.
But more than all that, more than anything, really, Scheyer was and is wired differently.
Remember, while he had the 6-5 basketball height, Scheyer wasn’t exactly the most physically gifted athlete –– at least when it comes to forecasting the type of greatness he achieved in the sport.
But he was never afraid of any moment. And Scheyer was as competitive of a kid and as basketball-driven of a player as I’ve watched and followed in 25 years of doing this. It’s why his teams won –– won a lot and won big –– even when they clearly weren’t always the most talented teams. He individually raised the level of those around him and featured a defining quality: an unfailing dedication to and focus on winning.
It’s sometimes thrown around loosely now with athletes, but Scheyer is the consummate winner.
That Glenbrook North team that won the 2005 state championship wasn’t overwhelming. But it had Scheyer, the lone Division I player on that team.
People forget about the 2002-03 GBN team that reached Peoria and finished third in the state. That team was very underwhelming and was fueled by a skinny freshman in Scheyer who led the team with 15.8 points a game.
Even the Duke team that Scheyer led to the national championship in 2010 wasn’t all that spectacular –– at least not in terms of all the great Duke teams and in talking national title teams of the past. But Scheyer was the All-American, the senior captain, the leading scorer.
That consummate winner is the thing that gives him a fighting chance to succeed in a job that so many will say is a near impossible one.
This has nothing to do with Scheyer but everything to do with what he’s walking into at Duke. Coach K the coach and brand is bigger than Duke the program. Scheyer is following a coach with five national titles, 12 Final Four appearances, over 1,000 wins and one of the figureheads of the sport.
The good news is Scheyer has the internal support in place like no other. That’s a big deal, especially at a place like Duke and under these circumstances.
The better news is that like most successful people in any field and profession, Scheyer has always shown and featured an advanced skill set when it comes to overachieving and succeeding. So while he does not have the head coaching experience, you better believe Scheyer has the ideal recipe internally to succeed.
Even while being so mild-mannered on the outside, Scheyer thrives on competition. A competitive drive and being confident, unafraid of any situation that comes your way in a job, is an asset. In this job of all jobs –– the head coach at Duke, replacing one of the long-lasting legends in the sport –– Scheyer’s temperament and personality type seem to fit.
I just hope Scheyer remembers and continues to truly live by a quote he gave me 18 years ago as a teenager for that story I wrote. He told me then, “I worry about myself and not what others expect of me. I am not going to be able to please everyone. … The expectations can be a little ridiculous.”
Those were, specifically, Jon Scheyer-prophetic words and will come in handy in the coming years.
Improving coronavirus numbers have made more summer events possible. Here’s the latest updates on this year’s changing entertainment landscape.
With coronavirus case numbers and positivity rates on the decline, the summer festival season in Chicago is in much better shape than last year.
The city has given the green light for festivals and “general admission outdoor spectator events” to welcome 15 people for every 1,000 square feet.
The city has debated various ways bolster vaccination rates among young people most likely to attend outdoor music events like Lollapalooza and Riot Fest. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said a proposal to create a coronavirus vaccine passport for Chicago events is “very much a work in progress” but that preferred seating at those events could be one way to urge vaccination.
Some festivals have already announced their return and concerts are starting to be rescheduled.
We’re tracking the status of the city’s festival and major events throughout the area as new cancellations and postponements are announced. Check back for more updates.
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“This will be the most significant commitment of effort, resources and leadership to building trust in CPD history,” Supt. David Brown said.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown on Friday announced a “transformative” new approach to community policing for the nation’s second-largest police department.
The department will expand its community policing program into three additional districts to cover the entirety of the city’s South and West sides, and create officer liaisons to make outreach with marginalized groups including immigrants, homeless and LGBTQ community, and will direct all officers to create positive interactions with community members ranging from “problem-solving conversations” to coaching youth sports.
“Today, we are taking a big swing at community policing and community engagement, and building trust. This will be the most significant commitment of effort, resources and leadership to building trust in CPD history,” Brown said at a news conference at CPD headquarters.
“This plan is the best way to reduce crime in Chicago …. CPD has never been this aggressive with community policing. This is a transformative moment for CPD.”
The department has had a community policing program since the 1990s rollout of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy and has redoubled efforts at community outreach since falling under a federal consent decree in 2019.
The department will create new community liaisons, and the news conference included a surprise promotion for Commander Angel Narvalez, who has led the community policing program since last year. Narvalez was sworn in as a deputy chief of community policing.
CPD rolls out new community policing programAndy Grimmon June 4, 2021 at 5:46 pm Read More »
“Fifty percent of the people wouldn’t want to live in a Trump building for any reason … but then there are guys like me,” says Lou Sollecito, a car dealer who recently bought a two-bedroom unit with views of the Empire State Building. “It’s a super buy.”
NEW YORK — The building has stunning Manhattan skyline views, its spa offers deep-tissue massages, and the fancy restaurant off the lobby serves up prime steaks. Best of all, many apartments at the Trump World Tower are selling at a deep discount — assuming the buyer doesn’t mind the name over the door.
“Fifty percent of the people wouldn’t want to live in a Trump building for any reason … but then there are guys like me,” says Lou Sollecito, a car dealer who recently bought a two-bedroom unit with views of the Empire State Building. “It’s a super buy.”
The purchase price was $3 million, nearly a million less than the seller paid in 2008.
Bargain hunters are swooping in to take advantage of prices in Trump buildings that have dropped to levels not seen in over a decade, a crash brokers attribute to a combination of the former president’s polarizing image and the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a stunning reversal for a brand that once lured the rich and famous willing to pay a premium to live in a building with Trump’s gilded name on it.
An Associated Press review of more than 4,000 transactions over the past 15 years in 11 Trump-branded buildings in Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas and New York found prices for some condos and hotel rooms available for purchase have dropped by one-third or more.
That’s a plunge that outpaces drops in many similar buildings, leaving units for sale in Trump buildings to be had for hundreds of thousands to up to a million dollars less than they would have gone for years ago.
“They’re giving them away,” says Lane Blue who paid $160,500 in March for a studio in Trump’s Las Vegas tower, $350,000 less than the seller paid in 2008. It was his second purchase in the building this year and may not be his last.
Just how much the Trump name is to blame is impossible to say. Many units for sale are in cities that were hit hard by the pandemic or in hotels that had to shut down or in condo buildings much older than their competitors, making comparisons difficult.
Still, Trump’s red-meat rhetoric and policies haven’t helped. Within a year into his presidency, hotels and condo buildings in Panama, Toronto and Manhattan that paid millions to use his name started stripping it off their facades.
After Trump was accused of whipping up the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, things got really bad. Banks vowed not to lend to him, the PGA canceled a tournament at his New Jersey golf course, and New York City fired him as manager of a public course in the Bronx. Several brokers say many potential buyers won’t even look at Trump buildings now.
“I’d be happy if his name was taken off,” says Gary Gabriel, who owns an apartment in Trump Palace on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “It’s embarrassing.”
It’s also an opportunity.
“We can see the river. We can see the lake. It has a downtown view,” says Nilufar Kabir, who bought a one-bedroom unit in Trump’s Chicago condo-hotel in February for $680,000, nearly one-fifth less than what the seller paid. “It’s a bargain.”
Other condos in Chicago’s Trump International Hotel and Tower have dropped even more, down 34% during the four years of his presidency, according to Gail Lissner, a managing director at the consulting firm Integra Realty Resources. That compares with a 6% drop over the same period at 18 nearby luxury condo buildings of similar age.
Says Lissner, “You can live in a luxury building for a non-luxury price tag.”
Prices fell even more for units in the 96-story Chicago building that are set aside for hotel guests, a category hit hard by pandemic travel restrictions. But Lissner leaves them out of her analysis because there are no similar hotel units in nearby buildings to compare them against.
In Las Vegas, prices at Trump’s hotel have fallen 4% since he took office four years ago, while average prices for three dozen other hotels in the city that also sell condominiums and rooms rose 14%, according to data collected by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices broker Forrest Barbee. Since the Trump building opened a dozen years ago, prices per square foot have fallen 66%.
And in Manhattan, Trump-branded buildings have fallen so far, down to 15-year lows, that they have lost their premium for the first time, selling at lower prices per square foot than the average for all condo buildings, according to research firm CityRealty.
“I have never seen buildings plummet so dramatically,” says Ondel Hylton, senior content director at CityRealty, which has a webpage tracking the eight Manhattan buildings still bearing the Trump name. “It seems like this is a bottom.”
Some buyers are thinking the same.
“Ten years from now people will forget about him,” says a New York banker who asked for anonymity to talk about a second Trump World apartment he bought last month for $2.1 million, a two-bedroom overlooking the United Nations. “The name will mean less.”
Or disappear completely.
“Does it get bad enough that they rebrand?“ asks the new owner of a Trump hotel room steps from Hawaii’s Waikiki Beach, though he figures it won’t matter given the bargain price — $505,000, which is over $300,000 less than the seller paid. “It’s got an ocean view!”
It had the same view when Trump took office, and prices at the Trump International Hotel in Waikiki plunged 23% over the next four years, according to real estate brokerage Bradley & McCann. The nearby Ritz-Carlton also got hit hard, down 20%, but Trump fared far worse when compared with a broad sample of three dozen Honolulu hotels that also sell rooms: Their prices over four years fell only 3%.
Trump Organization Executive Vice President Eric Trump declined to comment.
The exact hit to Trump’s company is hard to know. It sold most of the units it owned in his branded buildings years ago, though it still has dozens in Chicago and Las Vegas worth much less now.
The bigger damage is likely to be to the former president’s image and future branding. Developers who used to pay him millions to use his name won’t strike deals with him if they think it could sink prices,
Those golden five letters over the door once attracted buyers like Derek Jeter, Johnny Carson and Liberace but now are so controversial that many people who bought recently refused to allow their names to be used in this story, worried that the boycotts against Trump could hurt them.
Vegas buyer Blue, who runs an air freight company in California, doesn’t care. He calls Trump “one of the greatest presidents ever” and thinks anger directed at him will blow over.
“Stuff washes out. People forget. People move on,” he says.
___
AP researcher Randy Herschaft contributed from New York.
