Issues for participation; special salutes to two friends

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High school sports is more than competition, results, excellence, and enjoyment. Some schools, participants, and parents, have increased efforts to move State governor JB Pritzker, and the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) to allow all sports to resume.

High school football in Illinois has not started and the State is an exception among neighboring states which are playing football.

There have been rallies in the last few weeks to create awareness and mount pressure on those leaders who have canceled some sports. Football is tentatively projected for a season of February 15 to May 1.

Naperville was the most recent site for a rally, at the Rotary Hill near downtown. It was projected to be the largest among rallies held in Wheaton, McCook, Plainfield, Barrngton, Crystal Lake, Hoffman Estates, Orland Park, Chicago, and Springfield.

• Both Chicago Major League Baseball teams will start playoff treks next week. The White Sox will be in the American League pennant hunt and the Cubs in the National League chase. Factoid: The last time the two teams met in the World Series was in 1906, when the Sox won four games to two after the Cubs won 116 games in the regular season.

• Elsewhere in this issue this week is good information on the late Joe Ruklick and the late Rick Dearborn, both good friends who will be missed for good reasons. Here are a few notes on each, perhaps cathartic for the writer. Only part sports in each.

Joe Ruklick was six feet tall, gangly, and clumsy as a 12-year-old eighth grader in Princeton. The next year the head basketball coach encouraged his high school basketball participation on the freshman team. A week later, the coach asked why he was not on the team. The reply: Freshman coach cut him. The head coach, with a view to size and later coordination, prevailed. The center with a deadly hook shot, was all-America at Northwestern, grew to 6-10 in the NBA, teammate of Wilt Chamberlain, became a financial advisor, and later followed a dream with a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern at age 50.

Rick Dearborn played end in high school football, cheered for his alma mater University of Illinois in football, and for the Chicago White Sox. Noteworthy: He was a financial sponsor of students at the U of I because he believed in making a positive difference quietly. He enjoyed the arts and music, as did Joe.

Two souls with positive contributions, renaissance men, will be missed, however, never forgotten.

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