By Woodrow Carroll In the Saturday, Sept. 17 football game against visiting Vanderbilt University, Northern Illinois University could not have started better. The first four drives by the host Huskies resulted in touchdowns. Then the magic disappeared! It was all Vanderbilt, 3-1, the rest of the way and the Vanderbilt
By Woodrow Carroll After defeating the visiting Virginia Cavaliers, 24-3, Saturday, Sept. 10, the University of Illinois football program can lay claim to two touchdown shutouts this season. A touchdown shutout means the other team may have scored by field goal or safety, but, the opponent did not score a
By Woodrow Carroll The University of Illinois football team has won back-to-back games by more than 30 points. Of course, the first of those two victories was last season in the finale when the Illini defeated Northwestern, 47-14, to finish with a 5-7 overall record. This season’s Illini started well
By Woodrow Carroll It’s difficult to believe, but, Northern Illinois University head football coach Thomas Hammock is in his fourth season as taskmaster of Huskies’ football fortunes. Hammock’s first two seasons in DeKalb were a bit of a struggle. Hammock’s rookie run at Northern Illinois in 2019 the Huskies were
By Woodrow Carroll Bret Bielema’s second season as the University of Illinois head football coach will kick off at 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27. The Fighting Illini will be host to the University of Wyoming Cowboys. This season will present more than a few challenges for Bielema and the Illini.
By Woodrow Carroll The Joliet Slammers defeated the visiting Florence Y’Alls, 4-3, in a Frontier League minor league baseball game Sunday, Aug. 7 in a game delayed two hours by bad weather. In many instances the game would have been postponed to the following day and made up as part
By Woodrow Carroll In the 1947 Rose Bowl, the University of Illinois surprised favored UCLA, 45-14, to start a 13-year run, 1947-1959, of Big Ten Conference team victories in the Rose Bowl 12 times. The outlier was Wisconsin’s 7-0 defeat at the hands of Southern California in the 1953 Rose
By Woodrow Carroll Former University of Illinois head football coach Gary Moeller died last week at the age of 81. Described as the former Illinois coach is not how Moeller would like to be remembered. Moeller was the Illinois head coach for three seasons, 1977-1979. Those three seasons in Champaign
By Woodrow Carroll The defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves have an opportunity to test themselves this week. Three games the early part of the week with the New York Mets will be followed by four games with the Washington Nationals. Results should reveal Braves’ pennant position. Brian Snitker, 66,
By Woodrow Carroll The media and concerned others were recently informed that Sandwich High School would not be fielding a varsity football team in the Fall. The stated reason was the poor turnout among junior and senior class students to leave the football program short of numbers. In the past,
By Woodrow Carroll Were it not for a 4-3 victory over the visiting Baltimore Orioles Sunday, June 26, the Chicago White Sox would have been swept by a team that has been a Major League Baseball (MLB) punching bag much of the past decade. In Chicago for a four-game series
By Woodrow Carroll It really comes as no surprise to those who are familiar with the world of sports. The strange and bizarre are an almost every-day occurrence. • The Atlanta Braves arrived in Chicago Friday, June 17 on a 14-game winning streak. The Braves’ opponent, the Chicago Cubs were
By Woodrow Carroll Minor league baseball has been around almost as long as the game of baseball, and the word stability is seldom used in any discussion of minor league baseball. If any community had a water tower, it may have had a minor league club, or, so it seems.
By Woodrow Carroll Just when things were starting to get dark for the Chicago White Sox, a ray of sunshine appeared last weekend. Having dropped three straight games in Toronto and the opener of a three-game series with the host Tampa Bay Rays, the future was starting to look bleak
By Woodrow Carroll The 2022 Major League Baseball season is slightly less than one-third complete and the Chicago White Sox have achieved something noteworthy, or, bizarre. Thanks to a 5-4, 12-inning, victory over the visiting Chicago Cubs Sunday, May 29, the White Sox improved their season record to 23-23, the
By Woodrow Carroll Former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher Curt Simmons celebrated his 93rd birthday May 19. Along with wishing the man continued good health, we know that Simmons is the last surviving member of the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies team, called by many the “Whiz Kids” which captured the National
By Woodrow Carroll Thursday through Saturday this week, the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) girls track and field State meet will be held in Charleston on the campus of Eastern Illinois University. The following week, Thursday through Saturday, the boys State track and field meet will be held in the
By Woodrow Carroll Thanks to a 3-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox last Sunday, the Chicago White Sox moved over the .500 record in what has already become a topsy-turvy season. Sunday’s victory over the Red Sox made it six straight in the ‘W’ column for Chicago and upped
By Woodrow Carroll How far the Northwestern Wildcats have fallen! At least when it comes to the National Football League Draft. It was only a year ago that Northwestern, not Ohio State or Michigan as you might have expected, was the first Big Ten team to have two players selected
By Woodrow Carroll What happened to the Chicago White Sox team that opened the this season by winning six of their first eight games? The White Sox won two of three games each from Detroit, Seattle, and Tampa Bay, to start the season After falling to the Minnesota Twins, 6-4
