Notre Dame Survives at St. Patrick, 52-45

I was at St. Patrick Tuesday evening for the ESCC showdown between #5 Notre Dame and #10 St. Patrick. St. Patrick is tough place for a road team. The last Gordon Tech basketball game ever was March 7, 2014. It ended in a 59-39 loss for the Rams at St. Patrick. That home crowd is tough.

Not the same this year. Not the same home crowd but still very tough. St. Pat’s has an excellent team this year they and gave the Don’s all they could handle.

The Dons jumped out to a 5-0 lead early in the first quarter but never could break it open.

The Shamrocks pulled off a 15 to 9 run and grabbed a brief 32-31 lead at the 6:01 mark of the fourth quarter.

The #5 ranked Dons are a tough, well coached veteran group with three division one recruits. When they got the lead up to about five, Kevin Clancy went into a stall trusting his players to make the free throws.

They did. Anthony Sayles went eight for eight at the line.

Behind the leadership of the three division one recruits, Anthony Sayles (17 points), Louis Lesmond (14 points) and Troy D’Amico (11) points, the Dons regained the lead and held on to win 52-45. Notre Dame’s Sonny Williams added 8 points and Frank Lynch, (nephew of Chicago’s Sulzer Library librarian and 47th Ward resident, Julie Lynch), had 2 points.

St. Ignatius Blows Past St. Laurence in Second Half for 67-49 Victory

Despite a 24-9 season last year and winning a spot in a sectional championship, number 13 ranked St. Ignatius hosted St. Laurence in a Chicago Catholic League “crossover” matchup between two teams swapping spots in CCL divisions this year. The Wolfpack were, some might say, “relegated” to the White and the Vikings moving up to the Blue division.

“I know; it’s weird. We are moving because of our record two years ago,” said St. Ignatius head coach Matt Monroe.

Relegated or not St. Ignatius is good. Coming off a disappointing 34-31 loss against Loyola Academy on Thursday, the Wolfpack looked flat and tentative in the first half. Just like they did at Loyola.

The Vikings impressed in the first half. Lead by senior guard and football quarterback Darius Wilson, the Vikings defense played well and the offence finished at the other end leading 33-30 at the half.

Monroe lit a fire under them at halftime. “I told them we have to play with energy on defense. When they got active on the defensive end, it jump started the offense,” Monroe said.

The second half was a whole different story. Ignatius outscored Laurence 18-6 in the third quarter. Ignatius did not let up in the fourth. Laurence’s frustration boiled over into two technical fouls. It was over at that point.

When asked if it is the quest for a CCL White championship motives his team, Monroe said, “I tell them to play for each other.” Make your team great.

Monroe has his team playing for each other.

Final score: St. Ignatius 67, St. Laurence 49.

Inside Article Preview--CPS Basketball Getting Underway—Catholic League Opens with DePaul Prep Win and Loyola Loss

The Chicago Public Schools announced Feb. 8 that high school basketball could begin Feb. 11. Coaches are expecting to work through tryouts, start practices on Feb. 12 and start games on February 19. The IHSA announced is extension of the CPS season to March 20, a week longer than the March 13 limit with applies throughout the rest of the state. This gives CPS teams one month and one day to play as many games as can safely be scheduled.

“We have 10 teams in our league [Red West-North]. So it’s nine games that CPS has given us for a league schedule,” Lane Tech Coach Nick LoGalbo said. Lane will play Clark, Farragut, Lincoln Park, Marshall, North Lawndale, Orr, Schurz, Westinghouse and Young. The dates and time have not been finalized.

“What the non-conference schedule looks like, I don’t know. Are they going to allow us to schedule and extra game per week or are they going to cap it? I don’t know,” LoGalbo said.

“Unfortunately, all the Catholic League and 30-mile radius teams have their schedules pretty locked up already. We were going to play DePaul and Pat’s and Ignatius. I don’t know if we are going to be able to get those teams in.”

“I wish I knew more. When [the IHSA] extended [the season] a week, I really thought they were going to do a regular season schedule and then a conference tournament that last week. But based upon the preliminary schedule I received, the regular season goes all the way to deadline. So I don’t think there is going to be any playoff or tournament.”

The preliminary CPS rules given initially to coaches do not allow spectators at all. Each team is allowed 20 people--15 players, two coaches and three others. There would also be two people at the table, three officials, one administrator and a maintenance person. There is not specific allowance for press. However, that may change after coaches have their meeting scheduled for Feb. 11.

Sixth ranked DePaul Prep played its first game Monday, Feb. 8, defeating St. Joseph 54-37 in St. Joseph’s nearly empty gym.

The Rams came out cold. Suffering jitters from the nearly year-long layoff, both teams missed shots and turned the ball over.

After a St. Joseph 7-0 run to open the game and about half of the first quarter, DePaup Prep coach Tom Kleinschmidt dialed up the pressure having his Rams trap the ball handler.

 “Slow start coming out. You have to hand it to Joe’s. They were way more physical than us. They came and punched us in the face . . .. It’s a Catholic League road game so you have to be ready and we weren’t. For whatever reason. I’m not making any excuses. We picked up pressure and started getting some live ball turnovers. We started getting some baskets,” Kleinschmidt said.

Midway through the second quarter the Rams opened a 12-point lead and it never was close after that.

DePaul senior guard Tyler “TY” Johnson lead all scorers with 26 points. DePaul senior guard Rasheed Bello finished with 9 points but had an end-to-end monster dunk in the first half that fired up the Rams.

Senior center Brian Matthews did not play until the start of the fourth quarter. “Brian hasn’t practiced yet. That’s the only reason [he didn’t play]. We brought him in in the fourth to give Dylan a little plow and that’s it,” Kleinschmidt said.

Postponements and cancellations have crippled the Chicago Catholic League schedule. The Rams were scheduled to play Marmion on Feb. 10. However, St. Joe’s had a player with a positive test within 48 hours after DePaul game, and after contact tracing, DePaul Prep determined that the majority of their varsity team would have to quarantine for 10 days. The Rams will miss the Marmion, Montini and Providence St. Mell games. The Rams next scheduled game is Feb. 17. at DeLaSalle Academy.

Loyola Academy opened its season at home Friday, Feb. 5, against Maine South. The Ramblers lead going into halftime but fell behind in the third quarter and could not recover eventually losing 47-36.

Despite the loss, Ramblers’ coach Tom Livatino was upbeat. “It felt normal in an abnormal time. I always thought we would play. It was all good. It was so phenomenal to be back.

As for the game Livatino said, “[a]n inexperienced team lost to an experienced team. That’s what happened. All credit to Maine South. We have a long way to go. We haven’t had a practices to iron the kinks out. We have chosen to play games. I guarantee that we will get better.”

And he was right. After two postponed games, the Rambler hosted #13 ranked St. Ignatius on Feb. 11. The Ramblers edged the Wolfpack 34-31 winning the Jesuit Cup (both schools are run by the Society of Jesus order of Catholic priests).

The Ramblers replaced their Feb. 12 game postponed game against St. Joseph with a game against Glenbrook North.

It’s a strange season. The schedule is fluid. Teams are just going to play as games work through issues during games. With no playoffs, postponed and cancelled games on a daily basis, we should all just enjoy any game we can see. For most fans, that will have to be through a live stream. Most schools are making such arrangements. Check school websites and social media for live stream information.

DePaul Prep Defeats St. Joseph 54-37 in Opener

DePaul Prep defeated St. Joseph 54-37 in opening game of this COVID-19 season on Monday evening in an empty gym. Maybe you saw it streaming. I understand St. Joes was broadcasting it on Facebook or You Tube. Essentially, the only spectators were the teams themselves, the St. Joseph sophomore team, a couple of St. Joseph staff members and me.

It was an interesting game. The Rams came out cold. They had good shots; they just missed the bucket early and often. Both teams were missing shots and turning the ball over. It must have been jitters from the long layoff.

After a St. Joseph 7-0 run to open the game and about half of the first quarter, DePaup Prep coach Tom Kleinschmidt dialed up the pressure having his Rams trap the ball handler.

 “Slow start coming out. You have to hand it to Joe’s. They were way more physical than us. They came and punched us in the face . . .. It’s a Catholic League road game so you have to be ready and we weren’t. For whatever reason. I’m not making any excuses. We picked up pressure and started getting some live ball turnovers. We started getting some baskets,” Kleinschmidt said after the game.

Midway through the second quarter the Rams opened a 12-point lead and it never was close after that.

DePaul Prep senior guard Tyler “TY” Johnson lead all scorers with 26 points. DePaul senior guard Rasheed Bello finished with 9 points but had an end-to-end monster dunk in the first half that fired up the Rams. By the grace of God, I happened to be ready and snapped a photo which I posed on Twitter at halftime and is included below.

Senior center Brian Mathews did not play until the start of the fourth quarter. “Brian hasn’t practiced yet. That’s the only reason [he didn’t play]. We brought him in in the fourth to give Dylan [Arnett] a little plow and that’s it,” Kleinschmidt said.

The Rams were scheduled to play Marmion in the Tom Weinicki Gym on Wednesday. However, the game has been postponed because Marmion is quarantined. The next game for the Rams is Friday evening at Montini.

As for the photos, it’s all about the light at St. Joe’s. Those tungsten or sodium vapor lights must be an effort to freak out other teams. Most CCL teams are used to it, maybe even like it. I admit the lights are kind of growing on me. It makes for weird photos. Everything is under exposed orange.

My string of a game every day or so is coming to an end. Just not enough time to shoot, process and write every day.

Hope you like the photos.

Evanston Girls Defeat Vernon Hills 49-22

In the second game of the Evanston v. Vernon Hills season opener, the Wildkits womens’ team opened their season against Vernon Hills 49-27.

Game recap to follow in the weekly column in Inside Publications—insideonline.com.

Here are my pictures from the game. I hope you like them.

Wildkits Pick Up Where They Left Off, Evanston 81, Vernon Hills 60

The Evanston Township High School Wildkits defeated the Vernon Hills Cougars in Evanston Saturday afternoon 81-60.

More about the game in my weekly column in the Inside Publications—insideonline.com.

My thanks to the nice people at ETHS, Athletic Director Chris Livatino, in particular. Very well done and safe operation in this COVID season.

Here are my pictures from the game. I hope you like them. Photos from the girls game to follow shortly.

Basketball Went from Zero to Four in Three Days

I have photographed four basketball games in the last three days and been glad to do it. Thursday was Prospect at Notre Dame. Last night was Maine South at Loyola. Today was Vernon Hills boy at Evanston, then Vernon Hills girls at Evanston.

It look a little getting used to again. Not exactly riding a bike; more like hitting a golf ball. It took a few swings to get back in the groove.

Thursday and Friday were challenging. I had to shoot from the balconies above the court. But not today for the two games at Evanston, I was on the court at it’s wonderful Beardsley Gym. The light in there if very good. As we all know, the light in the gym is the important part of basketball. It was just fun to be back on the floor. The pictures were better because of it.

It was a challenge last night at Loyola to shoot from the balcony well off the floor. I got some good shoots but for that type of shooting I need better equipment. It would have been right up Brian O’Mahoney’s alley. He is very good at doing it this way and gets razor sharp tight images from above. I don’t have the right equipment to make the most of that style.

More about the games themselves in my weekly column in the Inside Publications. Pick up the print version or subscribe at insideonline.com.

Here are the pictures from the Loyola v. Maine South game. Hope you like them. The photos from the Evanston v. Vernon Hills games will follow shortly.

Basketball is Back, So Is the Blog

My last basketball game was 332 days, March 11, 2020. The DePaul Prep Rams loss to St. Ignatius in the 3A Sectional semi-final. After that, nothing. Until yesterday.

Shay Boyle and the wonderful people at Notre Dame College Prep allowed me to come out and photograph their game against Prospect. I have photographed quite a few Notre Dame games in recent year. They have had great teams. It truly was a shame that they could not complete their playoff run last year. They just had a great team, really fun to watch, really skilled, tons of talent and heart. I have no doubt they would have won 3A. Okay, they might have beaten St. Viator in the sectional final, maybe. But if they did, I have no doubt they would have beaten Fenwick in the Super-sectional, some downstate team in the semi-final and then Morgan Park in the state championship game. No doubt.

These COVID games are weird. No fans. Worse yet I can’t photograph from the floor. Shooting basketball from above doesn’t make for good photos. Photographing anything from above does not make for good photos. But we can only do what we can do. And we can’t shoot from the gym floor.

I am not the most naturally gifted photographer. I really have to work at it through trial and error. These Notre Dame photos are not very good, either in terms of exposure and color or composition. I will figure it out. I will find the best spot from above in the gym to get usable shots. I mostly try to watch what other photographers were doing. Allen Cunningham found a great spot got some excellent shots. He always does such fine work.

So here they are.

High School Sports are Back, Almost

The Illinois High School Association announced Wednesday that high school sports may resume practices immediately and games may start as early as next week. However, exactly when games will start in Chicago has yet to be determined. Games may not resume until Chicago moves into “Phase 4” of COVID restrictions.

Even in areas of the State already in Phase 4, basketball games may not start until teams complete seven days of practice. Under previously released Illinois Department of Public Health guidelines, practices could have started last week. Games will not start in Chicago until the State of Illinois moves Region 11 (Chicago) moves out of “tier 1” and into Phase 4. The move to Phase 4 depends upon a number of factors related to infection rate and hospitalization rate.

Games are limited to schools within the same state “region” established for COVID purposes. The City of Chicago is one such region. Suburban Cook County is another. The new IHSA plan allows for games between teams of the same region and teams within the same conference regardless of region.

While all CPS teams are obviously in the same region and can play one another, a CPS school would not be allowed to play a suburban team. In contrast, the Chicago Catholic League has city and suburban schools. Catholic League teams will be allowed to play each other but not public schools in another region. For instance, St. Ignatius (Chicago) could play Loyola Academy (Wilmette) but not Evanston.

The exact number of basketball games allowed by the IHSA is not limited, just the date by which the season must end, March 13. “The number of basketball games is a local decision,” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said in Wednesday’s press conference. Schools and conferences will be allowed to set the number of games played. Anderson said that the number of games will have to be weighed against other academic and health related considerations.

The Chicago Catholic League released its schedule of mens basketball games. The 15-game season will start on Monday, February 8th and then the following Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays until March 12th. Each team will be 7 games within their division and 8 “crossover” games against teams from the other division. The CCL has a rule that only home fans will be allowed to attend games.

Lane Tech Athletic Director and head men’s basketball coach Nick LoGalbo is not optimistic that games at Lane Tech will start anytime soon. “No matter the IHSA does, for us, everything is dependent on [CPS],” LoGalbo said. LoGalbo does not know what CPS will approve or when the approval will be forthcoming.

Nevertheless, CPS athletic directors are working on a schedule to play teams within each division in order to be ready. “We are looking at playing two to three games a week within each division,” LoGalbo said. “Plus some non-conference games.”

Current IDPH rules limit spectators at public indoor events to 50 people. The IHSA’s interpretation of the 50-person limit excludes players and school staff. It is unclear how schools will handle admitting spectators.

As for spectators at games, LoGalbo was not optimistic. “CPS may not allow spectators at all. Bank on nobody.” Lane is working on a plan to stream all games on the Internet.

Lane Tech womens basketball head coach Megan Molloy did not have much information about the plan going forward. “I have been meeting with my team over Google classroom and Google meets but that is about it,” Molloy said.

“Getting started again is going to be challenging. It is going to be hard. I am just going to tell my team that we are going to have to make the most of what we can do; we’ll have to take advantage of the time we have. That will be a good thing,” Molloy said.

The scheduling of back-to-back games varsity and sophomore games will be problematic. IDPH rules require the proper cleaning of the facility between such games. We may not see sophomore games immediately followed by varsity games.

Interestingly, health department rules require players must wear masks during games. Game rules will be modified slightly to provide one minute long socially distanced “mask breaks” when players can take off their masks and get a drink of water. There will be one such break during each quarter of the game.

High school football teams can begin practicing March 3rd. Games can begin March 19th and the season runs until April 24th. That leaves enough time for six games. There will be no state playoffs.

Athletes will be allowed to play multiple sports but the transition for playing basketball to football will require some extra football practice time for football players going right from basketball to football. Such players will need to participate in a couple practices in helmets and pads before being eligible to play in games.

The Chicago Catholic League/East Suburban Catholic League collaboration for football released its schedule. Each team will play 6 games, 3 against the other division teams and three crossovers. DePaul Prep will play Carmel Catholic, Marion Catholic and St. Joseph at home and Leo, Providence Catholic and Joliet Catholic on the road.

Traditional spring sports such as baseball, softball, lacrosse, girl soccer, etc., will begin practices on April 5th with the season ending on June 19th. Those sports will be afforded longer seasons because of the loss of last terms entire season.

The IHSA will not be mandating any COVID testing of athletes. “We have received no information from the Department of Public Health that would require [testing] of our students to be engaged in either practice of competition. While schools are obviously welcome to have testing if they have resources to do it,” Anderson said.

Lane Tech’s Sean Molloy (middle) rebounding in last season’s game against Oak Park-River Forest.

Lane Tech’s Sean Molloy (middle) rebounding in last season’s game against Oak Park-River Forest.

Best of 2020

Never been so happy to put a year behind me. I won’t bore you with details of my pandemic year. Let’s just say I didn’t do much and worked a lot.

Didn’t take as many photos in 2020 has I have in years past. In 2020, I took about 36,000 photos. That is down by over 50%. In 2019, I took 80,000 photos, 73,000 in 2017 and 43,000 in 2017 and 2016.

My 2020 photography plans were upset. I planned to start doing some college basketball. I also planned to upgrade my equipment. Both put on hold.

One good thing is that this year gave me a chance to concentrate on some non-sports photography. I want to do some architecture photography, so I started in on that.

I got a 50mm f1.8 lens. It has been fun learning how to use that.

In picking out my favorites from 2020, I realized that processing on my phone and immediately posting to Instragram has become a much bigger part of what I do. One can see those photos here. The mobile processed photos don’t seem to make it to the file management system. I am gonna have to fix that.

I went through my photos and picked out the ones I liked. So here are my favorite photos of 2020. Interesting collection. None that I would say are among my best ever but I like each one for a variety of reasons. I hope you do too.

footnote: My “best of photos” previously included a photo of Bridget Gainer making the peace. That photo was actually taken by a great photographer Steve Gross. We were both shooting the 47th Ward Democrats event in early 2020. Somehow Steven’s photo ended up in my file system. It was probably because I was posting his photos which he graciously donated to the 47th Ward Democrats. So I apologize to Steven. We should all learn a lesson to watermark photos like Steven does or idiots like me can claim them. I have learned a great deal from Steven. I am so thankful that have just had the good fortune just to be around him. His photos are so simple and elegant. He did a portrait of me which I love. Sorry.

Why is Texas Suing Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin to Overturn Election

The State of Texas filed a complaint in the United States Supreme Court against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan asking to enjoin [those state’s] use of the 2020 election results to appoint presidential electors and authorize those states to conduct a special election to appoint presidential electors or to direct such State’s legislatures to appoint a new set of presidential electors or to appoint no electors at all.

And it’s not just Texas. President Trump is attempting to intervene with his own complaint. Twenty-two other states are supporting the lawsuit as friends of the court. And lots of congressmen and state legislators too.

Basically, Texas and the other sycophants are saying that four other states’ presidential election results should be thrown out.

Really? Seriously? Seems a little drastic.

You probably don’t know this about me but I have been interested in the little details in the Constitution, for a long time; details such as the kinds of cases for which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, (meaning that’s where one files the case). I remembered that suits between states are one of those few kinds of cases. U. S. Constitution, Article 3, Section 2, Clause 2. (I didn’t remember the cite. I had to look that up.)

So I got the complaint from the Supreme Court’s website and I read it.

Texas claims that government officials “weakened ballot integrity” through “executive fiat” or “friendly lawsuits” and “flooded states with millions of ballots to be sent through the mail, or placed in drop boxes with little or no chain of custody and, at the same time, weakened the strongest security measures protecting the integrity of the vote . . ..” Complaint at pp. 1-2.

Okay, that’s crazy talk but, just for our purpose here, suppose it is true. What is the legal theory? What law gives the Supreme Court the authority to overturn election results in Pennsylvania?

Texas suggest that it is the U. S. Constitution’s Electors Clause, Article 1, Clause 2. I confess that’s a new one on me. The Electors Clause provides that “[e]ach State shall appoint, in such manner at the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors . . ..”

So I guess the theory goes that the electors appointed, or soon to be appointed, in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, were not appointed in the manner directed by the legislature, i.e., by executive fiat, friendly lawsuits and flooding states with millions of weak security ballots.

As we all know, the Federal Courts have been tightening up the notice pleading standard after Twombly. Plus, we’ve got Rule 9(b) that requires that fraud claims be plead with particularity.

So what in particular did the election officials do to appoint electors in violation of the manner directed by their legislatures? This is where the train leaves the Twombly tracks.

Let’s look at the actual allegations of fact about vote stealing:

Pennslyvania

Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended the deadline to accept non-postmarked ballots for three days after the election. ¶48.

Pennsylvania allowed people to cure defective mail in ballots. ¶50.

According to Republican legislators in PA, there were lots of ballot irregularities. ¶55-58.

Georgia

Authorized ballot processing before election day. ¶67

Court ruling made it far more difficult to challenge signatures. ¶70.

Michigan

Michigan secretary of state sent millions of absentee ballot applications to voters. ¶81-84

Michigan secretary of state allowed on-line absentee ballot applications.¶85

Wayne county didn’t stamp ballot return envelopes as verified. ¶93.

One guy, Jesse Jacob, was instructed not to look at signatures on ballot envelopes. ¶94

Lots of ballots were counted without a registration number for precincts in Detroit which meant ballots were counted multiple times. ¶97.

Wisconsin.

Wisconsin used unmanned ballot drop boxes. ¶110.

Wisconsin officials were letting indefinitely confined citizens register to vote without a photo ID. ¶116-126

One guy in Wisconsin said postal workers back dated ballots. ¶127.

That’s what you’ve got? And you want to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters in four states? You want to overturn a presidential election on this? I didn’t read anything about hundreds of thousands of discarded ballots or altered ballots. I didn’t read anything about more ballots than applications, or more fewer ballots than applications. It’s hard to steal votes. It’s really hard to systematically steal hundreds of thousands of votes in four states.

So good luck with that Texas?

But God help us all of the Trump appointees on the Supreme Court go along with it. I fear we’ll be going to the mattresses. We should all be holding our breath.

I would not want to be John Roberts today.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the case. (website photo)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the case. (website photo)

Old Photos Recovered

I started photographing sporting events in 2010. I didn’t start doing it regularly until 2011. At the time, I saved my photos to a Western Digital external drive.

At some point in late 2013, that drive failed. All drives fail. I learned a hard lesson that day. I looked into recovering the data at that time but I just didn’t want to spend the money. Frankly, it don’t even bother me that much. I just keep going.

With the COVID slowdown I was looking for photography stuff to do. I went back and took stock of my photos and my growth as a photographer. I wanted to see those photos again so I sent them off to a data recovery vendor. I am glad I did. They recovered 88,000 photos. Most of them I forgot all about. There are even some good ones.

I noticed a couple things. 1) I have learned a lot over the last ten years about exposure and composition; and 2) contrary to what many You Tube photographers like to say, the camera does matter—at least when it comes to sports photography.

In January 2010, I bought my DSLR, a Canon 2ti kit from Costco. The first basketball that I set out to photograph seems to the January 15, 2010, game between St. Benedict and Crane. I looked at the metadata for the photos. I was shooting at f4, 1/125 to 1/250 and ISO 3200. As I recall, I was struggling with exposure and had thought I needed to have the shutter speed that low. I learned later that shutter speed is king. One can boost exposure but there is no cure for blurry!

Since then, mostly through trial and error, I learned shutter speed is king. I learned composition mostly by imitating photographers that I was around, Worsom Robinson, Quinn Harris, Brian O’Mahoney, Allen Cunningham and Kirsten Stickney.

I watch a lot of You Tube photography videos, Tony and Chelsea Northrup, Jarrad Polin, Ted Forbes, etc. They all say—the camera doesn’t matter. Can one make great photos without a great camera? Yes. But if one wants to consistently make good sports photos—particularly basketball photos—you need good equipment; f2.8 lenses and a camera with high ISO capability.

The following are a few examples of my early photographs.

DePaul Prep Football Waits . . .

As we were coming out of the depths of the COVID shutdown, I started planning for high school sports again. DePaul Prep was moving into a new school building and building a new football stadium. I thought I would, and still will, fully document/photograph the first game and the first season in the new stadium.

When the Governor and the IHSA moved the bulk of high school sports to the Spring, my plans changed. The Fall practices were a chance to take some photos, see the new state-of-art DePaul Prep stadium and have the players and coaches get used to having me around so I am not such a distraction when play begins.

I would like to thank DePaul Athletic Director Pat Mahoney and Head Coach Mike Passarella for graciously inviting me in and for being so accommodating. And a special thanks to the young men who carry on the proud tradition of Gordon Tech/DePaul Prep football.

As always, Go Rams!

These are some of my photos.

DePaul Prep Mens Golf Falls to Mount Carmel 166 to 170

On Thursday (September 24, 2020), the DePaul Prep mens golf team lost to Mount Carmel 164 to 170 at Jackson Park Golf Course.

Assistant golf coach and DePaul College Prep history teacher Steve Cadwallader lead a young Rams squad against Mount Carmel. Playing for the Rams were freshman Jack Kennedy (Queen of Angels), freshman Wyatt Carlson (Chicago City Day School/Coonley), sophomore Alex Johnson (St. Benedict), sophomore Emmitt Miller (St. Alphonsus), sophomore Aiden Williams (Nettelhorst) and senior Colon Pilcher (St. Alphonsus).

The nine-hole match took the best four scores of the six Rams playing. Fourteen year-old freshman phenom Wyatt Carlson lead the Rams with a four over 39. Emmitt Miller shot 42, Alex Johnson 44, Colin Pilcher 45 and Aiden Williams 49.

Mount Carmel’s junior Ahmad Raoul shot a three over 38 and lead the Caravan to victory.

“We decided to start a golf program because people at one of the very first open houses . . . talked about their desire to play golf in high school. I decided right then and there that DePaul Prep needed to start a golf program so families who wanted to play golf could do so at DePaul Prep,” DePaul Prep Athletic Director Patrick Mahoney told me.

“Combine that with a couple of parents who were great in helping us find courses and spreading the word to other families and the ball started rolling. And we could not have done it without Justin Lane who was a soccer coach. He really wanted to coach golf,” Mahoney continued.

School leadership got on board quickly.

“[DePaul College Prep] President Mary Dempsey, Principal Megan Stanton Anderson and Lisa Pilcher, Director of Finance and Operations, were extremely generous in talking through starting a golf program and allowing us to budget for it and get it off the ground.

DePaul Prep also has a woman’s golf team. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get out to any of their matches. I hope to get to one this week.

The men’s golf team has had mixed results in their inaugural season: wins against Fenwick and De La Salle, losses against Marmian, Loyola and now Mount Carmel, fifth out of six at Montini’s tournament and a postponed match against St. Laurence.

The inaugural Ram Invitational at Ridgemoor CC which teed off Saturday (Sept 26th) included Fenwick, Mount Carmel and St. Ignatius. I couldn’t make it out to Ridgemoor so I will have to fill you in later on that.

As for the photos . . .

This was my first-time shooting golf and it shows. Frankly, these photos are crap. The exposure is way off. The color looks funny. Jack Kennedy’s face is so washed out. Not my finest work; not even good. I worried more about composition than making properly exposed photos. If people were not waiting for these photos, I would not publish them.

I want to thank Sun-Times and Max Preps photographer Kirsten Stickney (Twitter: @KirstenStickney, Instragram: KirstenStickneyPhotography) for encouraging me to shoot golf. She gently nudged me out of my comfort zone. Clearly, these photos show just how much I have to learn about photography. When I start making good photos of golf, I will have Kirsten thank for making me a better photographer.

Golf is challenging to photograph. It is hard to get good photos of golfers wearing hats and always looking down. I would like to express my appreciation to Alex Johnson and Jack Kennedy for not wearing caps.

However, my main concern was the loud shutter on my Canon DSLRs. The loud shutter noise during a golfer’s swing is an unacceptable distraction. Consequently, I got a lot shots of the golfers putting.

The late afternoon sun casts shadows. Many of the teeing grounds were backlit to the sun which made for dark foregrounds and shadowed faces. I pushed the ISO higher than I would have liked for daytime.

Shutter speed was an adventure. As one might imagine golf clubs and golf balls are moving pretty fast. I could not set the shutter speed as high as I wanted.

I am certain to get out to shoot more golf matches in the future—hopefully the CCL and GCAC tournaments this week.

DePaul Prep Football Pre-Preview

“This season is going to be different for the DePaul Prep Rams.” That was how I was going to start this piece before the IHSA’s announcement Wednesday. Now, that opening sentence seems an unfunny understatement.

I originally planned this article as a preview of the historic upcoming season football. New stadium. New uniforms. New school building. Friday night games. But all our plans are constantly overtaken by events, so here we are.

On Wednesday, the IHSA announced that football is classified a “higher risk” sport and its season has been postponed until Spring. Practices can begin on February 15, 2021. The season will have seven games running from March 5, 2021, to April 16, 2021. There will only be time for two weeks of playoffs after that. So no big state tournament. The format has yet to be announced.

The IHSA issued a new plan for all interscholastic competition for this coming school year. All the details of the plan is a little beyond our purpose here but can be found at the IHSA website.

DePaul Prep head football coach Mike Passarella has been making preparations over the summer for the upcoming season as the guidelines evolved. Summer camp practices have been underway at Horner Park which are now basically over. No further practices are anticipated until September when the IHSA will allow a further 20 days no-contact practices.

“I am really happy the IHSA thought outside the box and didn’t just shut everything done,” said Passarella. “I have been preaching to the boys to do their part. Be smart and we will have football this year.” At the moment, it looks like that may still happen, just in the Spring.

Perhaps the biggest changes, other all this COVID business, are the new school campus and the new home football stadium. This writer feared that football might be on its way out as a high school sport at DePaul. Well, with the prominence of the football field and stadium in the center of the new campus, we don’t have to worry about that. Having such a beautiful new stadium clearly signals a commitment to football and surely will attract prospective students who want to play football.

The Rams will also have new helmets and uniforms. The helmets will be white. The familiar ram horns will be replaced by the new “D” logo in keeping with the rebranding by the school. The rebranding retired the Gordon Tech (Tennessee) orange in favor of a “Chicago flag” blue and red color scheme.

Last year’s team posted a record of three wins and six losses including a brutal six game Catholic League losing streak. Last season was the first for the newly combined East Suburban Catholic Conference and the Chicago Catholic League. The realignment into six divisions didn’t help the Rams improve their record.

This year’s schedule will only be conference games: Carmel, @Leo, St. Laurence, Marian Catholic, @Providence, @Joliet Catholic and St. Joseph. The schedule is tough. Even so, the future is bright. Thirty-four freshman have come out for football. The school’s overall enrollment is on track to basically double in coming years. A new stadium, a commitment to football and increased enrollment will bring improvement. Basketball came ramming back to prominence; football is not far behind.

In addition to the new school, new stadium, new practice rules and new uniforms, DePaul Prep Athletics’ website is getting a makeover. Moving away from 8to18.com, assistant athletic Director Sammy Colon has been spearheading development of the revamped athletics portion of the school website, https://www.depaulprep.org/athletics/home.

The new website will exist directly on the school’s website and boast an updated interface with photos and easy reference to schedules.  il.8to18.com/DePaulPrep is still up but presumably will not be kept current. It is still valuable resource for finding results from previous season for those looking for blogging about high school sports, which is always important.

With football moved to the spring, I guess that makes this basketball season . . . . . . . Nice!

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Protests Turn Violent--The Next Morning.

The Loop was open this morning but hard to get to.

The police made all the cars exit Lake Shore Drive at Fullerton. Stockton Drive was open down to North Ave. LaSalle Street was blocked at Division Street by large city trucks. Clark, Wells and Franklin were blocked by trucks too. Halsted was open. I made my way over to Kinzie but the bridge was blocked by snow plows. I had to walk over the Kinzie Bridge.

All the bridges were up except the LaSalle Street bridge. I crossed and made my way east on Wacker to State and Lake, the apparent center of the mayhem last evening. There we broken windows here and there. The was some serious looting and destruction at the 7/11 at Lake and Dearborn. The shelves were bulled down. The instant lottery ticket machine was pushed over and vandalized. The ATM was smashed apart and liberated of its contents.

There were very few policemen around at 0830 plenty of board-up guys and spectators doing their work.

I don’t know what to make of this time in our lives. A global pandemic has killed over a one-hundred thousand people. Businesses have mostly been shuttered for two and a half months. A policeman murders a black man on video. There is rioting in the streets. And Donald Trump is president. What the hell is going on?

Who Else is Wondering About Basketball?

It happens about this time every year. The March playoffs fade. I spend time with my wife after not being around much in February and March. I go about other things long neglected. But by the middle of May, basketball returns to my mind. I put the dates of the Riverside Brookfield tournament, and the Ridgewood tournaments in my calendar. I fiddle with my cameras, charge the batteries, empty the memory cards. I get ready . . . and wait.

It happened this year too. I started to get excited. I was itching to start my basketball routine. I was curious about what was going on. How things were going to be different? I called a few people. I outlined an article and I started filling it in.

But in case you haven’t noticed, we have a global pandemic health emergency that has cost 100,000 lives in the United States. CNN held my attention when basketball would have otherwise. My day job tasks soaked up hour after hour that ordinarily would have been addressed by others, or not at all.

Nevertheless, basketball is the jealous mistress that demands my affections. And she must be obeyed.

June is ordinarily the time when high school coaches are allowed time with their teams. They practice and play in tournaments.

“Not gonna be a June,” DePaul Prep head coach Tom Kleinschmidt told me. “Ordinarily, this time of year I get anxious for some basketball too. I talk to Heidcamp, Livatino, Clancy. We talk basketball and get back into it.” When I talked to Coach Kleinschmidt early that evening in May, he was sitting on his couch watching television. I suspect any other year he would have been doing something else at that time of day.

The June “live period” for high school basketball is not going to happen. Chicago Sun-Times’ Michael O’Brien reported on May 19th that the National High School Sports Federation has come with a plan to phase back into high school sports. Here is a link to his piece. However, the IHSA has not yet published any plan or any guidelines to open high school sports as of the date of this writing.

“The NCAA and IHSA have suspended June live period dates as of now. So there have been no formal announcements made on June or July . . .. In addition to this, the NABC and NCAA met to consider postponing July live periods for AAU this week, but have not made a final determination,” DePaul Prep sophomore coach Sean Connor told me.

“I have been told there is potential for the NCAA to add live periods in the fall (August, September, October) for AAU teams to play, but this is just in discussion right now,” said Connor.

So June is a no-go. No R-B tournament. Coach Mroz at Ridgewood told me his tournaments will not proceed.

July is when the players are engaged in the bulk of the AAU tournaments. Tom Kleinschmidt did not think that college coaches would be attending these basketball tournaments so there wasn’t much reason to do them. However, I haven’t gotten any word yet on when any decision about the AAU tournaments will be made.

There is some hope that a “live period” may happen around the time of the girls live period in September. We could see some tournaments or one-day shootout style events for boys basketball in September. But that is largely going to depend on how high schools operate in the fall. There is likely to be some combination of in-school days and e-learning days. How sports fits into that is anybody’s guess.

When asked what’s going on in the Chicago Catholic League, Coach Kleinschmidt and DePaul Prep Athletic Director Patrick Mahoney, (son of the legendary St. Viator High School Dean of Men Patrick Mahoney), both told me there will be some changes in the Blue and White Divisions in CCL basketball. Some teams will be moving up and others moving down. More on that later.

Pat Mahoney said all is on schedule to open the DePaul Prep football season at the new DePaul Campus opposite Lane Tech. The new state-of-the-art football stadium will be ready. Exactly what the football season will look like is also yet to be determined but those decisions are months away.

I guess we will have to just wait and see what happens. In the meantime, still more of the same. Waiting.

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Outside Wrigley Field

I found myself driving by Wrigley Field so I stopped and took a few photos.

Stay at Home Order Protest at Thompson Center

On my way to drop off Dan downtown, I noticed police and media gathering in anticipation of a protest at the Thompson Center. I wasn’t covering the protest for any publication but it has been over a month since I photographed any people so I could not resist. I just wanted to shoot something. I went to the office, put on an N-95 mask, gloves and a hat. Then walked up there. I love a good protest. Some many different people to photograph.

This protest was pretty tame. Not a whole lot of action. But lots of honking horns. If never hear another horn honking it will be too soon.

I got some good shots. I learned a lot about how to shoot in the harsh midday sun. The good part is that was plenty of light. My Canon 7D works great in lots of light. Just as sharp as the 5D Mark IV. One also has a lot more options in Lightroom when there is plenty of light.

I got a very interesting shot of a couple at the southwest corner of Clark and Randolph. They were lite with direct sunlight from behind them on Clark Street and from in front of them by reflection off the Thompson Center windows. The high f-stop meant everything was in focus and there is very little depth perspective. I am fascinated by this one.

I hope you like the photos.

DePaul Prep v. Mather Senior Night

The end of this year’s basketball season was loaded with games for me and I simply did not not have the time to immediately process and post all the games I shot. I posted some photos and scores on Twitter during the DePaul Prep v. Mather game but could not give every game full treatment. I always try to shoot senior nights but I lost track of this one until now. Under the circumstances, I think it works about okay. Hopefully, you will have a little more of high school that is ending so unfortunately.

The exercise of processing the photos many weeks after taking them has proved instructive. This year I decided not to obsess on ISO and use as “auto-ISO” more than I every have. I did that that because it didn’t seem to effect the photos when posting on Twitter and Instagram.

But now, looking at these photos on a big monitor two months later, high ISO is soooooo grainy. We just gotta get better light in these gyms. I want to be shooting at no more than 1600 ISO. So you athletic directors out there better start budgeting for new and better lights in your gyms. Take a queue from the area arenas. Winstrust has great light. Allstate—very nice. Just saying.

As for these particular photos, l love the ones of the DePaul Prep coaches—some of my favorites of this season. I would post that photo in my website portfolio but it just seems too grainy. I guess I should try it out before deciding.

Congratulations to the DePaul Prep seniors. I have enjoyed watching and photographing Lance Mosley and DJ Shower over these past four years. Outstanding young men and basketball players. Hopefully this global pandemic won’t impact your college experiences too much.

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Oh, ya. And the Rams won 63-25.