It’s her moment now

Photo credit: TheAtlantic.com As Hillary Clinton gets ready to accept her party’s nomination for the presidency tonight, I think back to the Spring of 1987 and a moment that opened my eyes to gender matters like nothing else ever has. Freshmen students at Northwestern–I don’t remember now whether it was only the Arts and Sciences

I spent the 80s in purple

Prince died today, at the age of 57. Coming on the heels of the deaths of David Bowie and Glenn Frey already this year, I didn’t think there would be any more meaningful musical deaths for some time. Apparently I was wrong in that belief. This one really left me stunned. The high school I attended

Win Win

It’s a beautiful fall day as I sit down to type out a few words on my smartphone. Blogging gives me a chance to spend a few minutes getting thoughts down, before the moment changes and the feelings are lost. and this is a moment that I want to preserve in some manner. The arrival

Four years and a lifetime ago

I remember it well, that New Year’s day in 2010, when Northwestern played the Auburn Tigers in the Outback Bowl. It was the first bowl game of the day, and I was ready for it with a mountain of alcohol. It was rare for me to start drinking before noon, but this was a big

A trip through the past

Every few months, an issue of the Northwestern Alumni magazine arrives in my mailbox. Some issues I scrutinize more than others, but I always try to look through it at least a little bit. I appreciate all of the effort that goes into putting it together, after all. Specifically, I check to see the notices

Purple Pride, win or lose

Image from Flickriver.com Last night I went to see my daughter in Romeo and Juliet. She’s an amazingly talented kid, and I marveled at her and the others in the cast. In just a few weeks, they’ve come together from all different places and brought this story to life. We give teenagers a bad rap

Purple Reign

In anticipation of this year’s Super Bowl in New Orleans, Rolling Stone put together a list of the Top Halftime shows from years gone by. The top show, at least in my opinion, was Prince’s turn at Super Bowl XLI in Miami. In case you’ve blocked it out over what happened to the Bears on

Doing it the right way

September brings the return of football season. Baseball had the sporting world to itself in July and August (with the exception of the Olympics and a few sports that not too many people care about), but those days are gone now. Yesterday was September 1, and football season began with college games. The NFL, which

Go Cats!

As a Northwestern alum, sports are not always a happy topic of conversation. Yes, the football team is a long way from the days of marshmallow fights in the stands. That, and tailgating, used to be the only thing to look forward to on a Saturday afternoon when I went to school there. But they

Welcome to college

I remember the day I left home for college very well. After 18 years of living in my parents’ house, and seeing very little of the world outside of Springfield, Illinois, I was finally able to make my break. I wasn’t going that far away, geographically speaking. In truth, I wasn’t even leaving the state

A memory of Sandberg (and Sundberg)

The first of my mini blue helmets goes to reader Chris, who indicated that he wanted to hear a story about Ryne Sandberg. He didn’t say that in so many words, actually. He just gave me Sandberg’s name, and I’m taking it from there. You might think that there’s not a lot that can be

Hattitude

I live in a part of Chicago that has a large Orthodox Jewish population. This means that every Saturday (or shabbos), there are Orthodox families walking to or from their religious services. And the most distinctive element of their dress, as far as the men are concerned, is the hat that they wear on their

The game that matters most

This post isn’t about baseball, but college football, instead (impressive depth I’m showing, isn’t it?) I wanted to get these thoughts out before the Northwestern-Illinois game coming up this Saturday, which will have offenses moving in both directions for the first time in an NU-Illini game since 2009. I’ll probably turn last year’s Wrigley Field

Hopefully he’ll sit today

At the start of this college football season, Northwestern put up billboards touting Dan Persa as a Heisman trophy candidate. The problem was that he was still rehabbing from an Achilles injury that ended his season–and Northwestern’s as well–against Iowa last year. I was literally hanging on every play listening to that game in the