​O huzzah!  On Sunday, the Northwestern women's field hockey team won the National Championship, beating #1-seeded Princeton 2-1.  

This was no fluke.  Northwestern was the defending NCAA champion, and has been to the NCAA finals five straight years!!!  And has now won three of those times.

The beloved Northwestern was losing 1-0 with only 10 minutes left in the 60-minute game.  They got the tying goal, and then won the championship about a minute into the second overtime period.

This is the game-winning goal.

It's actually been a tremendous year for Northwestern women's athletics.  Earlier in the year, they also won the NCAA championship in golf.  And finished second in lacrosse -- another sport they've been dominating lately.  (This is not hyperbole.  In the past 20 years, they've won the National Championship eight times!  Including five years in a row at one point.  And won most recently two years ago, in 2023.)

And not to leave NU men's athletics out, the football team won on Saturday, for the sixth victory of the year, which makes them eligible for a bowl game.

But this is about the Northwestern women's field hockey.  Winning the NCAA National Championship for the second year in a row.

Here are the championship game's highlights in 4-1/2 minutes.  If you don't want to watch the whole thing (and I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't...), then those who jump to the 3:50 mark will see the winning goal.  And celebration!

​To repeat -- o huzzah!

On Friday, the beloved Northwestern football team was in town to play USC.  Going to the L.A. Memorial Coliseum to see a USC game is always a lousy experience.  (Too many reasons to go into, but near the top is that their band plays the school's ponderous, pretentious Roman Marching Theme throughout the entire game, and Really Loudly which is pretty much their brand.  Volumen super qualitas.  Volume Over Quality.)

But that's not the point here.

What I learned after the fact is that I was there for history!  Northwestern was defeated 38-17, and it was the school's 716th football loss – the most ever by any team in college football history! 

Now, mind you, it is, of course, conceivable that they could have that record reversed as soon as this year if the team whose record they beat loses more games than NU the rest of the year.  But that improbable, since that other team is Indiana, which has 715 loses, is currently ranked the #2 best team in the country…

I should note that this record does not come as a total shock.  That's because Northwestern currently holds the FBS Division 1 record for "longest losing streak" of 34 consecutive loses, which occurred from 1979 to 1982.

And note, as well, that my dad -- who loved football, especially college football, and also taught in the Medical School at Northwestern -- has season tickets for Northwestern football for 51 years.  Including during this 34 games losing streak.  That's the definition of a true football fan.

Two of my favorite sports quotes from from the team's coach during that losing streak, Rick Venturi (who had played at Northwestern, and also in the pros).  The first quote is --- "The only difference between me and Custer is that Custer didn't have to look at game films on Monday."

And the other quote came after the game when Northwestern finally won.  They had had a solid lead during the game, and played very defensively at that point -- and little by little their opponents chipped away at the lead...and were driving for a game-winning touchdown when the clock ran out.  And so, Northwestern won, breaking the losing streak.  After the game, coach Venturi was asked if he thinks he used the right strategy at the end.  His reply was:  "You have to understand -- I never had a lead before."

In fairness, Northwestern football has been pretty respectable in more recent years.  They are 5-4 this season.  Their head coach was named Big Ten Coach of the Year two years ago.  And they even went to the Rose Bowl in 1996.  (And yes, I was there, with my Mom and Dad who flew out for it.)

But history is no small thing.  And happily, it's what the present has built upon.
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On the surface, this will seem an uncommon piece to post in the morning, seemingly just about entertainment, the kind of thing I usually post in the late afternoon.  And on the surface it is.  But that's not why I'm posting it now.

In the current Northwestern alumni magazine, they had a story about a recent production there of “Man of La Mancha” -- and included a link to a 15-minute “making of” video about it.
 
The video is extremely well-done, and much of it is very interesting (although it’s something one can jump through parts).  However, what’s most interesting -- and the reason I'm posting it in the morning, usually what's been my "political slot" -- is that they re-focused the framing story.  Normally, I don’t care much for doing that, but they came up with an extremely interesting concept. 

There's a reason for telling this, so bear with me.

If you haven't seen "Man of La Mancha" (or not seen it in years), the story of Don Quixote is told with a bookending tale around it.  The musical actually begins in a Spanish prison in 1597 when Miguel de Cervantes has been arrested an thrown into the infamous Seville prison (loosely inspired by real life, when Cervantes was a tax collector and had put the money he collected into a bank -- which went bankrupt, and the money was lost).  The other rough prisoners already in prison when this newcomer arrives charge him with being a fool and a dreamer, and begin to ransack his possessions.  And among all that is the manuscript of Don Quixote that Cervantes has been writing.  The prisoners go to burn this silly waste of time.  But Cervantes begs them not to and instead demands a trial, saying he can't be convicted as a fool without a chance to prove his innocence.  And his defense is putting on an amusement, which is the tale of Don Quixote.

What Northwestern did is change the setting of this "framing" story.  And instead of it taking place in the Seville prison of 1597, it occurs in a modern day ICE detention center on the U.S.-Mexican border, and all those prisoners are immigrants who have been arrested, awaiting deportation to countries unknown.

Whether this changed bookending works in full, I don’t know.  (It very well may.)  But I can tell from the video that it at least does work, and movingly, in part. 
 
(I will add as a side note that Trump has frozen $787 million in research funds from Northwestern.  And just a couple weeks ago, in order to hopefully take pressure off the university as a target, the school's president resigned.  None of that had anything to do with theater department adapting the framing story, that's just coincidence -- work on the show had begun months before any of that happened, and the focus of the changes is, instead, on the ICE arrests and deportations. But it adds perspective to what ended up on stage. Because the funding was frozen on April  8.  And the first performance of this production took place just two weeks later, on April 25.)

The whole video is interesting on how a college enterprise puts together a musical.  And all the more so because the Northwestern theater department is high-end and renowned.  It's not unreasonable to skim past some detailed parts, if the minutiae of theater is not your highest interest.  But the video is very well-produced.  However -- if you don’t want to watch the whole thing or even most of it, at the very least jump to the 13:00 mark for the last three minutes, where they show the final scene.  That's the point of this.  Trust me.

But so that you know what's going in the final scene --

After telling the story of Don Quixote -- where, in the end, this dreamer of a noble world who has chased a fantasy, dies, but not before those who thought him crazy are transformed by his life -- the story returns to the "present day" of the prison.  And the inmates (who had played the roles during the story) are themselves profoundly moved by the story about the efforts of one man trying to fight for justice and goodness against all reasonable odds.  They return the manuscript to Cervantes, as the prison guards arrive to take him and his manservant with their trunk of possessions to their trial -- and the prisoners serenade him off (with impressively soaring voices here) to his destiny, with a reprise, as you might imagine, of the show's most memorable song.

Starting at 13:00, watch the final scene to the very end of the video.  This is why I'm posting it here.  I hope some other schools and community theaters use this adaptation, at least for the time being.

​And so, at least in small numbers – so far – convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and guilty business fraud Trump has sent the National Guard to Chicago. They haven't been deployed into Chicago just yet, but are sitting and waiting.  Apparently, unlike in Washington, D.C., there isn't any critical gardening work needed for the National Guard with in Chicago.
 
Well, actually, to be accurate, Trump hasn't sent them to Chicago, but rather to the Great Lakes Naval Station. And actually (again), Great Lakes Naval Station is so far from Chicago that it’s actually closer to Kenosha, Wisconsin.  So, maybe the military can patrol there, during its down time waiting for the Chipocalypse (tm Trump), where it might be more needed.  After all, Kenosha, which is on the Wisconsin border, is where they had protests in 2020 after the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer – and Kyle Rittenhouse drove up there and shot two men to death and injured a third. And for that matter, just up the road is Milwaukee, whose murder rate is higher than Chicago’s.  So, the National Guard might indeed be more needed in southern Wisconsin.  Especially since Chicago’s crime, murder and robbery rates are all down, between 20-30%.
 
Great Lakes Naval Station -- between Lake Forest (where “Ordinary People” was filmed among the mansions) and Waukegan, the birthplace of Jack Benny -- also stands out to me because it’s one of the bases where my dad was stationed for WWII.  I remember him taking us back there as kids.  Great Lakes is only about 30 minutes from Kenosha.  But it’s around 50 minutes from Chicago.  Well… 50 minutes if there’s no traffic.  If the Edens and Eisenhower Expressways are backed up, you might need some K-rations to help pass the time.  And, of course, that’s only if you’re going to send the National Guard to the Loop, which would be a really stupid thing, unless your plan is to protect the Chicago Art Institute, Symphony Hall, Palmer House, Macy’s, and the Chagall and Picasso outdoor plaza sculptures.  Although, in fairness, it's possible that they'll go there with plans to bivouac at Navy Pier, which will be a much shorter commute -- although, unfortunately, if so, they'll be very disappointed to learn that it's been redesigned with shops, restaurants and even the Tony Award-winning Chicago Shakespeare Theatre (for "Best Regional Theater"), and Navy Pier is now a major tourist center.  However, being the military, maybe they can make a flanking maneuver and instead set up at the nearby Ritz-Carlton Hotel at Water Tower Place, if there are enough rooms.  After all, at least for now, they only need 150 if double occupancy.
 
Then again, you certainly aren’t going to send the National Guard to the North Side and Gold Coast on Lake Michigan, because with all the masks they’ll be wearing and arriving in unmarked cars, there’s a far better chance the upscale locals will think they’re being robbed and call the police on them.  And the West Side is where the solid white German, Czech and some Irish and Polish neighborhoods are, so the National Guard will definitely be avoiding going there, with no one they’d dare to arrest or deport, making it a waste of time.
 
That leaves pretty much nowhere els…well, okay, there is the South Side.  Though I hope they know that, in that case, the daily commute from Great Lakes National Station will be much longer every day.  Perhaps closer to an hour and a quarter each way.
 
Of course, they might prefer to send their convoy rumbling along Sheridan Road and Lake Shore Drive.  It will take much longer, but the drive is gorgeous.
 
The long commute aside, what I don’t understand most is that – at least at this point– only 300 National Guard have been deployed to “help protect” Chicago.  And this for a city with 2.7 million people.  At least in Los Angeles, they sent 4,000 troops in.  And that doesn’t count the few hundred Marines.  (And accomplished nothing positive.)  So, I’m really not sure what impact Trump expects from 300 soldiers in Chicago – unless the impact he’s going for is pure, visceral hatred.  And who knows, maybe they’ll send in more troops.  Unless, of course, they get diverted to Kenosha.
 
But it’s Great Lakes Naval Station that most leaps out to me.  That’s because it’s where one of my favorite stories about my father occurred.
 
I don’t recall if this took place before, during or after WWII.  But he was stationed there at the time.  He was a doctor, so he and my mother got transferred to various bases around the country – Minneapolis, and near Seattle in Bremerton are two others that I recall.  But it was when at Great Lakes Naval Station that my dad saw an ad in the newspaper for a free pen that an insurance company would send you, just for writing in.  No string attached.
 
It was a nice pen, my dad thought, so he wrote to the company for one.
 
A few days later, he received a phone call.  It was from an insurance salesman from the company, telling my dad that he’d got his order and would love to bring the pen over.  Now, my dad knew that the only reason the guy wanted to come over was to sell him insurance – which he did not want.  And so, the conversation went along these lines.
 
“No, that’s okay,” my dad said, “No visit is necessary.”
 
“It’s no problem,” the insurance man replied.  “I’m happy to come by.”
 
“That’s okay, I just want the pen.  You can send it here.”
 
“Well I’m going to be in the area anyway, so it will be convenient.”
 
“I understand.  But I just want the pen.”
 
The insurance salesman didn’t give up easily.  “I’ll be happy to bring it,” he again replied.  “Just tell me when would be best.”
 
“There really isn’t a good time.  I just wanted to get the pen.”
 
“Right.  But it’s easy for me to bring.  I’d love to.”
 
“No, that’s fine.  You can just send the pen,” my dad said yet again.  “That’s all I really want.”

“Well, I have it for you.  I’ll bring it over.”
 
It was at this point that my dad was sure the insurance man wasn’t going to give up.  And my dad really didn’t want a visit from him, trying to sell him insurance.  Which he did not at all want.  The only thing he wanted was that nice pen, no strings attached.  And that’s when he had an idea.  And what he said – you must understand – was 100% true.  It just was a massive exaggeration.  But – it was true.  And what my dad then replied was –
 
“Fine.  You can bring it over.  Although,” he carefully added, “I should warn you that I’m a doctor, and we’re doing medical experiments here.  And so, there’s a chance you could get tuberculosis.”
 
There was a pause.  And the insurance man said, “I’ll send you the pen.”
 
It was true.  They were doing experiments on TB at Great Lakes.  And one could get tuberculosis.  But, my dad noted, the chances were about 1-in-250,000.
 
A few days later, the pen came in the mail.  And, he said, it was a nice one.
 
That’s Great Lakes Naval Station.  About an hour from Chicago.  About 30 minutes from Kenosha, Wisconsin.  With, for now, 300 National Guard members, untrained in policing, are stationed to make the 2.7 million residents of Chicago even safer than its 20-30% drop in crime is 

And second, we'll go out with this.  It's Ryne Sandberg's Hall of Fame induction speech in 2005.  It'll give a good idea on who he was.  There have been many great Hall of Fame speeches -- this is considered one of the best.
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