And the winner is . . .
What happens when the “fill in the blank” line is left empty? On those super-rare occasions when no one has earned or deserves the honor?
Hard to understand, harder to fathom and grasp that this city would ever get to a point where no one rose above the calamity that has become our sports existence on all fronts to the point that an athlete can say, “Yeah, the team I play for sucks, and every other team in the city sucks, but look at what I did!”
An Andre Dawson in 1987. A Bobby Hull in 1968-69. A Frank Thomas in 1993 and ’94. A Michael Jordan every year before Phil Jackson took over. Walter Payton’s entire career before 1984. A Kevin Garnett the season he played for Farragut and still didn’t win the state championship.
A year when a Chicago athlete has one of them years.
This year, nothing. Not so much anyone, no one really at all. Mallory Swanson. Garrett Crochet. Nods given. Consideration accepted. But. Angel (Reese), Caleb (Williams), Connor (Bedard), Seiya (Suzuki), Taylor (Townsend), Boo (Buie). Above decent, just not to the level where they outplayed the ungreatness of the teams they happen to uniform for. (Even though Townsend did win her first Grand Slam in doubles at Wimbledon this year.)
Alyssa Naeher, especially the way she went out in the World Cup and international play before retiring from the USWNT, has to be respected even if not crown-worthy. Even Mount Carmel’s Jack Elliott and Loyola’s Ryan Fitzgerald (former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald’s son) have to be at the least thought of for the seasons they had in doubling up on 7A and 8A chips. But, no disrespect, you know it’s bad when, in a city whose metro-area population is just under 9 million with eight professional sports teams and six major D-I universities (if you include Loyola and NU), high school players have to be taken into strong consideration for that city’s Athlete of the Year.
What’s more, just to give the Red Stars some extra love with a 10-14-2 record and being the lone franchise to at least make the playoffs and for her comments in testifying before the Illinois General Assembly in support of the Equity Amendment in which she championed how “every dollar invested in female athletes is an investment in the leaders of tomorrow,” team president Karen Leetzow should be nominated as a Chief Administrative Officer of the Year candidate by default and adjacent association. And she didn’t throw, kick, field, catch, hit, dunk, shoot an eff’n thang.
Imagine an Academy Award ceremony in which no film rises to the level of being recognized for Best Picture. A year when no one records three minutes of music worthy of a Song of the Year acknowledgment at the Grammys. Or no author writes a book or story worthy of a Pulitzer. This is how bad it is for Chicago sports right now. The “fill in the blank” remains blank.
Please get that this is not at all about or an indictment of the athletes themselves. This not conforming to selecting someone just for the sake of selecting someone is a direct denunciation, for the most part across the entire landscape, of the teams that represent this city. Their pitifulness, the angst and stomach-damaging evocativeness that comes with defending the ones we ride and continue to die with.
And, for the most part, a reflection on how when it comes to sports, especially at the professional and NIL breeding level, Chicago has become the American city version of -Rachael Gunn. The laughingstock with no stock worth investing in.
First the Bears buy Arlington Park, now this.
So who’s going to be king or queen of the dips— sports town this city has become? Who’s gonna carry that weight? Individual or team sport, doesn’t matter. Who’s going to find a way to rise above all of the wreckage to single themselves out in a way that justifies acknowledging their performance despite the depths of organizational betrayal and city-spanning damnation? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Say less.
Yeah, there’s that. But also there’s this . . .
And the winner of the 2024 Chicago Athlete of the Year is: _________. Exactly.