Every year the NFL gets a jolt of excitement when free agency opens up and players get an opportunity to cash in for their years of hard work. It can be a heartbreaking time for some fanbases as they see some of their favorite players move on to new teams. It's something that may become even more difficult if they sign with a team you hate , like Richard Sherman who decided to sign with the San Francisco 49ers, or go on to reach their full potential under a new system, like Golden Tate with the Detroit Lions (poor Seattle!).
But for every player that breaks your heart as they walk out the door, I'd hope you can find someone new on your team to help give you some new reasons to be pumped for September. While I would love to say that it is, free agency is not a guaranteed way to improve your team. And if your team makes the wrong moves, it may be the quickest way to guarantee your team isn't improving for at least another year or more depending on the contract that was handed out.
Let's just hope that some of the bigger moves that were made in this past offseason are ones that end up benefitting your team. If not, instead of having a new player to love, you may just have a new reason to shut the TV off with frustration! But don't get too frustrated, as there is always the next offseason to help turn your team's fortunes around.Mashaun Alston’s office has a corkboard with pictures of some of the kids he has helped over the years. A basketball player in his uniform. A row of smiling teenagers. On one side of the room there is a framed quote that reads, ”All those who achieve great things are great dreamers.”
Alston, 41, is definitely dreaming. In one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago, he is dreaming of more graduations and birthday parties. Life for a group of kids on the edge.
”I can be overwhelmed, but then when I go home … I never say I’m not doing this , I always reflect and say, `Wow, this kid is going through this,’ and then the next day, I’m renewed,” Alston said.
Alston is a therapist in Choose to Change, a five-month program that aims to reduce youth violence through therapy and mentorship. And it very well might be gone by now if not for the effort of one unusual coalition.
The Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks. The titans of Chicago sports, united with a singular purpose.
—
Near the end of a violent 2016 in Chicago, Roseanna Ander went to a meeting. Ander, the executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, goes to a lot of meetings , but this one was different.
The room included White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf and his son, Michael, the president and chief operating officer of the Bulls. Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts and his sister, Laura, who also is part of the Cubs’ ownership group, were there. Same for Bears chairman George McCaskey and Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz.
”It was like a very Godfather-esque moment,” Ander said with a grin.
Concerned about a precipitous rise in violent crime – Chicago had 762 homicides in 2016, a 64 percent increase fr om 485 in the previous year – the city’s most prominent sports executives had an idea, and they were looking for help.
”They decided that this was a very unprecedented challenge facing the city and they wanted to do something unprecedented,” Ander said, ”and that was really to try to see if putting their resources together that they might be able to do something more significant than they could each do independently.”
It began with Jerry Reinsdorf, 82, who once lived in some of the South Side neighborhoods that have been racked by violence. He took the idea of a united effort to the rest of the owners, and they quickly signed on for what became the Chicago Sports Alliance.
Then came the tricky part.
”It became very clear that we really didn’t understand what was behind the homicides and the violence ,” Michael Reinsdorf said. ”We all had ideas and theories, but we really weren’t as educated as we should be.
”We decided instead of just jumping in there and making some type of investment, let’s get smarter.”
That led the group to Ander and the Crime Lab, which was created in 2008 following the shooting death of a graduate student at the University of Chicago to study crime and develop and evaluate crime-reduction programs. While the room grabbed Ander’s attention, her presentation struck a chord with the group.
”It’s just tough,” Michael Reinsdorf said. ”I have kids and we teach our kids that they can dream and they can do anything they want and they have such incredible opportunities. But the kids that we’re talking about trying to help in some of these communities, their dreams are totally different than the dreams of like my children.
”Their dreams are like, surviving. … Their expectations are I won’t live a long life.”
—
Alston had a group session in May wh ere only one of the six young men showed. It was a nice day in Chicago and graduation festivities were in full swing.
The 17-year-old who made it to the session was depressed about the death of his cousin in January. He wanted to retaliate sometimes, but he said the program was keeping him on the right track.
”He says, `Yeah, but this group,’ he says, `since I’ve been coming in February is helping me think,”’ Alston said.
A buoyed Alston kept going , sitting straight up in his chair in a common room down the hall from his office on the city’s South Side.
”You know just with the people he knows, the family he’s involved with, it’d be easy to go and retaliate,” he continued.
”I want you to think logical. If you go retaliate and you’re 17, there’s two things going to happen. You may get away with it for a little bit. But you’re going to end up dead because they’re going to retaliate, or you’re going to be in jail and you’re 17, I want you to get to my age.”
—
The Chicago Sports Alliance was unveiled in December. The teams announced a total of $1 million in one-time grants for Choose to Change, the Crime Lab and for training for embedded civilian analysts who work with the police department to develop strategies to reduce crime in the city’s most violent areas.
While the money provided a lift, the alliance itself might have made an even bigger statement.
”It’s not just the dollars, but I think it’s kind of who they are, their ability to have influence with such a huge range of the population,” Ander said. ”But I do think for me the most important thing was sending a message that this isn’t just somebody else’s problem to fix.”
The funding for Choose to Change had run out by the end of 2017, so the money from the alliance kept it alive for the first part of this year. Another group of teenagers w
But for every player that breaks your heart as they walk out the door, I'd hope you can find someone new on your team to help give you some new reasons to be pumped for September. While I would love to say that it is, free agency is not a guaranteed way to improve your team. And if your team makes the wrong moves, it may be the quickest way to guarantee your team isn't improving for at least another year or more depending on the contract that was handed out.
Let's just hope that some of the bigger moves that were made in this past offseason are ones that end up benefitting your team. If not, instead of having a new player to love, you may just have a new reason to shut the TV off with frustration! But don't get too frustrated, as there is always the next offseason to help turn your team's fortunes around.Mashaun Alston’s office has a corkboard with pictures of some of the kids he has helped over the years. A basketball player in his uniform. A row of smiling teenagers. On one side of the room there is a framed quote that reads, ”All those who achieve great things are great dreamers.”
Alston, 41, is definitely dreaming. In one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago, he is dreaming of more graduations and birthday parties. Life for a group of kids on the edge.
”I can be overwhelmed, but then when I go home … I never say I’m not doing this , I always reflect and say, `Wow, this kid is going through this,’ and then the next day, I’m renewed,” Alston said.
Alston is a therapist in Choose to Change, a five-month program that aims to reduce youth violence through therapy and mentorship. And it very well might be gone by now if not for the effort of one unusual coalition.
The Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks. The titans of Chicago sports, united with a singular purpose.
—
Near the end of a violent 2016 in Chicago, Roseanna Ander went to a meeting. Ander, the executive director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, goes to a lot of meetings , but this one was different.
The room included White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf and his son, Michael, the president and chief operating officer of the Bulls. Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts and his sister, Laura, who also is part of the Cubs’ ownership group, were there. Same for Bears chairman George McCaskey and Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz.
”It was like a very Godfather-esque moment,” Ander said with a grin.
Concerned about a precipitous rise in violent crime – Chicago had 762 homicides in 2016, a 64 percent increase fr om 485 in the previous year – the city’s most prominent sports executives had an idea, and they were looking for help.
”They decided that this was a very unprecedented challenge facing the city and they wanted to do something unprecedented,” Ander said, ”and that was really to try to see if putting their resources together that they might be able to do something more significant than they could each do independently.”
It began with Jerry Reinsdorf, 82, who once lived in some of the South Side neighborhoods that have been racked by violence. He took the idea of a united effort to the rest of the owners, and they quickly signed on for what became the Chicago Sports Alliance.
Then came the tricky part.
”It became very clear that we really didn’t understand what was behind the homicides and the violence ,” Michael Reinsdorf said. ”We all had ideas and theories, but we really weren’t as educated as we should be.
”We decided instead of just jumping in there and making some type of investment, let’s get smarter.”
That led the group to Ander and the Crime Lab, which was created in 2008 following the shooting death of a graduate student at the University of Chicago to study crime and develop and evaluate crime-reduction programs. While the room grabbed Ander’s attention, her presentation struck a chord with the group.
”It’s just tough,” Michael Reinsdorf said. ”I have kids and we teach our kids that they can dream and they can do anything they want and they have such incredible opportunities. But the kids that we’re talking about trying to help in some of these communities, their dreams are totally different than the dreams of like my children.
”Their dreams are like, surviving. … Their expectations are I won’t live a long life.”
—
Alston had a group session in May wh ere only one of the six young men showed. It was a nice day in Chicago and graduation festivities were in full swing.
The 17-year-old who made it to the session was depressed about the death of his cousin in January. He wanted to retaliate sometimes, but he said the program was keeping him on the right track.
”He says, `Yeah, but this group,’ he says, `since I’ve been coming in February is helping me think,”’ Alston said.
A buoyed Alston kept going , sitting straight up in his chair in a common room down the hall from his office on the city’s South Side.
”You know just with the people he knows, the family he’s involved with, it’d be easy to go and retaliate,” he continued.
”I want you to think logical. If you go retaliate and you’re 17, there’s two things going to happen. You may get away with it for a little bit. But you’re going to end up dead because they’re going to retaliate, or you’re going to be in jail and you’re 17, I want you to get to my age.”
—
The Chicago Sports Alliance was unveiled in December. The teams announced a total of $1 million in one-time grants for Choose to Change, the Crime Lab and for training for embedded civilian analysts who work with the police department to develop strategies to reduce crime in the city’s most violent areas.
While the money provided a lift, the alliance itself might have made an even bigger statement.
”It’s not just the dollars, but I think it’s kind of who they are, their ability to have influence with such a huge range of the population,” Ander said. ”But I do think for me the most important thing was sending a message that this isn’t just somebody else’s problem to fix.”
The funding for Choose to Change had run out by the end of 2017, so the money from the alliance kept it alive for the first part of this year. Another group of teenagers w