Sports

As enthusiasm for the Chicago Cubs run to the World Series has roared across the country, so has the omnipresence of the Cubs theme song penned by the late Steve Goodman.   But there's an interesting back story to how that song became the teams OFFICIAL theme song.  

When the Chicago Cubs lost back to back games to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series earlier this week, even optimistic Cubs fans including Zach Bernard began to feel the jitters.

“I remember between the last pitch of game 3 and the first pitch of game 4 there was a general uneasiness going through the day talking to people about the Cubs.  You just didn’t know. There was a significant difference to tying the series in game 4 or being down 3 to 1 in game 5” said Bernard.

As longtime Chicago Cub fans wait for the inevitable shoe to drop on a dream season, Illinois State University graduate and former GLT announcer Zach Bernard is preaching optimism.  Bernard is a reporter and local host for NPR's All Things Considered at WBOI in Ft. Wayne, Indiana and writes and edits for the online baseball site robaseball.com. He said the Cubs had the better and more complete team coming into the National League Championship Series.

“It’s just a matter of beating their (Dodgers) best guys, which for game two, the Cubs couldn’t do” said Bernard.  “But the good news for the Cubs is that Clayton Kershaw can’t play every day.” 

Illinois State University head football coach Brock Spack is without some key veteran offensive performers that highlighted two co-Missouri Valley Football Conference championship seasons. But he's hopeful the overall version of Redbird football for 2016 can be just as competitive, if not more so.

Hall of Fame sportswriter and central Illinois native Dave Kindred knew Muhammad Ali about as well as any author or columnist. Kindred wrote the book Sound and Fury in 2006, detailing the complicated relationship between Ali and legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell.

During a Sound Ideas interview, Kindred said Ali always referred to him as 'Louisville' (a reference to Ali's hometown, where Kindred worked when the two first met 50 years ago).

Saturday, horse racing fans and casual observers alike will turn their attention to the first race of this year’s Triple Crown campaign. Last year’s Kentucky Derby winner is the subject of a new book. IPR's Brian O’Keefe spoke with Joe Drape, author of the book simply titled American Pharoah.

It's heating up outside.  But at the Pepsi Ice Center in Bloomington, everything's cool.

Former Bloomington High and Eastern Illinois football standout Adrian Arrington is among a growing number of players complaining about symptoms that may be concussion-related. In fact, Arrington initiated a still-pending class-action lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, alleging the governing body doesn't do enough to protect student-athletes.

  Athletes with disabilities take on area coaches in a fundraiser for LIFE Center for Independent Living.

The 8th Annual Wheelchair Basketball Game is Saturday, April 23 at 11 a.m. at Kingsley Junior High in Normal.  The event features a game between the U of I wheelchair basketball team and area athletic coaches and raises money for LIFE CIL in Bloomington and Pontiac.  Proceeds will also pay for two scholarships for the U of I Youth Wheelchair Sport Summer Camps.

One year ago today, an Illinois State University assistant basketball coach and an associate athletic director were among seven who died when a small Cessna crashed just north of the Central Illinois Regional Airport. Killed in the crash were Associate head men's basketball coach Torrey Ward and Deputy Director of Athletics Aaron Leetch, businessmen Andy Butler, Scott Bittner, and Terry Stralow, and pilot Tom Hileman.

A small central Illinois community might seem an unlikely place for a new professional sports team. But earlier this year, Pontiac, in Livingston County, welcomed a minor league basketball team to town. It’s a community that’s had a strong connection to basketball for decades.

For their inaugural season, as many as 800 people have turned out for the Pontiac 66ers’ home games.  The crowd was a little lighter for the Sunday March 6 contest vs. the Champaign Swarm – with about 300 fans.

Alex Wellman recently earned a silver medal in the intermediate men's level at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Paul, Minnesota.  As a member of the Central Illinois Figure Skating Club, Wellman began his career just a handful of years ago and is already achieving great success.

University of Illinois Interim Urbana Chancellor Barbara Wilson says the decision to fire athletic director Mike Thomas came after a law firm’s release of a final report into abuse allegations within the football and women’s basketball programs. But speaking in a morning news conference, Wilson says the dismissal is tied to ‘distractions' and not any misconduct or violations of policies or standards by the now-former Athletic Director.

  Homecoming is more than just bonfires and football games these days.  Laura Kennedy talks with Doris Groves from the ISU Alumni Center about what  Illinois State University's Homecoming has to offer the campus and the community.

The owners of Illinois' horse race tracks say the industry is struggling to survive, but key players diverge on how to salvage the industry. As Amanda Vinicky reports ... decisions by a state board Tuesday could determine tracks' fate.