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Like an increasing number of Public League schools, Roosevelt has its own football stadium. Unlike the others, though, the Rough Riders didn't have a team to play there. That's about to change.Roosevelt, which last played a football game in 2022, has hired Anthony Dotson as head coach and will be back on the field this fall.Dotson spent three years as head coach at Chicago Academy before serving as an assistant at Schurz last fall. He had an itch to run his own program again, and was struck by Roosevelt's potential when he'd drive past it on the way to work."They had a $6 million field," Dotson said. "It looks like a college stadium."But it was underutilized since opening in 2023. Roosevelt's soccer teams have played there, and nearby schools occasionally have rented the stadium to host JV football games. Now it's about to get busier. Dotson reached out to school administrators about rebooting the football program and they were receptive.He has about 20 players committed for what will be a JV season this fall, with a move to varsity competition after that. Dotson is being patient about the process."When you're bringing a team back, the biggest thing is not to run [the players] away," he said.One way Dotson hoped to keep the Rough Riders engaged is by sharing his own story of perseverance."In high school, I constantly got into fights," the Phillips alum told the Sun-Times in 2021. "I graduated with a 1.9 [grade-point average]."He played college football at Division II Livingstone (North Carolina) and Division III Rockford, earning a degree in sports management at Livingstone. Post-college life was tough initially, including two months in 2017 when Dotson was homeless and sleeping in his car. Roosevelt’s new football stadium.Provided But he was hired by Chicago Public Schools first as a security officer and then as a youth intervention specialist, helping to make sure kids' small problems didn't become big ones. Coaching is just an extension of that mission."I always talk about how football changed my life," Dotson said.He's hoping it can change some more lives at Roosevelt. For now, he's building the program infrastructure. There are new jerseys to buy and new equipment to secure, new coaches to hire.Derrell Gray, who played and coached for Dotson at Chicago Academy, will be an assistant. Ditto for Malcolm Radcliffe, who's also the head baseball coach at Schurz."I'm excited," Dotson said. "It's more positives than negatives. The one thing I've got to do is get these kids invested."Pierce picks LeathernecksBrother Rice linebacker Christian Pierce, the state's top uncommitted senior, is heading to Western Illinois.The 6-0, 210-pounder is No. 19 in the 247Sports composite rankings for Illinois' class of 2025.He's a three-star prospect who was the Crusaders' defensive MVP as a sophomore before missing most of his junior year with a torn ACL and returning last season.Junior updateIllinois has two top-100 players nationally and seven in the top 200 in the 247Sports composite rankings.Leading the way are uncommitted tight end Mack Sutter of Dunlap at No. 86 and Lincoln-Way East quarterback Jonas Williams at No. 88.Williams and Mount Carmel defensive lineman Braeden Jones, who's 149th nationally, are both committed to USC.The state's other top-200 players are Mount Zion tight end JC Anderson, No. 145; Mount Carmel offensive tackle Claude Mpouma, No. 159; Simeon defensive lineman McHale Blade, No. 185; and Morgan Park athlete Nasir Rankin, No. 194. All are uncommitted.

A second person has died after a traffic crash early Thursday near Midway Airport in Garfield Ridge on the Southwest Side. Rocio Sanchez, 31, and Edgar Santana, 28, both of the city's Southwest Side, were killed and four others were hurt in the early Thursday crash in the 5600 block of West 55th Street, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. The crash happened around 3:25 a.m. when a Ford Fusion going east in the 5600 block of West 55th Street made a U-turn and struck a Hyundai Palisade going west, Chicago police said. Santana, driver of the Fusion, a 28-year-old man, was taken to Stroger Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 4:18 a.m., the medical examiner's office said. Sanchez, who was also in the Fusion was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn where she was pronounced dead a few hours later, at 10:04 a.m., the medical examiner's office. The driver of the Palisade, a 29-year-old man, and a 17-year-old girl who was a passenger were also taken to Christ where they were in fair condition, officials said. A 20-year-old woman in the Palisade was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center where her condition wasn’t known, and another woman, 32, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in fair condition, authorities said. The major accidents investigations unit was looking into the crash.

Marrying John Lennon brought Yoko Ono a dizzying degree of reflected fame. But her life story is nervy, compelling and shockingly sad both with and without him.David Sheff’s new biography “Yoko” (Simon & Schuster, 368 pp., out now) depicts the avant-garde artist and activist from a surprising vantage point: He spent weeks talking with the couple for what would be the former Beatle’s final “Playboy” interview in 1980. After Lennon’s murder, Sheff developed a friendship with Ono, now 92, and received access to her family, collaborators and confidants.What emerges feels sympathetic yet honest and occasionally humorous. Among the book’s biggest revelations:Ono’s peace efforts stemmed from her own experiences as a Japanese American during World War IIOno’s wealthy but emotionally aloof parents sent her to a farming village with her younger siblings for safety amid the bombing of Tokyo, where the 12-year-old begged and bartered their belongings for rice. She suffered anemia, malnutrition and developed pleurisy. Anxious and lonely, Ono would count her breaths for fear she’d forget to breathe at all.Ever the optimist, her coping mechanisms were looking at the sky (a recurring theme in her art and music) and “imagining” her favorite foods − imagery familiar to fans of the song “Imagine.”“That was my sister’s first conceptual art piece,” her brother Kei recalls.Ono struggled with suicidal thoughts and met husband Tony Cox in a mental hospital after an overdose attemptStarting in her teens, Ono made multiple efforts to kill herself. Her first husband, pianist and composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, prevented her from jumping out of the window of their eleventh-story apartment. Eventually, after swallowing a handful of pills, she woke up in a mental hospital.Cox, an American admirer of her art, tracked Ono down while visiting Japan and advocated for her release, telling the hospital she was a famous artist in the U.S.They wed when she became pregnant with their daughter, Kyoko, in 1962. Becoming a mother relieved Ono of her desire to kill herself, she said.Later, after she left him to marry Lennon, Cox kidnapped Kyoko and disappeared into a cult, separating Ono from her child for decades.Often jeered by critics, Ono is a trained singer who studied German lieder and operaHer disappointed father, Eisuke, deemed her hands “too small” to be a great pianist. When she proposed studying music composition, he suggested she become an opera singer. For years, she took formal lessons while also experimenting with her signature screeching, howling and caterwauling.Her marriage to John Lennon suffered after he had sex with a woman at a party they attended The incident is a known one, but Sheff describes it in horrifying detail.In 1972, John and Yoko went to a party at activist Jerry Rubin’s home to watch election returns. Lennon, angry about Richard Nixon’s re-election and under the influence, began canoodling with a female guest and went off into the next room to engage in noisy intercourse. Photographer Bob Gruen hurriedly put on Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde” for distraction while Yoko sat quietly humiliated.The next year, Ono separated from Lennon, sending him away with her assistant May Pang for an 18-month period he would refer to as his “lost weekend.”John and Yoko reconciled at the end of 1974, and the late 1970s would turn out to be the happiest she’d been in her life. “She spoke about surrendering to love, and for her it really was a surrender − with John, her protective walls finally came down,” Sheff writes.After John Lennon’s murder, his son Sean would be smuggled out of the Dakota in a black bagFor weeks, Yoko and Sean attempted to grieve and sleep as thousands of singing fans kept vigil outside The Dakota, their apartment building in New York. Later, concerned about a delusional man in front of the apartment, Sean’s bodyguards would conceal the frightened child in a bag and carry him past the man’s parked van for the walk to school.But betrayals were happening inside their home, too. John’s personal possessions, including his diaries, were disappearing. His killer wrote Ono, asking her permission to write a memoir and donate the proceeds to charity. One of Ono’s drivers demanded millions and was charged with extortion.She tried to move on with positivity, but Ono didn’t always have it in her. When asked if she could forgive Lennon’s killer, as Pope John Paul II had his attempted assassin, she said simply, “I’m not the pope.”This article discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.Read more at usatoday.com.

From QR codes to outdoor dining, restaurants have changed since COVID-19 hit. We asked people to tell us how this has affected their dining experience. Here's what we heard, lightly edited for clarity:"I do not give my business to any restaurant that requires the use of QR codes!"— Kelly Lovemann"My wife and I used to eat out five to 10 times a week. Between the 30% to 40% increase and then restaurants adding service fees, we are down to two or three — and a lot more trips to McDonald's, hunting down deals on the app."— Dean R. Martin"Tipping expectations are out of hand. And paying the tip ahead of time for delivery is outdated. Drivers can handle cash now."— Christine Bock"I’ve become a better cook at home, and I use more electronic coupons before shopping."— Scott Chasen"I have a greatly heightened appreciation for restaurant workers, both front and back of house, and how they're examples of those who keep our world going with little recognition."— Dwain Thomas Related Some restaurants pivoted with COVID, and 5 years later dining out is not the same How would you describe springtime in Chicago to someone who’s never experienced it?We also asked readers to describe a Chicago spring. Here’s what you said, lightly edited for clarity:“You need an all-season wardrobe to go along with your all-season tires.”— Dawn Saboff Kennedy“March in Chicago might be 80° and sunny, or it might give you four feet of snow — sometimes both in the same week.”— Autum Kenney“Giddy happiness followed by gloom then happiness and joy followed by … questioning life’s choices.”— Odie Chavez

After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, Josué Pellot remembers waiting months to reach his relatives on the phone from his home in Portage Park.The Category 4 storm knocked out power, flattened houses and killed thousands of people.When he finally spoke with his aunt, Pellot says, she told him how the kids were outside playing because there was no television, riding their Heelys shoes up and down the hills. Neighbors were cooking and eating communal meals. Artist Josué Pellot outside his studio at Division Street Projects in Humboldt Park.Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times “As horrible as the storm was, there’s something really beautiful in that moment,” Pellot says. “When I hear what they’re doing, I’m just amazed.”That feeling gave rise to the text in his mural at the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center in Hermosa: “Este momento hermoso es nuestro,” which he painted in 2021 during the pandemic. The block capital letters rise three stories, white on a black background. Pellot says he has adopted the phrase as a kind of mantra for how he wants to live.In English, the phrase translates to “This beautiful moment is ours,” which Pellot also painted on West Belmont Avenue in an underpass near North Kedzie Avenue in Avondale. The text is white lowercase letters against a blue sky. Around the holidays, Pellot draws Christmas lights on the mural, stringing them from letter to letter. He covers them up with white paint in the new year.Someone has added a handful of Peanuts characters to the mural. Pellot doesn’t know who, but says he doesn’t mind. Artist Josué Pellot painted “This beautiful moment is ours,” the English translation of the mural he created in Hermosa, on an underpass in Avondale.Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times Pellot started as a graffiti and street artist, and his text murals remain part of his work."My first exposure to art was graffiti — text-based, direct and in the street. That never left me. It’s not just about what’s said — it’s about where and how it lands," Pellot says. A native of Puerto Rico, Pellot moved to Chicago with his family when he was 6. He got his bachelor's degree in fine arts from University of Illinois Chicago and his master's in art theory and practice from Northwestern University. He lives in Portage Park while his studio, Division St. Projects, is on Division Street in the heart of Humboldt Park. He recently moved in, and some of his work remains in boxes, waiting to be unpacked.“I came from the island to Humboldt,” Pellot says. “I’m in love with the nuance of the neighborhood.”Pellot's other murals include one on Armitage Avenue in Hermosa that reads: “Gentrification is around the corner.” It’s still there, but often gets tagged, he says.A Wicker Park mural that read ”Whiteness is the absence of color” in white text on a bright pink background was painted over after neighbors complained and asked for it to be removed, he says. The mural was intended to be a compilation — he painted the text, and another artist planned to contribute next. The piece never got to that point. Pellot says he was told complaints came in soon after the mural went up, but he never heard them directly."The statement's intention is to highlight the problematic idea that whiteness is often seen as a neutral or default state," Pellot says. "In color theory, white isn’t the absence of color — it’s the combination of all colors. That contradiction is the point. The work questions the idea of whiteness as a default or pure state, and how that assumption defines everything else as 'other.'"About the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center mural, the organization's executive director, Omar Torres-Kortright, says the message “was very powerful for many reasons,” not least because of the play on the word “hermoso” in the neighborhood Hermosa.“Josué is the pride and joy of the P.R. community here,” Torres-Kortright says. “To us, it’s a huge honor that he’s so dedicated to our community of artists and our youth programs.” Murals and Mosaics Newsletter Chicago’s murals and mosaics sidebar Chicago’s murals & mosaicsPart of a series on public art in the city and suburbs. Know of a mural or mosaic? Tell us where, and email a photo to murals@suntimes.com. We might do a story on it.