UIC Flames lose to Northwestern in women’s tennis match

By Fernando Shan
Medill Reports

The University of Illinois at Chicago women’s tennis team lost to 2018 Big Ten regular season Champion, No. 19 Northwestern, by 0-7 in a one-sided, two-hour matchup to start the dual season on Friday afternoon.

The UIC Flames kicked off their new dual season in Evanston with the absence of four seniors who had graduated. Still, the Flames were led by three elite transfer student-athletes, Lejla Colic, Karyna Bihel and Lucie Prochazkova, as their top three singles players.

Continue reading →

It’s never too early on a Saturday for soccer

By Alex Campbell
Medill Reports

Every Saturday morning, a few bars on Chicago’s North Side fill with soccer fans eager to come together and cheer on their favorite teams, even if they’re 4,000 miles away. This is a look at a day in the life of American fans of the English Premier League.

Photo at top: The Globe Pub in Lakeview (Alex Campbell/MEDILL)

Loyola Women’s Basketball defeats Evansville 61-56

By Emma Goodson
Medill Reports

The Ramblers of Loyola University Chicago broke a two-game losing streak Friday after besting conference opponent Evansville Purple Aces 61-56 at  the Joseph J. Gentile Arena in Chicago.

“All wins are good wins, and today we feel lucky to have escaped with one,” said Head Coach Kate Achter at a post-game press conference.

Junior guard Tiara Wallace and sophomore forward Alexis Meyer led the Ramblers’ scoring with 14 and 13 total points, respectively.

“It wasn’t the prettiest win, obviously, but a win’s a win,” Wallace said. Continue reading →

Wildcats’ championship aspirations set on high – team opens dual-match season with win against UIC

By Neel Madhavan
Medill Reports

The Northwestern University women’s tennis team cruised to a 7-0 win over the University of Illinois-Chicago to open the winter/spring dual-match season on Friday night at Combe Tennis Center in Evanston.

“I thought it was a good start,” head coach Claire Pollard said. “We have lots of things to work through. I thought our opposition were very crafty and unpredictable. Looking ahead to Sunday, we’re going to play a team that’s really crafty too, so I think it was good for us.”

Coming off a Big Ten regular season championship and a Round of 16 appearance in the NCAA tournament last season, the Wildcats again have lofty expectations for the season ahead.
Continue reading →

Loyola Ramblers edge out the Evansville Purple Aces 61-56

Greg Melo
Medill Reports

With the final score landing a little too close for comfort, the Loyola Ramblers defeated the Evansville Purple Aces 61-56 to capture their second win in Missouri Valley Conference play.

With 22 seconds remaining in the game, it looked like it might be all over. Loyola guard Ellie Rice had just sunk a pair of free throws that pushed the Ramblers to a 59-50 lead. But Evansville had no plans to give it up. 

Purple Aces guard Kerri Gasper converted a 3-point play with 19.8 seconds to go. Then, following a Ramblers turnover, she cut her team’s deficit in half to 59-56  with a 3-point shot and two seconds left. But the Ramblers were able to squash the late rally, as forward Abby O’Connor iced the game with a pair of free throws before time expired. Continue reading →

Obama rallies behind Illinois democrats

By Allyna Mota Melville
Medill Reports

Nearly two years out of office, former President Barack Obama still inspires hope.

Obama (D) stumped for Illinois Democrats up and down the ballot Sunday evening at the University of Illinois at Chicago, rallying votes for candidates trying to win the governorship and flip the U.S. House.

The entire stadium, packed with people working on campaigns or simply Obama fans in the state where he began his political career, hung on his every word.

The traditional “Yes, we can!” chant echoed through UIC Pavilion as Obama smiled, 10 years after his victorious presidential campaign.
“The victory didn’t belong to me,” he said. “It belonged to you.”

President Obama stumped for candidates up and down the Illinois ballot, including Lauren Underwood and Sean Casten, candidates looking to flip seats in districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Both young, dynamic candidates, they looked to ride the wave that Obama’s endorsement would hold for liberal voters.
Continue reading →

Permanently temporary: 400,000 immigrants, many in the U.S. for decades, could lose their protected status

By Becky Dernbach
Medill Reports

The sounds of chirping birds and fluttering wings punctuate the conversation at Adilio’s house. His daughters rescued the smooth white dove and the small green parakeet from the street, he says. Some of the children are grown now, and some are still in school. He always wanted them to grow up speaking both English and Spanish, to get an education, and to love their new country as their own. And he wanted them to all be together.

The family paloma, or dove, takes flight from Adilio’s daughter’s arm. (Becky Dernbach/MEDILL)

When Adilio (not his real name) left El Salvador the first time in 1993, a veteran of his country’s civil war, his wife was pregnant with their first daughter. As their family grew, Adilio was away for years at a time working construction in Chicago. After years of separation, he saved enough money to bring his family to join him in the U.S. But now, as President Donald Trump’s administration attempts to terminate Temporary Protected Status for immigrants, Adilio worries he will be forced to leave them again.

“That would take years off my life, to separate from my family,” Adilio said in Spanish, his voice breaking.

Continue reading →

MLK protector paves road for others to ‘accomplish more’

By Dwight A. Weingarten
Medill Reports

No one knew the building of Warren Avenue Congregational Church better than Rozell “Prexy” Nesbitt, whose first encounter with the church came as a 4-year-old in 1948 after his parents rolled him into the Sunday  school with a broken leg.

“In fact, the truth be told, I was the first black person in the building,” said Nesbitt, now 74, whose parents would join the church soon after Nesbitt’s inauspicious first visit.

Nearly two decades later,  the same church welcomed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1966 as the organization made the church its headquarters in their campaign to end slum housing. Continue reading →

Chicago’s undergraduate transgender students face disparate housing accommodations

By Katie Rice
Medill Reports

Jennifer, an upper-level student at DePaul University in Chicago, has lived on campus for her entire university career. She was fairly happy with housing on campus until a minor change in her academic record nearly forced her to move dorm rooms.

Jennifer, who is using a pseudonym to protect her identity, is a transgender woman. Though she’s been out to family and close friends for a couple years, she started medically transitioning four months ago. Recently, to mark another milestone in her transition, she decided to change her preferred gender in the university’s academic portal — used to access information such as tuition, classes and grades — to female. A few weeks later, she got an email from the housing department saying the university would have to move her to a room with a female roommate.

This email came while Jennifer was busy preparing for an end-of-semester project and exam crunch at DePaul, so she wouldn’t have had time to move even if she could have. Besides, moving to a room with a roommate who identified as female since birth presented other issues.
Continue reading →

Tour a timeline of the Hoosiers’ undefeated Big Ten soccer season – and NCAA Tournament loss

By Nick Hennion
Medill Reports

It wasn’t the ending the Hoosiers hoped for to finish the 2018 men’s soccer season.

The Hoosiers fell to Maryland 2-0 in the NCAA Tournament semifinals, failing to reach the third and final goal of an NCAA title.

The loss followed a very successful season overall. The team picked up both a Big Ten regular season and tournament title and was the first Big Ten team to go undefeated in Big Ten play since 2005.

The Hoosiers finished with a 20-3-1 and an 8-0-0 Big Ten regular season record.

The timeline below chronicles the entirety of the Hoosiers’ season through the NCAA tournament.

Photo at Top: Indiana players celebrate the school’s 13th Big Ten Tournament title after a 3-0 win against Michigan (Nick Hennion/MEDILL).