When the U.S. Olympic Committee announced last Saturday that Chicago would be the country’s candidate to host the Olympics in 2016, Gerald Turner, the city’s top high school hurdler, didn’t join in the cheering.
So until the weather warms up, most public school track teams hit the hallways. True, in the old days many great city runners–like Olympic champion Ralph Metcalfe–trained this way. But that was when no schools had indoor facilities. Now they’re common in suburban school districts.
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Turner is one such case. In grammar and middle school he played basketball. He didn’t start track until he was a sophomore. According to his coaches, his commitment is exemplary. “I’m really impressed with our kids,” says Roof. “When you think about what they go through, they’re amazing.”
Kris Roof thinks the city should link the Olympics to an outreach program that builds field houses all over the city and stocks them with supervisors who know what they’re doing. But at the moment the city has no plans to build any track and field facilities for the schools or general public. While the Olympic boosters raise millions to bring the games to Chicago, the next generation of public school track students will share Turner’s plight–running the hard hallways and ripping the hell out of their legs.
On April 10 the Community Development Commission, the board appointed by Daley to oversee TIFs, recommended that about $2.4 million in funds from the LaSalle Central TIF be turned over to the Ziegler financial services firm to cover 28 percent of the costs of moving its headquarters to the skyscraper at 200 S. Wacker. Currently headquartered in Milwaukee, Ziegler has a Chicago office at 1 S. Wacker. According to the city’s planning department, the TIF subsidy convinced Ziegler to move.
Mayor Daley’s made it clear that he thinks it’s good for Chicago’s self-esteem to have corporations headquartered here. In the last year the city’s forked over TIF funds to help pay for the corporate relocations of United Airlines, USG Corp., and Barry Callebaut, the parent company of Brach’s, which devastated the west side when it shuttered its factory in Austin.
