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‘Don’t need luck’: NIU mantra sparks Notre Dame upset that even New York Yankees manager noticed

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‘Don’t need luck’: NIU mantra sparks Notre Dame upset that even New York Yankees manager noticed


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  • After the Northern Illinois stunned Notre Dame, everyone wanted to congratulate Huskies coach Thomas Hammock – even NY Yankees manager Aaron Boone.
  • ‘Don’t need luck’ to beat Notre Dame. Northern Illinois Huskies embrace coach’s rally cry.
  • NIU coach has clairvoyant dream night before game against Notre Dame.

Thomas Hammock added a new phone contact Sunday.

The Northern Illinois coach received hundreds of text messages from well-wishers after his Huskies upset Notre Dame, 16-14, on Saturday.

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Several Mid-American Conference coaches pinged him with kind words after the biggest upset in conference history. Tucked amid the texts was a message from a number Hammock didn’t recognize.

It was New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone, chiming in to say congratulations. Hammock, from Jersey City, New Jersey, is a lifelong Yankees fan.

“For Aaron Boone to send that message, trust me, I was like, ‘OK, this is awesome,’” Hammock told me Monday.

Hammock figures Northern Illinois alumnus Rick Cerrone shared his number with Boone. Cerrone, Baseball Digest’s editor in chief, previously worked for the Yankees.

The Yankees are the best team in the American League. If they win the World Series, might Hammock return the favor and text Boone a congrats?

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“Hell yeah!” he exclaimed. “You know I saved that message. I saved that number. I hope that comes to fruition.”

I would say it will happen, with any luck, but Hammock and his Huskies proved last week they don’t need luck.

NIU Huskies embrace ‘don’t need luck’ mantra against Notre Dame

The Huskies erupted the first time Hammock used the line.

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“We don’t need luck,” he said in a team meeting. His rally cry played off their opponent, the lucky leprechauns.

Hammock’s four-word sentence became NIU’s driving force. No need to be superheroes. Just play your best, and trust your best will be good enough. No luck necessary.

“It struck a chord with the whole team,” senior linebacker Jaden Dolphin said. “As the week went on, we continued to harp on it: We don’t need luck.”

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Northern Illinois’ veterans knew they could beat Power Four opponents. The Huskies won at Boston College last season and at Georgia Tech in 2021. Hammock, a former running back, starred in the the team’s 2002 win at Wake Forest.

Those programs don’t enjoy Notre Dame’s pedigree, but Hammock believed his Huskies matched up well with an opponent ranked No. 7 in the US LBM coaches poll.

“To me, the game played out the way I thought it would play out,” Hammock said. “We stayed in the fight long enough to give ourselves a chance to win.”

The Huskies are an experienced team. Many of their top performers Saturday were in the program when NIU won the MAC in 2021.

That includes senior running back Antario Brown. He rushed for 99 yards against the Irish, added 126 more receiving and scored the team’s only touchdown.

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The transfer portal becomes a siren’s call for Group of Five stars, and Brown evaluated his options after his standout junior season. He met with Hammock last winter and said he wanted to enter the portal. Then, Brown called Hammock that night. He’d had a change of heart. He decided to stay.

Hammock counts Brown’s decision as a case of personal relationships outweighing a chance at a transactional relationship with a bigger program.

“He’s committed to NIU,” Hammock said. “He doesn’t always let people in his circle, but I’m in his circle, and I’ve been there from Day 1. I think he trusts me, and that means a lot.”

Notre Dame scored on its opening possession before the Huskies stiffened. They tied the game in the first quarter when Brown caught a slant pass from Ethan Hampton and took it for a score.

Kanon Woodill took care of the rest.

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NIU kicker on winning field goal: ‘It’s what we live for.’

Woodill had an idea while the second half unfolded that the game would be decided with a kick.

Northern Illinois intercepted Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard in the fourth quarter, while trailing by a single point. As NIU’s offense marched the field, Woodill put on the headset to discuss field positioning with special teams coordinator Adam Breske.

What yard line did the Huskies need to reach for Woodill to be comfortable trying a game-winning field goal?

Woodill told Breske the 30-yard line might be doable. The 25 would be better.

So, faced with fourth-and-2 from the 31, offensive coordinator Wesley Beschorner called a play-action bootleg pass. The Irish covered Hampton’s receivers, so he ran for the first-down marker.

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“I put my foot in the ground and got upfield,” said Hampton, a fifth-generation Northern Illinois student who grew up watching Huskies games.

Hampton needed 2 yards. He gained 3. First down.

“I knew in that moment that we had the game,” Hampton said.

NIU reached the 18 before sending out Woodill for a 35-yard attempt.

Woodill delivers in big moments. As a freshman in 2021, his 26-yard field goal with less than a minute remaining lifted the Huskies past Central Michigan. He scored a touchdown on a fake field goal in NIU’s bowl victory last season against Arkansas State.

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“When the game is on the line, that kid brings it,” Dolphin said.

And he brought it again. Woodill’s kick split the uprights.

“It’s what we live for,” Woodill said. “It’s such a privilege to have that responsibility and that pressure to go out and execute for the team. Yeah, it’s a little nerve-racking, but in the moment, you’re not necessarily focused on that.”

Notre Dame had just enough time left for a final chance of escape. Hail Mary, or desperately long field-goal try? Hammock could hardly believe the Irish attempted the 62-yarder.

“I’m on the sideline trying to count, how long is this field goal?” Hammock said. “Sixty-two yards?”

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Woodill normally feels uncomfortable pulling for a kicker to miss, but the stakes were too high to play nice this time. 

“I really never try to wish for a kicker to miss,” Woodill said, “but, I gotta tell the truth. I was hoping a little bit that the ball did not go through the uprights.”

The ball never made it to the uprights.

Cade Haberman recorded his second blocked field goal of the game.

Forget luck. NIU simply outplayed the Irish.

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The Huskies cued up Waka Flocka Flame’s “Grove St. Party” in the locker room. The song came out in 2010, and it’s served as the team’s victory music for many years.

Time to update the playlist? No way. Tradition is tradition.

“That win will go down in the record books,” Hampton said, “and we’ll be talking about it 20 years down the line when we’re old and fat.”

Northern Illinois upset of Notre Dame football a dream come true

Hammock dreamed of this moment. Literally.

Visions of NIU’s game against Notre Dame invaded Hammock’s sleep the night before game day. In Hammock’s dream, his team had a chance to beat the Irish on a last-minute field goal.

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Hammock woke up before the kick.

“I don’t know what happened,” Hammock said. “I wasn’t sure which way it ended.”

He found out the next day. Woodill made the field goal, and the Huskies made history that resonated all the way to New York.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

Subscribe to read all of his columns. Also, check out his podcast, SEC Football Unfilteredand newsletter, SEC Unfiltered.

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Illinois

Property-Tax Foreclosure Reform Gets Put Off By Illinois Legislators

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Property-Tax Foreclosure Reform Gets Put Off By Illinois Legislators


This story was produced by Injustice Watch, a nonprofit newsroom in Chicago that investigates issues of equity and justice in the Cook County court system. Sign up here to get their weekly newsletter.

In their end-of-session dash to pass a state budget, Illinois lawmakers put off consideration of proposed reforms to property tax sales and foreclosures.

That leaves Illinois the only remaining state where homeowners can face losing not just their homes but also all of the equity in them they’ve accumulated if their homes are foreclosed on for falling far behind on paying their property taxes.

Experts say it also means Illinois is out of step with a 2-year-old Supreme Court ruling that mandated that local governments give homeowners any money that’s left over after their homes are sold to pay off their tax debt and related fees and penalties.

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More than 1,000 owner-occupied homes in Cook County have been taken in tax foreclosures since 2019, mostly in majority-Black communities, an investigation by Injustice Watch and the Investigative Project on Race and Equity published in May by the Chicago Sun-Times found.

Those homes had a fair-market value totaling $108 million, according to county assessments. The homeowners lost them over tax debts that collectively amounted to just a fraction of that — $2.3 million.

All of that equity went into the pockets of private investors, known as tax buyers, who paid the delinquent taxes at a government auction, then took ownership of the properties when homeowners didn’t repay them in time. The taxes owed often were several times less than what investors made selling the homes. 

And hundreds more homeowners in Cook County are in the final stages of tax foreclosure and could end up losing all of their equity under the current system, court records show.

Legal experts and homeowner advocates say the system hits Black homeowners especially hard.

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For decades, efforts to win reforms in Springfield have failed. Supporters have hoped they’d have better luck this year thanks largely to the Supreme Court’s ruling and several lawsuits filed in its wake by former homeowners seeking their lost equity.

The proposals this year — pushed by lawmakers including state Sen. Celina Villanueva, D-Chicago, and state Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago — would have put homes in tax foreclosure up for sale at a public auction instead of immediately transferring ownership to tax buyers. And then any proceeds exceeding the taxes owed would go back to homeowners.

“I’m frustrated that we weren’t able to resolve this problem this legislative session, but we made a lot of headway,” Guzzardi said.

Legislators did send Gov. JB Pritzker a stopgap measure that would pause interest charges on delinquent taxes starting in September and allow Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas to postpone the tax sale this year.

More than 12,000 owner-occupied homes with delinquent property taxes had been set to go to auction this year, including nearly 3,000 homes owned by people 65 and older.

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Pappas said her office will push for legislators to pass reform legislation when they return for their fall veto session. 

Pappas wouldn’t would provide details about that legislation. 

Advocates have long called for lawmakers to give homeowners more time to pay their delinquent property taxes, to let them pay in installments and to cut out private investors from the process altogether.

The temporary measures passed last week were to “give the state more time to find consensus,” a spokesperson for state Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, said. 

Lawyers and lobbyists representing the biggest tax buyers didn’t respond to requests for comment.

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“It boggles the mind that the state legislature would just keep kicking the can down the road, and you have a crisis on your hands,” said Rita Jefferson, an analyst with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit that advocates for more equitable tax policies.

This article first appeared on Injustice Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.





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Illinois

Illinois offers four-star OL Reis Russell

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Illinois offers four-star OL Reis Russell


Illinois jumped into the mix for one of the most sought after interior offensive linemen in the class of 2027 with an offer to four-star Reis Russell from Highlands Ranch (CO) Valor Christian.

Russell goes in-depth on his new Big Ten offer and talks recruiting in this update from Orange and Blue News.



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Illinois

Homicide investigation underway after missing Illinois man found dead: police

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Homicide investigation underway after missing Illinois man found dead: police


Illinois State Police are investigating the death of a man as a homicide after his body was discovered days after he was reported missing.

What we know:

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Catrelle Reed was reported missing to the Kewanee Police Department on May 27, prompting an investigation with assistance from Illinois State Police Division of Criminal Investigation Zone 2 East Moline Major Crimes. 

Three days later, Reed was found dead on a property near the intersection of Highway 81 and East 2350th Street, just west of Kewanee.

An autopsy performed on Monday determined that Reed’s death was a homicide, authorities said.

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What you can do:

Anyone with information is urged to contact ISP Special Agent Walt Willis at 309-948-4818 or email tips to ISP.CRIMETIPS@illinois.gov.

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The Source: The information in this report came from Illinois State Police.

IllinoisCrime and Public SafetyNews



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