Charley Rosen, Touch of Grey
In a strange way, sitting down and talking to basketball coach-writer-music fan Charley Rosen led to my experimental experience of covering the 1990-91 Bulls for the Chicago Sun-Times.
I’ve always been appreciative of the shadows in minor league sports. Real life lives there. When the Rockford Lighting debuted in the 1986-87 season of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) I was at the MetroCentre in downtown Rockford.
The late Bulls great Norm Van Lier was the team’s head coach. Future Chicago radio guy Dan Bernstein was working the market. Chicago prep star Cazzie Russell [...]
Jim Tuohy was taller than this. (D. Hoekstra pix.)
The fine Chicago writer Jim Tuohy was a curious guy. He cut his chops at the City News Bureau of Chicago, wrote for the Chicago Reader and Chicago Lawyer and co-authored 1989’s “Greylord: Justice, Chicago Style” with Rob Warden.
My encounters with Tuohy were almost always after 2 a.m. at the Old Town Ale House and sometimes earlier in the evening at O’Rourke’s and Riccardo’s. He was always interested in what stories I was working on. He radiated a sincere sense of wonder. He leaned into me like light through a shadow.
Tuohy died of kidney failure in January [...]
