What Matters Most

The whole Tour de France doping scandal is certainly headline-worthy. And honestly, our attention would rather be on race favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso’s disqualifications. But it’s not. Much sadder news has come out of Evanston, Illinois and New York City. Northwestern head football coach Randy Walker died of an apparent heart attack on June 29. While I won’t profess to knowing much about the 52-year-old Walker’s back story, I did know that he kept the Wildcats growling when most never considered Northwestern a threat on Big 10 football fields, leading the ‘Cats to three straight bowls (including ‘05’s Sun Bowl) for the first time in school history. You’ll find information from much closer friends to Walker here, but no one needs to tell you to put Randy’s wife and two children in your thoughts.

Sadly, the story out of the Los Angeles Lakers camp isn’t much brighter. On June 28, forward Lamar Odom lost his six-month-old son, Jayden, in a crib suffocation in New York. Jayden, born December 15, was the third child to Lamar and his longtime girlfriend. Odom, 26, was reportedly in New York for the funeral of his aunt. Our condolences go out to the Odom Family.