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SATURDAY JULY 31 | SUNDAY AUGUST 1 2021
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Award-winning chef Jonathon Sawyer returns to Illinois, savors North Shore life P14
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Saturday, Mostly sunny, high 85 Saturday night, Mostly clear, low 62 Sunday, Mostly sunny, high 78
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NO. 459 | A JWC MEDIA PUBLICATION
LIVE FROM CHICAGO, IT’S … SARAH SPAIN! TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
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LAKE FOREST NATIVE AND SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -LOVING ESPN REPORTER RELISHING OPPORTUNITIES TO SHOW HER SERIOUS AND FUN SIDES IN DECORATED BROADCASTING CAREER. BY BILL MCLEAN THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND
For the October 30, 2020, episode of ESPN’s Around the Horn sports roundtable show, regular panelist Sarah Spain—a 1998 Lake Forest High School graduate and an ESPN reporter since 2009—got dressed up as the Schitt’s Creek sitcom character Moira Rose. Spain nailed Rose’s accent, all while sharing her incisive opinions and competing against other journalists. “I’ve always loved fun costume parties,” says the 40-year-old reporter, who lives in Wicker Park with her husband of five years, real estate agent Brad Zibung. “And, when I was young, I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live, doing comedy. I have a background in improv, and if you want to be any good at that you have to be a good listener. Listening well comes in handy for me when I appear on ‘Around the Horn.’ “I’ll hear a comment and then play off that with something fun, like a movie quote.” Spain hasn’t won an Oscar. Yet. But she’s captured two Emmys, a Peabody Award, and a Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting for Runs in the Family, the written accompaniment to her 2019 E:60 piece about former Kansas City Chiefs running backs coach Deland McCullough and his search for his birth father. “The ceiling for women working in sports is higher than ever,” says Spain, who, in 2020, became a co-owner of the Chicago Red Stars, a team in the National Women’s Soccer League. “You’re seeing women as owners, as CEOs, as GMs, as color analysts, and as play-by-play announcers. But the basement? It’s about the same. There are people out there who still believe women don’t belong in sports industries. Women starting out
Sarah Spain on ESPN radio. PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED BY ESPN
continue the battle to be respected.” Spain was 20 years old and a Cornell University student-athlete, majoring in English, when the first issue of Forest & Bluff entered mailboxes. The stack of varsity letters she had earned at LFHS—in field hockey, basketball, and track and field—was slightly smaller
than Jack’s beanstalk. LFHS girls track and field coach Steve Clegg could see Spain excelling in track and field events that aren’t staged for high school athletes. Javelin, for example. So Clegg borContinued on PG 7