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Chicago Tribune
6 days ago
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Northern Kentucky-bound Devlin Biggs makes huge plays as Marist rolls past Mount Carmel. ‘Variety and versatility.'
Not only can Devlin Biggs be a menace to opponents, he can be pretty troublesome for his Marist teammates, too. The senior outside hitter takes practices as seriously as he does matches. He doesn't ease up on anyone, according to teammate Nathen Toth. 'He's a very physical player,' Toth said of Biggs. 'It's great to have him on our side. 'If you go up against him in practice, he'll make your forearms hurt a little bit.' Biggs, Toth and the rest of the defending state champion RedHawks have been putting a big hurt on all of their opponents during the postseason. That includes Tuesday's 25-9, 25-13 win over Mount Carmel in the De La Salle Sectional final in Chicago. It's the seventh sectional title for Marist, which is seeking its fifth state championship. The MIT-bound Toth tallied 10 kills, three aces and five dig for Marist (36-2). Biggs added seven kills, while Griffin McElroy chipped in with five kills and two blocks. Rorey Donnelly made eight digs and Jacob Finley totaled 15 assists against the Caravan (17-11). Biggs, for one, has been a bright spot all season long for the RedHawks. 'He was really excited to step into a bigger role this year,' Marist coach Jordan Vidovic said. 'All things considered, he's just another perfect example of the senior class, how they go about it every day during the season and how they try to get better even when things are going well. 'And he's added a lot. He has more than just a power game. He's added variety and versatility, and that's big for us.' Marist takes on Lake Park (28-11) at 1 p.m. Friday in the state quarterfinals at Hoffman Estates. The Lancers beat Hersey 23-25, 25-17, 25-13 to win the Schaumburg Sectional. Biggs, a Northern Kentucky recruit, never imagined he would be a 6-foot-3 force for Marist, ranked second in the nation by the USA Today/American Volleyball Coaches Association. He was a 5-3 libero in seventh grade and wasn't really living up to his last name. But by the time he was a freshman, he grew to 6-1 and added two more inches after that. The progress is all recorded in pencil on a kitchen wall at his house. 'I had a massive growth spurt and after that, I started taking volleyball seriously,' Biggs said. 'I put in hours and hours of practice. I knew I was going to grow, but I didn't think I would be this tall.' While Biggs was getting some playing time here and there the last two seasons, he's really making his mark this spring as a senior. 'This is his first taste of being a high-impact option,' Vidovic said. 'He's really excited about the game aspect.' Biggs will have an interesting challenge ahead in college. Northern Kentucky will play its first season in 2026 under coach Jim Palilonis, who played on Marist's first team in 1992 and coached at St. Rita. Palilonis took an interest in Biggs early on. 'I've known him since seventh or eighth grade,' Briggs said of Palilonis. 'He coached at Purdue Fort Wayne and he recruited me for there. 'Then he ended up switching to Northern Kentucky and he recruited me there. It's brand-new team and he's bringing in five guys from Illinois.' That list includes Lincoln-Way West's Drew Kregul. No matter what happens this weekend, however, Briggs' high school career will be coming to an end. He said he will miss his teammates. 'The 10 seniors are 10 of my best friends,' Biggs said. 'Outside of volleyball, we're hanging out all of the time. They make practices so fun. 'This season is so sick. Playing with this team is so much fun, and we've been able to have fun and still be serious.'
The Independent
20-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Christian theme park owner with replica Noah's Ark preaching creationism 100 years after landmark trial
In the rolling hills of northern Kentucky, a colossal structure rises, a testament to one man's unwavering belief in the literal truth of the Bible: a full-scale replica of Noah's Ark. Ken Ham, the driving force behind the Ark Encounter theme park, frequently guides visitors through the enormous wooden vessel, emphasising its impressive dimensions – one and a half football fields long, "The biggest freestanding timber-frame structure in the world," he proudly proclaims. Inside, across three expansive decks, life-size animal models stand within wooden cages, alongside food storage urns and other exhibits. Ham explains that the meticulous design aims to demonstrate the feasibility of the biblical narrative, arguing that Noah could have constructed such a sophisticated ship and sustained thousands of animals during a months-long global flood that wiped out the rest of humanity. The Ark Encounter serves as a physical manifestation of Ham's broader mission: to promote the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. He contends that the Earth is a mere 6,000 years old and that humans were created by God on the sixth day, precisely as described in the biblical text. All this defies the overwhelming consensus of modern scientists — that the Earth developed over billions of years in 'deep time' and that humans and other living things evolved over millions of years from earlier species. But Ham wants to succeed where he believes William Jennings Bryan failed. Bryan, a populist politician and fundamentalist champion, helped the prosecution in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, which took place 100 years ago this July in Dayton, Tennessee. Bryan's side won in court — gaining the conviction of public schoolteacher John Scopes for violating state law against teaching human evolution. But Bryan was widely seen as suffering a humiliating defeat in public opinion, with his sputtering attempts to explain the Bible's spectacular miracles and enigmas. The expert witness' infamous missteps For Ham, Bryan's problem was not that he defended the Bible. It's that he didn't defend it well enough, interpreting parts of it metaphorically rather than literally. 'It showed people around the world that Christians don't really believe the Bible — they can't answer questions to defend the Christian faith,' Ham says. 'We want you to know that we've got answers,' Ham adds, speaking in the accent of his native Australia. Ham is the founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis, which opened the Ark Encounter in 2016. The Christian theme park includes a zoo, zip lines and other attractions surrounding the ark. Nearly a decade earlier, Answers in Genesis opened a Creation Museum in nearby Petersburg, Kentucky, where exhibits similarly argue for a literal interpretation of the biblical creation narrative. Visitors are greeted with a diorama depicting children and dinosaurs interacting peacefully in the Garden of Eden. The group also produces books, podcasts, videos and homeschooling curricula. 'The main message of both attractions is basically this: The history in the Bible is true," Ham says. 'That's why the message of the Gospel based on that history is true.' Creationist belief still common If Ham is the most prominent torchbearer for creationism today, he's hardly alone. Polls generally show that somewhere between 1 in 6 and 1 in 3 Americans hold beliefs consistent with young-Earth creationism, depending on how the question is asked. A 2024 Gallup poll found that 37 per cent of US adults agreed ' God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.' That percentage is down a little, but not dramatically, from its mid-40s level between the 1980s and 2012. Rates are higher among religious and politically conservative respondents. 'Scopes lost, but the public sense was that the fundamentalists lost' and were dwindling away, says William Vance Trollinger Jr., a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio. But the reach of Answers in Genesis demonstrates that 'a significant subset of Americans hold to young-Earth creationism,' says Trollinger, co-author with his wife, English professor Susan Trollinger, of the 2016 book 'Righting America at the Creation Museum.' Leading science organisations say it's crucial to teach evolution and old-Earth geology. Evolution is 'one of the most securely established of scientific facts,' says the National Academy of Sciences. The Geological Society of America similarly states: 'Evolution and the directly related concept of deep time are essential parts of science curricula.' The issue has been repeatedly legislated and litigated since the Scopes trial. Tennessee repealed its anti-evolution law in 1967. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that a similar Arkansas law was an unconstitutional promotion of religion, and in 1987 it overturned a Louisiana law requiring that creationism be taught alongside evolution. A 2005 federal court similarly forbade a Pennsylvania school district from presenting 'intelligent design,' a different approach to creationism that argues life is too complex to have evolved by chance. Science educators alarmed Some lawmakers have recently revived the issue. North Dakota's Senate this year defeated a bill that would have allowed public school teaching on intelligent design. A new West Virginia law vaguely allows teachers to answer student questions about 'scientific theories of how the universe and/or life came to exist.' The Scopes trial set a template for today's culture-war battles, with efforts to expand vouchers for attendees of private schools, including Christian ones teaching creationism, and to introduce Bible-infused lessons and Ten Commandments displays in public schools. Such efforts alarm science educators like Bill Nye, the television 'Science Guy,' whose 2014 debate with Ham was billed as 'Scopes II' and has generated millions of video views online. 'What you get out of religion, as I understand it, is this wonderful sense of community,' Nye says. 'Community is very much part of the human experience. But the Earth is not 4,000 years old. 'To teach that idea to children with any backing — be it religious or these remarkable ideas that humans are not related to, for example, chimpanzees or bonobos — is breathtaking. It's silly. And so we fight this fight.' Nye says evidence is overwhelming, ranging from fossil layers to the distribution of species. 'There are trees older than Mr. Ham thinks the world is,' he adds. Religious views on origins vary One weekday in March, visitors milled about the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, which draw an estimated 1.5 million visits per year (including duplicate visits). 'We are churchgoing, Bible-believing Christians,' says Louise van Niekerk of Ontario, Canada, who traveled with her family to the Creation Museum. She's concerned that her four children are faced with a public-school curriculum permeated with evolution. The Creation Museum, van Niekerk says, 'is encouraging a robust alternate worldview from what they're being taught,' she says. Many religious groups accommodate evolution, though. Gallup's survey found that of Americans who believe in evolution, more say it happened with God's guidance (34 per cent) than without it (24 per cent). Catholic popes have shown openness to evolution while insisting the human soul is a divine creation. Many liberal Protestants and even some evangelicals have accepted at least parts of evolutionary theory. But among many evangelicals, creationist belief is strong. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest evangelical body, has promoted creationist beliefs in its publications. The Assemblies of God asserts that Adam and Eve were historical people. Some evangelical schools, such as Bryan's namesake college in Tennessee, affirm creationist beliefs in their doctrinal statements. There's a larger issue here, critics say Just as Ham says the creation story is important to defend a larger truth about the Christian Gospel, critics say more is at stake than just the human origin story. The Trollingers wrote that the Answers in Genesis enterprise is an 'arsenal in the culture war.' They say it aligns with Christian nationalism, promoting conservative views in theology, family and gender roles, and casting doubt on other areas of scientific consensus, such as human-made climate change. Nye, too, says the message fits into a more general and ominous anti-science movement. 'Nobody is talking about climate change right now,' he laments. Exhibits promote a 'vengeful and violent' God, says Susan Trollinger, noting the cross on the ark's large door, which analogises that just as the wicked perished in the flood, those without Christ face eternal hellfire. And there are more parallels to 1925. Bryan had declaimed, 'How can teachers tell students that they came from monkeys and not expect them to act like monkeys?' The Creation Museum, which depicts violence, drugs and other social ills as resulting from belief in evolution, is 'Bryan's social message on steroids,' wrote Edward Larson in a 2020 afterword to 'Summer for the Gods,' a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Scopes trial. More attractions are planned The protests that initially greeted the museum and ark projects, from secularist groups who considered them embarrassments to Kentucky, have ebbed. When the state initially denied a tourism tax rebate for the Ark Encounter because of its religious nature, a federal court overturned that ruling. Representing Ham's group was a Louisiana lawyer named Mike Johnson — now speaker of the US House of Representatives. Despite those blips, Ham's massive ministry charges forward. Expansion is next, with AIG attractions planned for Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri — both tourist hubs offering more opportunities to promote creationism to the masses. Todd Bigelow, visiting the Ark Encounter from Mesa, Arizona, says the exhibit vividly evoked the safety that Noah and his family must have felt. It helped him appreciate 'the opportunities God gives us to live the life we have, and hopefully make good choices and repent when we need to,' he says. 'I think,' Bigelow adds, 'God and science can go hand in hand.'
Chicago Tribune
15-05-2025
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
After round of batting practice in the garage, Makenzie Johnson goes to work for Beecher. ‘Try to come up big.'
Junior center fielder Makenzie Johnson goes above and beyond to make herself the best softball player she can be for Beecher. She's even willing to work overtime. Junior teammate Taylor Norkus, who is also her next-door neighbor, will vouch for that. 'When I come home sometimes late at night, Makenzie is in her garage,' Norkus said. 'She is consistently out there working on her hitting.' On Wednesday, the Northern Kentucky recruit made that practice pay off for the Bobcats in a 12-0 nonconference victory in five innings over host Oak Forest. Johnson had an RBI triple and two singles for Beecher (29-2). Ava Olson went 3-for-4, while Elena Kvasnicka and Tayiah Scanlan added two hits apiece. Norkus struck out eight for the pitching win. Imani Hogan and Addison McClure each came through with a hit for Oak Forest (17-12). Melanie Andrysiak struck out seven. Johnson went late night with her hitting habit a few years back. 'Basically, my mom and dad surprised me for Christmas with a new bat, a bucket of balls and a new net for the garage,' Johnson said. 'We have a three-car garage, and it's set up where I can put up the net. 'I focus on contact extension and full swings. I work on my mechanics and break everything down.' Her power, patience and persistence show up all over the stat sheet. Johnson is hitting a team-leading .538 with nine doubles, four triples, five home runs and 28 RBIs. And patience? Johnson and Alexa Gliva are tied for the team lead with 12 walks. 'Honestly, I just try to go up there with a calm mindset,' Johnson said. 'I know I need to do a job for my team whether it's getting a walk, getting hit by a pitch — single, double, triple, home run. 'I'm here for my team. Whenever they do need me, I try to come up big and be successful.' Even if it's with her voice. 'It's great to have her around,' Norkus said. 'She is so, so, so supportive. Yeah, she's like a bundle of joy, and she has this burst of confidence that brings energy all around the dugout.' Beecher coach Kevin Hayhurst can use Johnson on defense as an outfielder or as a catcher. She's a force batting in the second slot behind leadoff hitter Ava Lorenzatti. They put their one-two punch to work right away against Oak Forest. Lorenzatti began the game with an infield hit before Johnson smashed a triple to the fence in right field. In the second inning, she reached on an infield single. After hitting a towering fly ball that was caught on the warning track, Johnson finished her day with a single to left field. That's being ready and keeping your foot on the gas. 'Mackenzie is very intense, really focused,' Hayhurst said. 'I don't know if I've ever had anybody as much focused before the game, preparing herself for the game, sitting on the bench watching the game. 'She is into every pitch. It doesn't surprise me that she'll be out there in her garage cleaning up a little flaw that she might have. That's Makenzie Johnson.' Johnson also played basketball at Beecher, but will be concentrating on softball during her senior year. And if she's good at pumping up her teammates, it's no wonder. 'Growing up, I was a competitive cheerleader,' Johnson said. 'It was about sixth grade when I had to choose whether I wanted to play travel softball or continue with cheerleading. 'I chose softball, and obviously, that has worked out well for me. I'm thankful for it and I'm thankful for all the opportunities that my parents have given me.'
USA Today
11-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Iowa basketball hosting Horizon League Player of the Year for transfer portal visit
Iowa basketball hosting Horizon League Player of the Year for transfer portal visit Iowa basketball is looking to continue fleshing out its initial roster under new head coach Ben McCollum. With roster spots still needing to be filled, Iowa is reportedly welcoming in former Robert Morris big man Alvaro Folgueiras for a visit. The 6-foot-9, 215 pound forward was named the Horizon League Player of the Year last season after averaging 14.1 points and 9.1 rebounds per game. According to The Field of 68's Jeff Goodman, Folgueiras will visit Iowa, Providence and Villanova. Folgueiras shot 54.8% from the field, 41.3% from 3-point range and 78.4% from the free throw line. A native of Málaga, Spain, Folgueiras played in and started all 35 games last season as he led the Colonials to the Horizon League regular season and tournament championships. Folgueiras notched a double-double against eventual Elite Eight squad Alabama in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The product of DME Academy tallied 14 double-doubles and scored 20-plus in four games last season. Folgueiras' career-highs in points and rebounds each came against Northern Kentucky. On Dec. 29, Folgueiras ripped down 19 rebounds. Then, on Feb. 8, Folgueiras scored 35 points on 12-of-14 shooting against Northern Kentucky. Folgueiras registered multiple makes from beyond the arc in 13 games with the Colonials last season. Here's a look at Folgueiras' highlights: Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes and opinions. Follow Josh on X: @JoshOnREF
Fox Sports
07-03-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Cleveland State tops Northern Kentucky 68-63 in Horizon League Tournament quarterfinals
Associated Press CLEVELAND (AP) — Dylan Arnett had 16 points in Cleveland State's 68-63 win over Northern Kentucky on Thursday night in the quarterfinals of the Horizon League Tournament. Arnett added 10 rebounds and four blocks for the Vikings (21-11). Tevin Smith shot 4 of 9 from the field and 8 for 8 from the line to add 16 points. Je'Shawn Stevenson finished 4 of 6 from the field to finish with nine points. Dan Gherezgher Jr. led the way for the Norse (17-16) with 18 points. Keeyan Itejere added 13 points and eight rebounds for Northern Kentucky. LJ Wells had 10 points, 10 rebounds and three steals. Stevenson put up nine points in the first half for Cleveland State, who led 33-27 at the break. Stevenson scored the last seven points for Cleveland State to finish off the five-point victory. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar. recommended
