While we’re less than a month into 2026, Chicago has already exceeded its allotment of sports reunions.
Derrick Rose’s moving number retirement ceremony Saturday at the United Center was the latest in a series of reunions of former athletes and coaches, following celebrations for the 2016 Cubs, the Blackhawks’ Cup-winning teams of 2010, ’13 and ’15, and the return of former Hawks captain Jonathan Toews to the U.C. with the Winnipeg Jets.
Last summer we saw the reunion of the 2005 White Sox champions, revolving around the ceremony for the dedication of the Mark Buehrle statue, and of course the 40-year reunion of the 1985 Bears at Soldier Field last fall.
Reunions are us.
Some of them are the product of the calendar, and others are the byproduct of brainstorming from teams’ marketing departments and their never-ending quest to keep fans interested during rebuilding seasons.
But in the end, it’s all good. We like to reminisce about the good old days, to rewatch the highlight videos and to hear the stories of camaraderie, the bonding and even the in-fighting. Brothers will be brothers, no matter the sport.
It’s cathartic for Chicago fans, especially after such a dismal decade that only now seems to be turning around with the Cubs’ 2025 playoff run and the Bears’ miracle season that ended in the heartbreaking overtime loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the divisional playoff game at Soldier Field.
The rebuilding Bulls and Blackhawks are both hanging around the .500 mark with outside shots at the postseason, and the White Sox at least have a young core worth paying attention to in ’26. Perhaps the final four years of the ’20s will be the renaissance we’ve all been waiting for.
But until that happens we have the past, and so we honor it with long and loud ovations for Rose, for Toews, for Buehrle and for all the Cubs players who contributed to the end of the curse.
My favorite part of Rose’s long, loving and sometimes meandering speech was when he mentioned coach Tom Thibodeau and said a lot of Bulls fans didn’t like the coach, blaming him for Rose’s career-altering knee injury.
“But I’m here to say f−−− that,” the honoree said as the crowd cheered him on.
Rose then alluded to Thibodeau’s four years as an assistant coach at Harvard.
“Thibs, you may have went to Harvard, you may have been physics,” he said. “But I showed you physics.”
The normally stoic Thibs let out a laugh. It was a full-circle moment for a coach who was disrespected by the organization at the end of his run for being himself. When the Bulls fired Thibodeau in 2015 with two years and around $9 million left on his contract, Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf felt the need to put out a statement ripping his communication skills.
“While the head of each department of the organization must be free to make final decisions regarding his department, there must be free and open interdepartmental discussion and consideration of everyone’s ideas and opinions,” Reinsdorf wrote. “These internal discussions must not be considered an invasion of turf, and must remain private.
”Teams that consistently perform at the highest levels are able to come together and be unified across the organization — staff, players, coaches, management and ownership. When everyone is on the same page, trust develops and teams can grow and succeed together. Unfortunately, there has been a departure from this culture.”
It was simply corporate gobbledygook, and an unnecessary way to end the relationship. A simple “thanks for your contributions” would’ve sufficed. But Thibodeau was never interested in being Tony La Russa and kowtowing to Reinsdorf or the management team of Gar Forman and John Paxson. His players loved and respected him, and that’s what mattered most. You could see that love on the floor of the United Center on Saturday with Rose, Luol Dang, Taj Gibson and Joakim Noah. They didn’t win it all together, but they battled together and made Bulls fans proud.
Despite that unceremonious ending, Thibodeau returned because of Rose, and the warm reception he received from Bulls fans on Saturday must have been gratifying. It made me wish that the Cubs had involved David Ross more in their remembrances of the 2016 season at the team’s fan convention. The Cubs eschewed individual introductions during the opening ceremonies, bringing everyone from the 2016 club out together for reasons that made no sense.
Ross, a player on the 2016 roster who was fired as manager after the 2023 season — and “stabbed” by management, in the words of first baseman Anthony Rizzo — wasn’t part of the five-player panel discussion where fans asked questions about the World Series team. Maybe Ross didn’t want to be front and center after the way it all ended. But it would’ve been nice if he had been afforded the same gift as Thibodeau — an opportunity to hear the fans say thanks for what you brought to Chicago. Hopefully he’ll be back in July when the Cubs have another 10-year reunion ceremony at Wrigley Field.
Happy endings aren’t guaranteed in sports, which makes these reunions complicated. Players are traded or released. Managers and coaches are fired. It’s hard to forget the ending when you’re invited to return to celebrate the good times.
Theo Epstein left the Boston Red Sox for the Cubs in 2011 after his relationship with owner John Henry soured. In 2014 he went to a dinner reunion of the 2004 Red Sox team that broke the curse, but didn’t take part in the on-field ceremony the next day at Fenway Park. Epstein told me afterward he skipped the ceremony because it was really for the Red Sox players, manager and coaches, not for management.
“I kind of don’t spend any time thinking about those days,” he said. “I’ve kind of totally moved on, and then it was kind of like a great high school reunion, bringing it all back. I enjoyed it.”
Epstein is now back with Boston as a part-owner, so relationships have been patched up. And once again he attended the 2016 reunion dinner at Wrigley Field while skipping the opening ceremonies of the convention. At least he’s consistent.
Someday down the road, we might have a reunion of Caleb Williams and these Bears players who took the city on a wild ride from start to finish in 2025. Of course, a Super Bowl win would help, and the reunion might have to be in Gary, Ind., if the McCaskeys can’t squeeze the state to provide help for their Arlington Heights stadium.
Either way, we’ll remember the good old days, because that’s what we love to do best.