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Lightfoot recruits professional athletes for PSA: Stay home Chicago
Star athletes wearing every Chicago jersey have joined the same team. Their game plan: convince Chicagoans to stay home.
CHICAGO - White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito is urging Chicagoans to stay at home during the coronavirus pandemic. He’s just one of many Chicago sports stars sharing that message for the city’s new effort to get people to comply with the stay-at-home order.
Star athletes wearing every Chicago jersey have joined the same team. Their game plan: convince Chicagoans to stay home.
“Hey Chicago, you noticed we aren’t playing and you shouldn’t be either,” said Blackhawks’ Jonathan Toews.
Toews and others shared messages from their homes as part of a new campaign called, “We are not Playing.” You’ll see it at bus stops, billboards and on social media.
Players from the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Fire, Sky and Red Stars are all using their influence, which Mayor Lori Lightfoot hopes will sway young people in particular.
“We know they have cache, we know they have reach and having them on board, I can’t be more grateful because I think it is going to have an enormous benefit and end up saving lives,” Lightfoot said.
The mayor announced the initiative in an empty Soldier Field. The main message is that no one should be playing when it comes to a pandemic this serious.
The mayor says we’re not at a point to consider when teams will play again, even though she says she knows this serious sports city is suffering economically and emotionally.
“This has had a profound effect of who we are as a people. We are a great sports town, we have tremendous sports fans not only here in Chicago but across the US and the world, because they are good and strong,” Lightfoot said.
The mayor says going to a stadium right could be dangerous and deadly, so staying home is the winning play.