Jaquan Brisker was pushing to return from a concussion, his second in two seasons, at New Orleans Sunday but said the Chicago Bears and doctors involved wanted to err on the side of caution.

Now, after missing two games, the strong safety is set to start Thursday night against the Carolina Panthers at Soldier Field. It will provide a glimpse of the defense we haven’t seen much this season.

Brisker was injured on the two-point conversion at the end of the Bears’ 30-12 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 7. He initially passed concussion protocol and then was out of the building with an illness. When he felt better from the illness, concussion symptoms took over and the Bears placed him in protocol, which sidelined him for a second week.

He said the latest head injury wasn’t nearly as difficult as the one he endured late last season from a concussion in the Week 11 loss at Atlanta. It sidelined him the next two games and the bye week that followed before returning for the last four games.

“Last year, way worse,” Brisker said.

Brisker and free safety Eddie Jackson have been on the field together for what amounts to about 1 1/2 games this season — the opener against the Green Bay Packers and small portions of the Week 2 loss at Tampa Bay and the Week 6 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. That’s it.

Safeties coach Andre Curtis noted there is an energy level, a swagger that Brisker interjects. So having him back is a plus in more than one way.

“He has a unique skill set,” Curtis said. “He can do a lot of different things. He can pressure the quarterback, he fits runs good, he’s good in his quarters and his half and he’s got juice. Our team kind of feeds off of that.”

With the secondary rounding back into shape, the Bears have to hope they can change a problematic trend.

Entering Week 10, they are 32nd in the NFL in turnover differential (-9) and tied for 24th in takeaways (9). Panthers rookie quarterback Bryce Young is ranked 25th in interception percentage (2.8%), although two of the passers below him are the Bears’ Justin Fields (29th, 3.7%) and Tyson Bagent (34th, 5.5%).

Jackson is the kind of center fielder that gives coach Matt Eberflus more options in terms of disguising coverages and, at times, being more aggressive with how Brisker is deployed. Brisker is coming off a season-high 10 tackles (nine solos) against the Raiders. He has three pass breakups after having only two all last season.

Talking to scouts from around the league, they like the 6-foot-1, 200-pounder when he’s active in the box and not on the hashmark where he can be targeted in the passing game. At times, he has to be a little more aware of players in his area. One instance would be the 10-yard touchdown pass Jordan Addison caught just before halftime in the loss to the Vikings. Brisker needed to close that gap.

The addition of defensive end Montez Sweat should improve the pass rush, which will only help the back end too.

“My expectation has always been high,” Brisker said. “We’ve got the two of the best safeties in the league, if not the best safeties. So Montez, hopefully there are a lot of tips and overthrows, a lot of picks depending on the coverage.

“(Brisker and Jackson) have to be out there. We gotta be out there healthy. We gotta be out there playing. We get that opportunity this Thursday and hopefully we’re consistent throughout the year and we do what we do — and that’s fly around, be ballhawks, use us as Swiss Army knives. Get us involved and you’re gonna see what’s gonna happen.”

Being involved is something Brisker has touched on a few times. It sounds like he’s referring to Eberflus using him in a variety of ways, whether that’s occasionally as a blitzer, an extra defender in the box vs. the run and, of course, on the back end. The more the Bears rely on late rotation to disguise coverages, the more opportunities there are for Brisker to potentially catch the offense by surprise.

He had a strong start to training camp before a groin injury sidelined him for more than three weeks. There was the illness in Tampa, a minor hamstring tweak last month and now the concussion. With eight games remaining and now healthy, there’s plenty of time for Brisker to have his arrow pointing up.

“Just be involved in the defense,” he said when asked what his goals are for the remaining games. “Involved in some way and some how in the defense, just moving us around, lurking us, getting us in the quarterback’s face, sacks, being aggressive on the quarterback, on the receivers. Not too many deep balls over our heads. Put us in there and we’ll be good.”

Brisker said he’s not overly concerned about another concussion, noting he had never suffered one in high school or college.

“I know what I signed up for,” he said. “I’m a physical-type player. I’m always going to be physical. Nothing’s really going to change. I’ve just got to take care of my neck, make sure I strengthen it and try to avoid certain injuries.”

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Ava Ball has long been a talented player posting gaudy numbers for a strong program. But her junior year of volleyball at Nova Classical Academy marked significant growth for the outside hitter.

Because she was asked to do it all, all the time.

Graduating six seniors — including two all-state players and a libero who Knights coach Tom Dobbs believed also could have earned that distinction — from a year ago, much of the onus for this year’s squad fell on Ball’s shoulders.

“She’s the hub of the wheel. Everything revolves around her,” Dobbs said. “I think everyone knows that.”

Which can be a major burden for a player. But Ball answered the call every time. The end result was a wildly successful season by team and individual standards. Despite the massive roster turnover, Nova Classical Academy returned to the Class 2A, Section 4 final.

As for Ball? The South Dakota commit finished this season with a jaw-dropping and state-best 633 kills. That is why she is the 2023 East Metro volleyball player of the year.

“You grow so much in club (volleyball),” Ball said. “But in like the situation I was in this year, I think I grew a lot more than I have in past seasons, because I was so heavily relied on.”

If anyone is built to handle such responsibilities, it’s Ball. She grew up with three sisters who were heavily involved in the sport. Dobbs remembered seeing her walking around gyms when she was a little girl.

Ball noted how much she soaked in just watching her sisters — her biggest mentors — play. That information gathering laid a strong foundation for the high IQ player she has become.

That growth only continues.

“I think I’ve definitely grown a lot mentally. Through club, that was a lot of my focus,” Ball said. “So with that mental piece, my gameplay took off from there. Because when you have that mental piece down, the little things start to click.”

Dobbs recalled a two-game stretch this season in which Ball notched 73 kills. Twice this fall she threatened the state record for kills in a match, which Dobbs said is 48.

Ball is a high-level athlete. But anyone going up for that many attacks has to have a wide array of shots in her arsenal to keep a defense on its heels.

“We work a lot in practice on shot selection and choices, and knowing that an off-speed ball can score in the same ways that a thunderous attack to the 10-foot line can score,” Dobbs said. “And she’s smart that way. … You realize that you can’t just swing hard. You’ve got to be smart.”

Especially when you’re attacking from every spot on the court. Ball’s back-row attacks were an equally-large part of the Knights’ offense. She was a constant threat. Pair that with her ability to contribute defensively, and she truly is a well-rounded player.

“She checks all the boxes,” Dobbs said.

And she always is looking for more. Her intangibles are what Dobbs believes separates the junior from the pack.

“Her demeanor is very focused and driven. She has a very high ceiling. Her volleyball IQ is tremendous. She competes always, but she’s very calm, and she’s very, very humble. She’s demonstrative on the court, but it’s never directed at the other team. It’s always directed at her supporting cast, her teammates,” Dobbs said. “She’s a fierce competitor, and I feel like that’s maybe the biggest thing is that everything counts, everything matters, whether it’s getting to practice on time, helping the team mentally, leading by example physically on the court and off.”

That’s how you grow into the statistical juggernaut Ball has become. She’s right around 1,600 kills for her career. Ball laughed as she admitted she, too, is a little surprised sometimes by her production. Reaching 2,000 career kills is not only a possibility, but a likelihood next season.

“That would be such a special thing to accomplish,” Ball said. “So, hopefully I can get there.’”

Ball admitted she was nervous about the increased responsibilities heading into the season. But, by season’s end, she noted “this is a lot of fun.”

“Everyone stepped up to play their role,” she said.

And Ball was the rising tide that raised all boats.

“One of the things that makes her great, too, is her team. … It’s parents, it’s the school, it’s her club. We like to describe our team at Nova as everyone in the gym,” Dobbs said. “If you could see not only the support, but the respect. You look at some of the younger players, they look at her like kids look at professional athletes, really understanding that, ‘Wow, you’re in the presence of someone really spectacular here.’ And I think they really embrace that.”

Finalists

Mesaiya Bettis, junior outside hitter, Burnsville: Iowa State commit tallied 455 kills this fall for the Blaze.

Hadley Burger, senior outside hitter, East Ridge: Multi-faceted threat helped East Ridge remain in top five of state rankings for much of season.

Rayna Christianson, sophomore setter, Lakeville North: Athletic and good at seemingly everything, Christianson figures to have the Panthers in title contention for years to come.

Audrey Kocon, senior setter, Mounds View: Providence commit is a great setter who also sports a dangerous swing.

Paige Wagner, senior middle hitter, Lakeville South: Michigan Tech commit had 243 kills for the Cougars.

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A social media post led to a gun being found at a St. Paul high school Tuesday.

Harding Senior High School on the East Side received a tip Tuesday morning about a post that a student might have a gun, according to a letter sent to families from Principal Tony Chlebecek.

Police searched and found the gun. “No threats were made and no one was injured,” Chlebecek wrote. “As soon as a report of a weapon was made, administration and our on-site security staff quickly responded, followed our safety procedures, which included putting the school into a hold in place.”

He urged members of the “Harding community to say something if you see or hear any safety concerns.”

“If you have any weapons in your home, make sure they are safely stored and not accessible,” he wrote.

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So you want to try birdwatching, or as some of us call it, birding.

Something about our feathered friends has grabbed your attention. A great-horned owl, perhaps, hooting outside your window after dusk. Or an American robin slurping worms from your lawn. Maybe you spied a group of birdwatchers at the park across the street, hot on the trail of a rare warbler and, well, you want in on the action.

Could be you simply overheard the ongoing debate of birb, borb or floof. Translation: which bird is cute, which bird is round, which bird is fluffy? You will have opinions on this – I know I do.

Or maybe you’ve had a “spark bird,” a creature so magnificent, it sparked your interest in birding.

BirdNote, a popular radio show, provides wonderful two-minute stories on how birds capture our imaginations. When I was on the show, I told interviewer Mark Bramhill my spark bird was a Vermillion Flycatcher, a glorious ruby. It’s a shining jewel of plumage and attitude. This bird is a show-off. Within a few months of spotting my first one, I was hooked.

Soon, I was tweeting endless images of birds I’d seen. That’s how “BirdNote” found me. And that was my first lesson in the benefit of birding: Capturing our excitement about nature can help lure others into the same appreciation for birds and the discovery that they can inform your life, send you on adventures, involve you in mystery.

The thing about birding is anyone can do it. Old, young, disabled, experienced, inexperienced. And you can bird just about anywhere: a park, a city street, a forest, along a shore, deep within a nature preserve.

Tools of birding

Get yourself a copy of “The Sibley Guide to Birds: Second Edition,” which brims with wonderful drawings as well as quick reference guides for how to examine field marks and body types.

Lightweight birding “bins” — binoculars — make all the difference. The full wealth of bird colors can’t be seen without binoculars. And that bird perched 50 yards away in a tree? You won’t see every field mark, and might not be able to see if it has stripes on its tail. Bins range from a low-end $50 pair to get you in the game up to thousands of dollars.  I found my $450 Zeiss on “The Audubon Guide to Buying Binoculars.” That $50 pair is listed there too.

Let’s talk apps, too, because we’re in a birding revolution. Tech is rapidly approaching the ability to fully identify all birds within your listening range, and apps like Merlin Bird ID can help you identify birds you’re hearing and seeing. From what I’ve seen, it’s about 80 percent accurate. Your experience and common sense will help you know when any app is fooling you. That jackhammer a mile away? It’s not a Pileated Woodpecker no matter what your phone says.

Sign up for eBird or iNaturalist so you can log birds from trails and submit your checklists for approval by county moderators. Logging birds helps you keep track of your lists, your overall counts at hotspots (in your county, state, country) and life birds (bird species you’ve seen over time). You can also use your phone to record birdsong and upload your audio.

Keeping online bird lists also connects you to the greater birding collective. The data you provide helps ornithologists understand migration patterns and nesting habits and connects you to other birders.

A camera helps you capture the sights and provide proof, especially when you find a rarity. I use a Nikon P950 point-and-shoot that has a built-in super zoom. It literally has a “birding” setting. It isn’t perfect, but it’s light and it does the job. (I used to take pics through my binoculars with my iPhone, too.)

Birding adventures

You can stick to your backyard for your birdventures, if you’d like. Put out a dish of water or buy a bird bath, hang bird feeders, then peek out your windows and log all your feathered friends.

Or you can go all in, hike up mountain trails, walk boardwalks and grassland trails, hit nature preserves and state parks – with a friend or a whole group of fellow birders. Local birding groups — Audubon, MeetUps and more — organize outings, hold classes and offer field trips to local parks and preserves.

Most of my adventures are either solo or with one or two other birders. Recently, I joined Kai Mills, 23, a bird nest surveyor from Lafayette, to go birding at a nature preserve and a botanical garden along the central California coast. We were joined by Mike Bush, 70, a retired lecturer for horticulture and crop science who has been a director of botanical gardens in such places as Singapore, Bermuda and Oklahoma City. I met both of these experts while searching for birds.

At Sweet Springs Nature Preserve in Los Osos, I began telling Mills about a bird seen at the preserve, a real mystery. It was a half dark-eyed junco, half white-crowned sparrow – an intergeneric hybrid so rare there was no way to log it except as a generic sparrow species. Doing so loses this bird in eBird’s system. It becomes a nothing, an anomaly. Just as I mentioned the bird, Mills spotted it foraging at the base of a tree. Slightly larger than a junco, it shared field marks of both species. Even its song was a strange, junco-like trill that ended in “zeet zeet zeet.”

It felt like a victory to even find this bird — and that sense of discovery is half the appeal of birding.

Mills started birding when he was 12, back in Lafayette, where he’d visit a rare swamp sparrow every weekend. “I re-spotted it after it was originally found,” he said. “After that I was the first to find it every year for five winters.” He told me how he watched it join a sparrow flock, forage along reeds. “I knew its habits, where it would be at different times of the day.”

He said it was rewarding showing other birders that sparrow. He said it helped form his birding habits, and it’s why he stresses the importance of frequenting your local spaces.

“Find a local birding spot you really love,” he said when we discussed advice for new birders. “You can familiarize yourself with common birds and their songs that way. Do that before you start chasing other species.”

I took that advice to heart. I regularly visit a park near my home, and last year, found a golden-winged warbler, a bird so rare, it has been logged less than a hundred times in California. It’s only because I know that park so well, all its birds and birdsong, that I was able to be in position to spot this little bird foraging in a lemon tree.

Ask yourself: What might I discover?

Here’s the thing: birding can be consuming. You might aim for a Big Year – that’s what birders call a challenge to identify as many species as possible within a single calendar year and within a specific geographic area like a county, state, maybe even a five-mile radius from where you live – but it’s not really a game.

So make your birdventures count. Make them fun. Fill them with knowledge and wonder.

Resources

Audubon Society: Find Audubon guides to birding binoculars and other resources, including local chapters and some tongue-in-cheek explanations on the difference between borbs and floofs, at audubon.org.

eBird: Managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, eBird helps passionate birders and newbies alike find birding hotspots, track their finds and share their discoveries with fellow birders and the scientific community; ebird.org.

iNaturalist: This digital tool, a joint effort from the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society, lets you document not only Bay Area birds but flora and fauna of all kinds and share it with others; inaturalist.org.

Merlin Bird ID: This free app from the Cornell Lab helps you identify birds and bird songs, save birds to your life list and explore lists of birds near you; merlin.allaboutbirds.org.

BirdNote: These two-minute daily radio shows are broadcast on 250 NPR stations and via podcast. Listen at www.birdnote.org.

This story was originally published by Southern California News Group on July 28, 2022.