Today on The 21st: a conversation with Illinois Senate Majority Leader and Black Caucus Chair Kimberly Lightford, college students considering a "gap year," and a former Chicago Tribune sportswriter and central Illinois basketball player on the ESPN miniseries The Last Dance.

Increasingly, sports teams, especially in the NBA, are hiring "sleep coaches" to help players. This follows research that good sleep can be as beneficial as performance-enhancing drugs.

Bandwagon hits the ground... skating! The first episode of 2018 is a chatty affair, including an interview with speed skater/Olympic medalist/Champaign Centennial alum Katherine Reutter-Adamek.

Bandwagoneer John Steinbacher's off to Disney World, so Brian and Lisa welcome a special guest host to BNDWGN HQ. There's much to discuss: The new NBA season, what happened at the end of the WNBA's season, a national anthem update, a hardcore professional basketball rivalry, and unless we have collectively jumped dimensions, the Cubs are playing baseball at the end of October. For real.