​There was a new No. 1 pick, that is: Roch Cholowsky. The Chicago White Sox earned the right to pick first for the first time in 49 years when they selected Harold Baines. The Sox secured the top overall selection in the 2026 Major League Baseball draft by winning the league’s lottery at their winter meetings. Before Cholowsky, Chicago’s most recent No. 1 overall selection in any sport was USC quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, taken by the Bears in the 2024 NFL draft. The Bears did hold the first pick in 2023 for the NFL draft, the first time in 77 years, but traded it to the Carolina Panthers. Here is a look back at the 12 athletes who were drafted at the very top by Chicago teams since 1940, and how their careers turned out.
Drafted: Dec. 10, 1940. Bears owner George Halas’s “astute handling of trades,” as the Tribune called it, left Chicago with three of the first ten picks in the 1940 draft, including the top spot. Halas selected Harmon, a Gary native regarded by many who covered college football—including the Tribune—as the best player that year. When the Tribune awarded him its Silver Football trophy in early 1941, Harmon said, “This moment is perhaps the happiest in my life.” Yet Harmon’s sights were elsewhere. Rather than sign with the Bears, he inked a $15,000 contract with Columbia Pictures to star in a film titled “Harmon of Michigan.” Harmon did play football in Chicago in 1941, but not for the Bears, appearing instead for the Chicago Tribune All-Star Charity Football Game before more than 98,000 fans at Soldier Field.
Drafted: Dec. 16, 1946. Unlike Harmon, Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) halfback “Blonde Bomber” Fenimore did sign with the Bears—though a trade possibility with the Buffalo Bisons of the All-America Football Conference had been weighed. Trade discussions were called off after Bisons team doctors flagged calcium spots on Fenimore’s injured knee. As he prepared to play in the College All-Star Game in August 1947, Fenimore told reporters, “I don’t wear a knee brace. I should, but it slows me down. Every bit of speed counts, you know.” He did not participate in the game due to the injury. Fenimore played 10 games for the Bears in the 1947 season but later wrote to Halas saying he would sit out the next season because of back and groin injuries from exercising on a horse apparatus at a gym. He stayed in Oklahoma and pursued a career as an insurance salesman.
Drafted: April 25, 2024. By the time Williams entered the stage in Detroit, his demeanor suggested a notable surge of energy. With an enthusiastic stride, he moved to the draft podium and delivered a performance that conveyed the thrill of the moment. “I didn’t know how I was going to…,” he began, leaving the rest of the audience to fill in the rest of his thoughts as the moment drew to a close.