by Mitch Albom | Nov 11, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
Friday night, at a high school football playoff game, it was damp and cold, and the players bounced on their toes to keep warm. Near the Rochester Adams bench, amidst all these bigger teenagers, stood Jordan Kidder, barely five feet tall, with glasses and braces, a school cap, a jersey, a varsity jacket and a job to do.
“Watch this for me, Jordan, OK?” a player said, running over.
“OK,” he said.
“Some water, Jordan,” another said.
“Here,” he said, handing over a bottle.
“How’s it going, Jordan?” another said, slapping his hand.
by Mitch Albom | Nov 5, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
And here came Shaun Rogers, the earth quaking beneath his feet. He had picked off a pass and was thundering downfield, 10 yards, 20 yards, 30 yards, the crowd roaring, laughing, screaming, because when a man that size puts on that kind of mileage, you can’t help...
by Mitch Albom | Nov 4, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
Last year, it was nothing more than a dusty storage area. Old pipes. Dirty walls. Dim lighting. Boxes piled high. It was the southeastern corner of a homeless shelter building operated by the Michigan Veterans Foundation.
Through these doors come 160 veterans a day, men who have served this country, worn the uniform, in some cases taken bullets or shrapnel, and who are now, for whatever reason, homeless.
“We could really use a kitchen,” the executive director, Tobi Geibig, told me back then.
“Where would you put it?” I asked.
by Mitch Albom | Nov 4, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
EAST LANSING -The pass was a cannon shot, a third-down wing and a prayer, it traveled at least 40 yards in the air, went high into the lights and came low out of the glare, it spiraled to a backpedaling Mario Manningham in the end zone who leapt up to meet it, hands held high. He caught the ball and, as the defender fell in front of him, gravity took Manningham down until he landed smack on the chests of every Michigan State fan around the country who thought, finally, this was the one they would win.
by Mitch Albom | Nov 1, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
I had been looking for just the right column to pen before Election Day. I think I may have found it.
It’s the story of Marilyn Mock.
You wouldn’t know her. She’s not running for president. She is 50 years old and has a rock yard business in Texas, which she runs with her three kids. Last weekend, she went to a foreclosure auction with her son to see him bid on a house.
While he was signing the papers, she wandered back to the auction area and sat down on the floor next to a woman named Tracy Orr. Being friendly, Mock asked if Orr was bidding on a house.
by Mitch Albom | Nov 1, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
He wears long pants, his socks are dark, his shoes have heels and he’s not even allowed on the court. He doesn’t shoot. He doesn’t dribble. He doesn’t rebound, post-up or block a single shot. He doesn’t even have a number. Yet Flip Saunders – of everyone in the Pistons’ organization – is the one on the hot seat?
Well, Sports Illustrated thinks so. ESPN thinks so. Stephen A. Smith, the NBA analyst, said Wednesday that if the Pistons didn’t make the NBA Finals this season, Saunders was gone, no doubt about it.
by Mitch Albom | Oct 28, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
Ten years ago, I sat with a literary agent and wondered whether a little book called “Tuesdays With Morrie” was going to hurt my sportswriting career.
“What do you mean hurt’?” he said.
“Well,” I said, “it’s about a dying professor and the meaning of life. What if I go into locker rooms now and athletes start making fun of me, calling me soft?”
He thought for a second then waved a dismissive hand.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “nobody’s gonna read it.”
Ten years ago. I was a sportswriter then. I am a sportswriter now.
But everything else has changed.
by Mitch Albom | Oct 28, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
When did adults start dressing for Halloween? Last thing I knew, Halloween was for kids and it was mostly about candy. Check that. It was all about candy. I honestly didn’t care if I went as a pirate, Scooby-Doo or a bedsheet, as long as my bag was filled with Milky Ways.
As for my parents? Their job was not to dress up. Their job was to go through our candy like airport security and remove all apples, marshmallows, anything that might have a razor blade in it or anything that might have been cooked by this weird woman up the street who never came out of her house.
by Mitch Albom | Oct 22, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
The game was about over, the Lions had won, and here came the ice water, over Rod Marinelli’s neck and shoulders.
“How many times,” someone asked him after the game, “have you had one of those buckets dumped on you?”
“This was the first one,” he said.
by Mitch Albom | Oct 21, 2007 | Detroit Free Press
This should make you angrier than you have been over almost anything since Sept. 11 – and that includes the war in Iraq.
A recent report showed that 75% of fake bombs or bomb parts got past Transportation Security Administration security at Los Angeles International Airport and 60% got past TSA screeners at Chicago’s O’Hare.
Those are two of the busiest airports in the world. Those are two of the juiciest targets a terrorist could desire.
