by Mitch Albom | Sep 10, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
Here’s the scene: The door opens and a recruiter walks in. He sits down with the high school basketball star. Says he wants the kid to play for his team. Says the kid might only have to stay a year or two before he’s ready for the NBA. And don’t worry about attending math class, it won’t be necessary.
Then the recruiter reaches into his bag and takes out … a checkbook.
At this point, you’re thinking the NCAA bursts down the door with its surveillance camera and yells, “FREEZE!”
by Mitch Albom | Sep 9, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” — Henry AdamsThe next Tuesday, I arrived with the normal bags of food — pasta with corn, potato salad, apple cobbler — and something else: a Sony tape...
by Mitch Albom | Sep 8, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
They say bad news is best delivered through poetry. Actually, I just made that up. But pretending it is true, allow me to wax poetic after the Lions’ depressing loss Sunday to the suddenly brown Tampa Bay Bucs.
Barry, oh, Barry, oh,
Wherefore art thou, Barry-o?
We are now two weeks into the Lions’ season, the season that was supposed to be the liberation of the Greatest-Halfback-Never-To-Have-A-Fullback, the season of the “organized” coaching staff, the season Sanders’ awesome talent would be unleashed in its rightful power.
by Mitch Albom | Sep 8, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
In March of 1995, a limousine carrying Ted Koppel, the host of ABC-TV’s
“Nightline,” pulled up to the snow-covered curb outside Morrie’s house in West Newton, Massachusetts.
Morrie was in a wheelchair full-time now, getting used to helpers lifting him like a heavy sack from the chair to the bed and the bed to the chair. He had begun to cough while eating, and chewing was a chore. His legs were dead; he would never walk again.
by Mitch Albom | Sep 7, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest
Paul Simon
She came in with pomp, she left with circumstance.
At her wedding, cameras rolled, and thousands cheered outside Westminster Abbey. At her funeral, cameras rolled, and millions mourned outside Westminster Abbey.
There were tears from strangers at both events, just as there was sympathy from strangers at her crumbling love life and outrage from strangers at her death last week in a car wreck in Paris.
by Mitch Albom | Sep 7, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
In his latest book, “Tuesdays with Morrie,” published by Doubleday, Free Press columnist Mitch Albom writes about the final lessons from his college professor and mentor, Morrie Schwartz. The Free Press is running excerpts today through Thursday.
The last class of my old professor’s life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. The class met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast. The subject was The Meaning Of Life. It was taught from experience.
by Mitch Albom | Sep 1, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
The coach did not wear a clown-loud shirt, he did not smoke a clown-like cigar, and he did not make any clownish faces on the sidelines. But let’s be honest, the circus was still in town.Fumbles. Interceptions. Blown punts. Dropped passes. And that was in the...
by Mitch Albom | Aug 31, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
College is supposed to be a place that builds dreams, not a place that crushes them. You wouldn’t know it by Joe Roberson. The lanky, bespectacled athletic director is leaving his job in a month or two. Retiring. Going to Florida. This is not some...
by Mitch Albom | Aug 29, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
This is how you stop Barry Sanders. You cut off his lanes. Give him nowhere to go. Make him plow right into you and then try to hold on.I am talking about interviewing him.This explains why I was standing by myself outside the trainer’s area in the far back...
by Mitch Albom | Aug 24, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
I’m going to sing a song now and I’m not going to say the name, I’m just going to sing it. And if it doesn’t mean anything then you might not get the rest of this column. At least I’ve given you fair warning. Here it is:I don’t...