MITCH ALBOM: YESThe word contend means to challenge for something, and unlike years past, I don't think the Lions will be out of the running by Halloween. If they win the division, they make the playoffs, and with the way Chicago traditionally flip-flops, who knows whether they'll behave like defending Super Bowl participants? So the Lions can contend for their division, which is more than we have said in recent years. Hey. Baby steps. Baby steps.Will Kitna be Lions' first Pro Bowl QB since 1971? NoLions record8-8Lions MVPJon Kitna
In the end, Charles Rogers was a number. Nothing more. He wasn't a star. He certainly wasn't a role model. Heck, he was barely a memory, seeing how little he played.Rogers was a number. His draft number. The No. 2 selection in the 2003 draft. Had he been a fourth-round pick, no one would have expected anything after three subpar seasons. Had he been a fourth-round pick, no one would have argued to keep him after he violated the NFL's substance-abuse rules. Had he been a fourth-round pick, no one would have blinked when the Lions sent him packing this past weekend.
Next time you think you're having a bad day, consider this story.Mo Gerhardt is in a wheelchair. He considers himself lucky. Lucky, because with his particular lot in life - Duchenne's disease, a form of muscular dystrophy - doctors predicted he wouldn't live beyond his teens. Mo is 28. He lives every moment. He is upbeat and funny and a fighter. He insists on his own job and apartment and driving a specially equipped van. He is a sports nut. When he could walk, he played baseball like a demon. Later he took up hockey - wheelchair hockey.
The summer's over, the kids are back to school and the NFL's first snap is just a day away. Obviously, it's time for the Lions to hire their running backs.Hello, Rudi Johnson and Marcus Thomas.Good-bye, Tatum Bell and Aveion Cason.
Look, I was a kid once, and I still think like a kid, so the kid in me - and the adult in me - needs to say this right now:School starts in September.Not August. Not July.Certainly not July 22, which is when certain school districts in Georgia began "fall" classes this year. July 22? You're still getting your lemonade stand set up by July 22! You're not in SCHOOL on July 22!This is insane. I've been following this trend of pushing the school year back earlier and earlier, and it's time for the kid in all of us to say, and you can quote me here, "Yuck."
Can a season end the day it begins?It just did.The ant tripped the elephant. The skinny guy kicked sand in the bully's face, grabbed his girlfriend and stole his car. Some kids from Appalachian State came down from the Blue Ridge Mountains and delivered a sermon in Michigan Stadium, before 109,000 non-believers.Goliath falls.
It has been a few weeks since gas prices were the BIG story. This doesn't mean gas prices have plummeted. It just means, for the moment, our blood pressure isn't boiling over. Why not? You still can pay more than $3 a gallon anywhere you look. A year ago, the national average was $2.28. The year before that, it was $1.79. Two years before that it was $1.31.The profits for Big Oil still are embarrassing. The OPEC nations that get filthy rich from our spending - some of which might like to see us wiped out, if we weren't such good customers - still are raking in the money.
Because it's China.Because I can still see the opening ceremony in my head.Because the first people who greeted us gave a small bow, a symbol of respect that repeated itself every day.Because of Michael Phelps.Because of his mother.Because of stories that turn on one hundredth of a second.Because of NBA players jumping up and down at center court, as if they'd just won a high school title.Because of seeing Kobe and LeBron, unannounced, clapping for U.S. athletes at the pool.Because 20 Chinese will gather to give directions.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
