MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- The uniforms will not do it. No one is impressed. The Michigan State Spartans may be defending national champions, but no opponent is going to fall over at the sight of them.The names will not do it. No one is impressed. Never mind that Charlie Bell, Andre Hutson and Jason Richardson were part of a title run last year. No opponent will quake in its boots, swallow air, go all goose-bumpy when they take the floor.
Ionce wrote a book about five young basketball players, all of whom were black. The book was purchased by Hollywood. They wanted to make a movie.I flew out for a meeting, and over shared bottles of Evian water, one of the female executives began gushing over the story, the way Hollywood executives often do."There's just one little thing," she said. "Do you think we could make one of the players white?"I was tempted to say, "Sure, just tell me which one, so I can warn his mother when the film comes out."But I resisted. Some ideas are too dumb to bother with.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- A few days from now, when the Pistons are packing for their summer vacations, this will be a night that will haunt them. Right now they have reasons, justifications, they have moments they can point to, cliches they can fall back on. And they have at least one more game to play.
From this tech columnist's mailbag . . .I'm a regular reader. I had to stop and drop a note. Wish I had the e-mail(s) you sent to me when the iPod first came out. You wrote a Freep column saying it was cool, but doubted if it would be a success due to the price. I sent an e-mail pointing out what I thought was wrong with your opinion, you shot back with "it won't fly." My, how times have changed!Brian Bukantis
By the end, even the Pistons looked tired of this series. It was like trying to put a swing set together with the wrong tools. At some point, you just plop down, exasperated, and say: "This is never gonna work."
NEW ORLEANS -- There's a problem brewing here in the Big Easy. Maybe I can help. Tom Brady? Drew Bledsoe? Come on over here, guys. Let me whisper two words in your ears:Tony Eason.Remember him? He was the quarterback for your team back in 1986 when the Patriots, on a previous Super Bowl trip, faced the mighty Chicago Bears.The Bears that year were favored against the Pats the way Donald Rumsfeld would be favored against Don Knotts. That didn't stop Eason. He felt sharp.He trotted out to start the game.And before you could say train wreck, he was done.
SYDNEY, Australia -- Let's get something straight, right from the start. Either you believe Olympic athletes use drugs, or you live on Mars.And if you believe Olympic athletes use drugs but American athletes don't -- then you also live on Mars.And if you believe American athletes use drugs, but when they're caught, they'll immediately fess up to it, then you really live on . . .Well, you get the point.
SALT LAKE CITY -- It is raining down in Birmingham, Ala., and the air is a balmy 69 degrees. Yolanda Cooper, a senior sprinter at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, excitedly picks up the phone. She spent the previous night with her teammates watching her track coach, Vonetta Flowers, become the first black gold medalist in the history of the Winter Olympics. Vonetta, the woman who clocks her lap times? Vonetta, who runs alongside her? That Vonetta? Won the Olympic bobsled?
The coach sits in a janitor's closet. Two mops rest in yellow buckets. A faucet and drain are in the corner. There are no windows. No desk. A telephone, tethered to the wall with a loose gray cord, sits on the floor."My office," Ben Kelso says with a chuckle.And you should see the gym.The gym is a tile floor, dirty white linoleum, with tape marking lanes from the 1950s, before Wilt Chamberlain forced them to be widened. There is one basket hanging loosely on a tin backboard. The whole "gym" is the size of a large classroom.
Millions of years from now, when all that is left of mankind are some dusty ruins and a tape of the Red Wings' 2004 playoffs, aliens will assume that the closing ritual of every NHL game was to have an opposing player skate toward the goalie, and casually -- some might even say matter-of-factly -- ram an elbow into his head.Which pretty much sums up Ville Nieminen's last few seconds Thursday night.
For the next few minutes, your name is John, OK? And you are a coach. And you have been losing. And you are walking off the court. And this is what you hear:"Hey, John! You suck!""Hey, John! I saw your wife last night and I --- her!""Hey, John! You can ---- my ---, you ---!"How do you like it? What are you thinking? Are you thinking, "I make a lot of money, so I don't hear any of this"? Or are you starting to seethe?"Hey, John! Your mother is a --- sack of ---!""Hey, John! You look like a --- load of ---!"
Twenty years ago last week, IBM gave birth to the home computer.It's been downhill ever since.Oh, sure, our speed is up. Our efficiency is up. We can talk to people in Thailand with just a few keystrokes. And any patient who has ever needed medical information will swear by computers and the Internet.But in so many ways, computers in our homes have changed us forever. The human price we have paid over 20 years?Let me count the ways.
