Detroit Free Press

He never mentioned money. He never gushed about some new car he was going to buy, or some new mansion with a hundred rooms. He made no joke about how "the ladies in Detroit better watch out," as one top draft choice had done years before him. He didn't preen or mug. He wore no earring. He didn't boast, "There's a new sheriff in town!"You want to know the first thing Grant Hill did as a Piston? He listened to a question. And before he answered, he noticed the crowd in the back, and asked, politely, "Could you all hear that?"

CHICAGO -- Well, that wasn't very nice. The Bearsinvite the Lions to a football game, then don't let them play with the ball.Talk about hogging a pigskin. Chicago kept it for three minutes to every one by Detroit. There was this one Bears drive, in the second quarter -- no wait, that drive was the second quarter.There was this other Bears drive in the third quarter -- no, wait, that was the third quarter.I do recall a moment, late in the game, where a bunch of Lions trotted onto the field, and the officials stopped them immediately."Who are you guys?"

I don't know what kind of attorney general Zoe Baird would have made. I do know this: The reason we will never find out, the reason she has been bounced out of Washington like a teenager trying to sneak into a bar, is pretty simple. She was rich. And she was cheap.Oh, people will tell you it's because she broke the law. They'll say a candidate for attorney general should know better than to hire illegal aliens to care for her child.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. -- The helmet will not go easily. He has had it since arriving at Michigan, five years, same helmet, same face mask. Every spring he would hand it to the equipment man for safekeeping, and every fall he would make sure to get it back. Once, after a practice in his junior year, an excited fan tried to grab his chin strap, yank it off as he ran past. Elvis Grbac made the save."I almost lost it," he says. "It was down to its last snap."

DALLAS -- Steve Fisher is aging like a president. The crow's-feet seem to multiply each year, the jowls seem to droop as if a world war was tugging them down. The hair is thinning, the eyes seem more tired. You look at pictures of Fisher when he first got this head coaching job five years ago. Compared to now, he looks like a kid.

The year was 1968. The nation was rumbling. War. Riots. Free love. And music, always music. Folk rock. Motown. And then there was this song. It began with a churning electric guitar, a locomotive sound that dug straight into your belly. You found yourself reaching for handlebars, gunning your engine. Then a growling voice came through the speakers. "Get your motor runnin' . . . Get out on the highway . . . Looking for adventure . . . in whatever comes our way . . . "

LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- First of all, Michelle, I want you to know that even as I write this, I am wearing sequins. And velvet tights. I have puffed sleeves, a jeweled belt, pancake makeup and a blow-dried, hair-sprayed coif. I look like something out of "Aladdin" on skates. I am making an effort. I am trying.And I am sorry.I can't get with it.

One by one, they walked off the court, surrendering the title like old sheriffs turning in their badges. Joe Dumars dropped on a table and tossed his head back. Isiah Thomas hugged Bill Laimbeer. Dennis Rodman, who looked stunned enough to cry, found Vinnie Johnson and slapped his hands. Then, with a few seconds left on the clock, they exited the Palace floor together, the deposed kings, heading down the tunnel where their wives stood clapping in the echoing silence.Say good-bye to glory.No tears.