Detroit Free Press

The instructions are taped to the wall above his bed. They show diagrams of hands and feet, with arrows pointing left and right. His mother pulls on his limp right arm, forward and backward, forward and backward, as if rowing a boat."He couldn't move nothing at first," she says. "Now he can do some on his own. Show him, Damon."

BARCELONA, Spain -- And you thought your little 9-year-old, sitting in the house playing video games all day, was blowing his chance at the Olympics. Are you kidding? We have a job for him right now.Boxing judge.In fact, if we had a few more 9-year-olds over here, we would probably have one fewer Olympic controversy this morning. That's because boxing, a sport that seems determined to sink under its own stupidity, has suddenly made it more important to test the reflexes of its judges than its boxers.See if you can follow this:

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. -- On the last day of the year, and the day before their college football careers end, I'd like you to meet five guys you've never heard of. Sometimes, I think their coaches never heard of them either. They do not start. Some back up the backups. One guy never got in a game in four years.They are about to leave Michigan. The Rose Bowl will be their swan song --and if any of them get in the game, it will be big news. But where you would expect bitterness, you don't hear it. Where you would expect anger, there is none.

THE HUDDLE:All right, HUDDLE UP! Throw your arms around one another and lean in. We are here to answer questions from the football weekend. We are here to call the play for next week's games. We are here to--Would you mind getting off my foot?WHAT'S THE PLAY?Wait a minute. I'm thinking.While you're thinking, Huddle, I gotta tell ya, I am so geeked on the Lions! I am psyched! This is the year, baby! We're thunderin'! We're smokin'! We're cookin'! I'm in the ZON --Turn your radio down. Take a sedative.Hey, Huddle, can I get in?

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- We start with the pigs.Oh, they may not call themselves pigs. They may call themselves Hogs, or Razorbacks, or President of the United States, but they sure look like pigs, don't they, with those snouts on their heads? See them over there? Cute, huh? Some even wear a whole pig face and little curlicue ears, and they walk around making "oink!" sounds.Others just vomit from beer.Watch your step, folks.

IDITAROD DIARY, CHAPTER 2: In which we meet the champion, get licked, talk basketball, and learn that even mushers get jealous.ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- "Forget it. You don't have enough fur." That's what one local told me as I sought the champion of the dogsled world. "Forget it," he laughed. "Unless you got a cold nose and four paws, you ain't gonna get much from Susan Butcher."

WICHITA, Kan. -- It's funny, sometimes; the ones you expect to grab never do.Juwan Howard had that right. To grab. From the day he came home from the hospital -- and his teenage mother put him in a clothes drawer because she didn't have a crib -- Howard was on the debit side of life. Short on money. Short on comforts. Short on love and, quickly, short on parents, as both mother and father left him to be raised by his grandmother.

Alone in the dark he sits, behind the projector, his thumb clicking the remote button as the players on screen move backwards then forwards then backwards then forwards."Corner trap (click, click)," he says, "now a sprint 15 . . . see how that guard rides the center up there (click) . . . now this is a 15 bend, see that tight end (click) he's supposed to block No. 52 (click) he's gotta get his butt up there, right now! Look (click) he's hesitating (click) he's hesitating (click) . . . GO, RIGHT NOW! (click) . . . too late!"