She would not cry. She held back the tears as tightly as she once held her first basketball, cradling it all day, sleeping with it all night. Never mind this scary hospital, these sterile walls, these lousy blood tests; never mind what the doctor was telling her now, that she could die if she didn't have a bone-marrow transplant. She could die? But she was only 18! Never mind. Nekita Burnett, a college player the size of an eighth-grader, was used to laughing, clowning, cracking people up; she never was very good with the sad stuff.
So now they have a taste. Now they know what it feels like to want something so badly, to have the devil's foot on your neck and to grab that foot and struggle for your life. I salute the Pistons' courage and I salute their effort.And that's it for the nice stuff.
I've been on a few TV talk shows. This is how they work. You sit in a room, waiting to go on, and a person comes in to encourage you and the other guests to keep things "lively." This person is often a young, good-looking production assistant, smartly dressed, with an air of having done this a million times before.He or she will smile a lot, and use words such as "fast- paced" and "excitement" and "have fun out there" and "keep it moving."What they are saying, without ever saying it, is "don't be boring."At no time do they say, "Be careful."
ISHOULD SAY, from the start of this particular column, that it is not for outsiders. If you aren't from Michigan, you probably won't get it.And if you're not a hockey fan, you probably won't get it.And if you're a journalistic wise guy, one who thinks the only good use of newspaper space is critical and negative use of newspaper space, then you, too, will probably not get it.But most of you will. Because most of you saw what I saw these past few years, a hockey team that lifted the level of expectations in this city and then, remarkably, exceeded them.
When 80,000 mostly white, Christian men rallied at the Silverdome to pledge their family values, nobody complained.But when a few dozen white men marched in Skokie, Ill., there was national outrage. The difference? Those men were Nazis.Here is my point: It's not numbers or color that necessarily frighten people. It's hatred. Hatred that might be directed back at them.
First in a series on heartbreaks and hopes of unsung Detroit area athletes in 1995."A person like me needs all the support he can get, because of all the things that happen to me."-- From a 10th-grade English paper by Dewon Jones
I have this theory about the Red Wings in the playoffs. This is my theory. They should leave town.I don't mean for good. I mean for the start of each series. Even if they have earned home ice, decline it, start on the road. Begin each series with enemy fans, booing and hissing, telling them they're no good. There's less pressure to please the home crowd. And I think they'll perform better.
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.
