When we were kids, there were four TV channels. The one with the peacock, the one with the eye, the one marked abc, and the "smart" channel.That "smart" channel was PBS.It was usually on the far end of the dial -- where I grew up it was Channel 12 -- and all we kids really understood was that it didn't have cartoons, and it was supposed to be good for us. As we grew, we found some interesting programs, and eventually our own children tuned in to see Big Bird and Cookie Monster.Also, it had no commercials.A big plus for the smart channel.
TEMPE, Ariz. -- As you know, Curtis, you silver-haired warbler, anyone who predicts Pittsburgh will win this Super Bowl is a fool. So when readers learn that someone in this fine newspaper is actually picking the Steelers, their reaction will no doubt be: "Hey, it's Curt Sylvester!"After all, you are the man who once said, "Trust me, Denver will win the Super Bowl," a sentence that ranks up there with "Columbus, you will sail off the edge of the Earth and die."
He died quietly, which was not like him, early Sunday in New York City, before sunrise, in the wee hours, when the ratings don't matter. His heart -- which many claimed he never had -- failed him at last.Meanwhile, just a few blocks away, ESPN was preparing for its second full day of NFL draft coverage, over-hyped and over- announced insanity, with the insufferable Mel Kiper Jr. set to prattle on about split times.No wonder Howard Cosell left us. He probably couldn't stand it anymore.
This might sound strange to Michigan fans who think this newspaper is out to "get" the basketball program, but I'm glad Robert Traylor decided to stay in school, so that one day he can prove all these charges false.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Keith Primeau saw the puck, stole the puck, and whipped it into the empty net with a swing so hard it could have sliced someone's head off. The arena seemed to gasp a final breath, then fell silent.One dead dragon.Three to go."There was anger in our locker room before the game," said Primeau, who put the empty-net exclamation mark on Sunday's 4-1 victory, which polished off Winnipeg and advanced the Wings to the playoffs' second round. "Normally, we're doing a lot of talking, pumping each other up. Today, it was just quiet."
Travis Conlan, stuck with the worst job of the day, likened it to "being in a graveyard and running into tombstones." The tombstones were the Indiana players who, in the second half of Sunday's game, kept smacking into Conlan in order to free a bouncing freshman named A. J. Guyton.And if they were the tombstones, Guyton was the ghost.
TEMPE, ARIZ -- Hey, it's hot in the desert. Things melt. Like your defense. Your concentration. And, apparently, your calculator.How else do you explain coach Bobby Ross deciding Sunday to go for a two-point conversion late in the fourth quarter -- when logic said go for an extra point?What was he doing? I know about aggressiveness. But there is no way, when you are down 23-19 late in a game, that you don't go for an extra point, pull within three, and hope a field goal ties it and takes you to overtime.That's Beginners Coaching. Or Math 101.
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.
