Last in a series on the heartbreaks and hopes of unsung Detroit area athletes.A thin drizzle fell that night, giving the streets an oily sheen under the lights. It was just past midnight, Monday turning to Tuesday, and a teenager named Tim Doil was driving through Troy with two friends, coming home from a high school graduation party. It was warm. Early June. They had Puff Daddy on the radio, singing "I'll Be Missing You." They were heading east.
Free Press sports writers pick the Rose Bowl:MITCH ALBOM First we never heard of Ryan Leaf, then he was going to win the Heisman, then he was going to single-handedly beat Michigan. I prefer first impressions. Michigan 31, Washington State 10.KEITH GAVE
The year is almost up. I want a refund.I don't want money. I want time. I want back every minute wasted on subjects that were trivial, gossipy or just plain idiotic.Subjects on which I can't believe we wasted any breath at all. Things that dominated our newspapers and our TVs and, therefore, our conversations, like whether the Spice Girls have any talent.The answer is no. There. That took half-a-second. I want back anything over that.
The last time I saw the mother she was hiding on a couch, her head wrapped in a bandana, her eyes as narrow as coin slots. She was coming off a crack cocaine high, in a burned-out house in Detroit's northwest side, with a hole in the roof, no heat, one working light bulb, floors covered in dirt. This was home to Dorothy Chatman and her teenage son, Deshawn."Have you ever seen your son play basketball?" I asked her that day."Basketball is what he's into now," she sniffed. "Next year ...it'll be something else."
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.
