Here's the scene: The door opens and a recruiter walks in. He sits down with the high school basketball star. Says he wants the kid to play for his team. Says the kid might only have to stay a year or two before he's ready for the NBA. And don't worry about attending math class, it won't be necessary.Then the recruiter reaches into his bag and takes out ... a checkbook.At this point, you're thinking the NCAA bursts down the door with its surveillance camera and yells, "FREEZE!"
They say bad news is best delivered through poetry. Actually, I just made that up. But pretending it is true, allow me to wax poetic after the Lions' depressing loss Sunday to the suddenly brown Tampa Bay Bucs.Barry, oh, Barry, oh,Wherefore art thou, Barry-o?We are now two weeks into the Lions' season, the season that was supposed to be the liberation of the Greatest-Halfback-Never-To-Have-A-Fullback, the season of the "organized" coaching staff, the season Sanders' awesome talent would be unleashed in its rightful power.
In March of 1995, a limousine carrying Ted Koppel, the host of ABC-TV's "Nightline," pulled up to the snow-covered curb outside Morrie's house in West Newton, Massachusetts.Morrie was in a wheelchair full-time now, getting used to helpers lifting him like a heavy sack from the chair to the bed and the bed to the chair. He had begun to cough while eating, and chewing was a chore. His legs were dead; he would never walk again.
All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the restPaul Simon She came in with pomp, she left with circumstance.At her wedding, cameras rolled, and thousands cheered outside Westminster Abbey. At her funeral, cameras rolled, and millions mourned outside Westminster Abbey.There were tears from strangers at both events, just as there was sympathy from strangers at her crumbling love life and outrage from strangers at her death last week in a car wreck in Paris.
In his latest book, "Tuesdays with Morrie," published by Doubleday, Free Press columnist Mitch Albom writes about the final lessons from his college professor and mentor, Morrie Schwartz. The Free Press is running excerpts today through Thursday.The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. The class met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast. The subject was The Meaning Of Life. It was taught from experience.
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.
