Let me give you the straight dope on the NBA's marijuana policy: There is no policy.You heard me. Under NBA rules, if a player wants to puff a joint, then go out and play a game, there is nothing to stop him. Nothing, of course, except that it's against the law in most places. But if the player can beat that, the league has no punishment. It won't even test him.This is astounding. In a sport that pays for and depends on maximum physical performance, there is no testing for marijuana? No penalties for being arrested for possession?
Having not seen Grant Hill in a few months, I go to Pistons practice with a twinge of concern. Off-seasons, I believe, are when egos take root. Players go home to friends and family. They hang out in clubs and parties. They hear the sycophants saying, "Man, you should be making more money . . ." or "How come you're not bigger than such-and-such? He doesn't have half your talent . . ."They come back with an attitude. A chip on their shoulders. During the season, there is barely time for playing, sleeping, and catching the next plane; it's the off-seasons when monsters are hatched.
Here was the worst thing that ever happened to me on Halloween. I was 7 years old. I wanted to be a mummy. Since mummy costumes were hard to find, my mother cut white rags into narrow strips. Then she wrapped me from head to toe. To keep the rags tight, she safety-pinned them together. As ideas go, it was long on love and short on practicality.
In the end, he did the smartest thing. And, more importantly, the decent thing -- for both the University of Michigan and any other school involved. Robbing one basketball program to feed your own would never fly, not in the land of "core values" that Tom Goss has rechristened the maize-and-blue."With all the coaches I interviewed, it kept coming back to one question," the U-M athletic director said Friday. " 'What will you tell the players you're leaving behind?' I never got a good answer."
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.
