We laughed at him, poked fun at him, maybe whispered behind his back about those silly ties and those corny cheers he led. But deep down, we all felt we should have been a little more like him -- this strange, thin man with the thick glasses who wandered through the aisles of our lives, yelling happily at the top of his lungs.The Brow is gone. And the stadium just got very quiet.
Look, I have been humiliated before. Like the time when I was 16 and I was trying to impress a girl on a cruise ship and I walked over and said, with all the suave charm I could muster, "Hi, how ya do--'?" -- and I waved my hand and knocked a glass of milk into her lap.Took me years to get over that.
The sports world is full of errors in judgment: The Lions drafting Andre Ware, World Team Tennis, Fox creating a blue puck.Still, lately it seems like a plague of bad decisions has infected sports, and it's even worse than usual. For example:OLIVER McCALL VS. LENNOX LEWISA couple of years ago, Don King was talking about one of his fighters. He couldn't remember his name, so he said, "Who's that junkie I got?"
In the empty years, when Doug Collins was out of coaching, All-Star weekend was when he and his daughter, Kelly, would share some quality time. Of course, because they both love basketball, this still meant going to the game. But they sat together in the stands. They laughed and pointed out special plays. And when the game ended, they went not to the tunnel, but to the parking lot.
Sometimes it comes down to talent, sometimes it comes down to skill, sometimes it comes down to momentum, coaching, pregame speeches, fights. And sometimes it comes down to a bounce. Here was Tomas Sandstrom, in overtime, simply looking to clear the puck, and on the move he flicked it high into the air.Here were Slava Kozlov and Igor Larionov, skating down center ice, watching Sandtrom's offering come out of the lights.
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.
