SEATTLE -- The last time he was here, he wore a cast on one foot and street clothes to the game. He sat behind the Michigan basketball team as it played for the national championship. And when that championship was won, and the buzzer sounded, he ran onto the floor, cast and all, and celebrated in a happy pile of players. The whole world was ahead of Eric Riley in those days. He was a redshirt freshman, an apprentice to glory, just waiting for his turn in the uniform. "I thought," he says now, "I would be celebrating like that again. Only with me playing."
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Less than five minutes into Tournament II, the Michigan Wolverines saw all they needed to see. Jalen Rose had the ball on the perimeter. He should have dumped it inside. Instead, he pulled up and fired a long, long three-point try. It missed. A mistake. No matter. Juwan Howard got the rebound, and out it came to Jimmy King. He also should have dumped it inside. Instead, he took a long, long three-point try from the baseline. It missed. A mistake. No matter. Juwan Howard got the rebound. Out it came.
The moments come out of nowhere, like no-look passes that hit them in the head. Maybe James Voskuil is running drills in practice and suddenly -- boink! -- he can't help it, he's thinking "Oh, man, I have that paper due tomorrow . . .""Voskuil! Rebound!" Or maybe Rob Pelinka is sitting in a business school lecture and suddenly -- boink! -- he can't help it, he's thinking about that three-point shot he could have made last night against Indiana, if he just put a little more arch on the . . . "Mr. Pelinka? You with us?"
It is not my place, as a travel-weary journalist with a clanking jump shot, to offer sky-walking, world-famous, unspeakably rich professional basketball players a hair-styling tip.But I'll do it anyhow.Yo. NBA.What's with all the bald heads?I go to a Pistons game last weekend, I'm lost. I can't tell half the players apart. Bald. Bald. Bald. It's like a Hare Krishna convention.No less than six, count 'em, six totally hairless Pistons. Half the team. And I'm not including Ron Rothstein, who is losing his hair the old-fashioned way, though stress.
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.
