Detroit Free Press

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Uh-oh. Now they had Jalen Rose's attention. Now he was awake. The Illinois crowd had foolishly ...

Maybe you are lucky enough not to live in the low end of the city, and so the idea of being some place where drugs are used, or sold, or both, still seems shocking. It isn't. It happens all the time in Detroit. So it is really no jolt that Jalen Rose, a city kid, a Detroit kid, was in a house where drugs were found last October. This does not make him an addict. Or a user. Or a dealer. He is none of those things. He is a city kid who has friends, old friends, from way before he wore that maize and blue uniform, and some of those friends are involved with drugs.

Mike Peplowski deserved better than this. He had the scars, and he put in the years. No way a Spartan like him should have to exit the greatest rivalry of his college career on the short end, while two young Wolverine players, Ray Jackson and Chris Webber, danced on the scorer's table, shaking their hips and leading the crowd in a wave. Peplowski looked down. He kept walking.

Mike Peplowski deserved better than this. He had the years. He had the scars. No way a guy like him should have ...

He calls himself the fifth wheel, or "Fab Four plus one," and he sits most often on the edge of the spotlight, as ...

NEWS ITEM: "The Golf Channel," a 24-hour cable network devoted entirely to the sport of golf, was announced ...

Dennis Rodman was sitting on his bed with a few friends watching television and counting the minutes to his new life. It was 8 p.m. He had one hour left as a Piston. That's what he figured. That's what he wanted."I been traded yet?" he asked a visitor."Not yet," came the answer."Damn," he said.

The van stops and the back door opens. Inside is a feast of garbage. Perfectly good food: coffee, bananas, crackers, frozen pizza, sugar, bread -- food someone was about to throw away."Lemme help you," says a homeless man in a ski cap and tattered shoes. He peers inside the van, like a child sneaking a peek at Christmas presents."Me, too," says an older fellow, unshaven, in a cheap grey sweater. "Right here for ya," says another."Go ahead, we're ready."