TO: NFL MANAGEMENTFROM: DETROIT LIONS FANS Dear Sirs:Please excuse our football team from next week's Monday night game against the San Francisco 49ers. We will be unable to attend because of a total lack of desire to end the season with a loss on network TV to a team so powerful it uses Joe Montana as a scrub.No thanks. We prefer to close the season right here, in Detroit, after Sunday's 16-3 victory over Chicago. Even with our losing football team, beating the Bears still means something. Mostly it means we can go to bed without vomiting.
* LIONS 23, BEARS 17: Too bad Jim Harbaugh isn't putting his $70,000 on the line this week. The Lions could use it to buy an offensive lineman.* SAN FRANCISCO 24, TAMPA BAY 10: The 49ers would like to win and stay in San Fran throughout the playoffs. The Bucs would like to stay in San Fran throughout the playoffs, too. On vacation.
Oh, say, can you seeMy eyes? If you can -- Then my hair's too short.-- from the musical 'Hair'I used to sing that song. I used to sing it in junior high, when I came out of the gym class shower. I used to sing it as I defiantly held my hair flat against my forehead, for 20 minutes, so that, when it dried, it would indeed hang over my eyes. And then I could perform the coolest, grooviest move on the planet: flicking my head to get my bangs out of my eyes.
Here's the part that makes you feel better:The Denver Broncos won the last Super Bowl. They lost their star player and missed this year's playoffs.The Atlanta Falcons were in that same Super Bowl. They lost their star player and missed this year's playoffs.The New York Jets went to last season's AFC championship game. They lost their star player and missed this year's playoffs.And the Green Bay Packers, a perennial playoff team? They lost only a coach. And they missed this year's playoffs, too.
There was a knock on the door. Dennis Rodman, who was not answering knocks or phones, peeked out the window. He did not recognize the man, or the little boy, or the pickup truck.He cracked the door open."This is from the Pistons," the man said, holding out an envelope. Rodman took it. Inside was a neatly typed notice saying he had been suspended, without pay, effective immediately. After six years of a storybook NBA career, he was off the team. Rodman stared at the paper."Uh, Dennis?" the delivery man said."Huh?"
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.
