HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. -- The helmet will not go easily. He has had it since arriving at Michigan, five years, same helmet, same face mask. Every spring he would hand it to the equipment man for safekeeping, and every fall he would make sure to get it back. Once, after a practice in his junior year, an excited fan tried to grab his chin strap, yank it off as he ran past. Elvis Grbac made the save."I almost lost it," he says. "It was down to its last snap."
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. -- I plop on the hotel bed. I turn on the reading light. Here, in my lap, are rosters, old newspapers, and media guides. I blow off the dust.It is bowl week.Time to relearn everything."Let's see," I say. "Michigan. OK. I know they had a decent season. I think they won the Big Ten. It seems to me there was something about ties, wasn't there? Lots of ties?"
Like most people, I wanted to be liked. I wanted to walk into every room and have people smile, reach for my hand, slap me on the back.I picked the wrong job.I became a sportswriter.My kind are greeted with sighs, smirks, head shakes and spit. Occasionally a poke in the chest. Now and then, a bucket of water. I am blamed, vilified, avoided, ignored, sometimes tolerated, never trusted.I am a sportswriter.And I wonder what went wrong.
* SAN FRANCISCO 20, LIONS 10: If the Lions really want to bug Joe Montana, they should yell across the line: "Hey! Aren't you the guy who backs up Steve Young? Tough gig, huh?"* NEW ORLEANS 21, NY JETS 6: The Saints sent their entire starting linebacker corps to the Pro Bowl. The whole set? Is that allowed?
The instructions are taped to the wall above his bed. They show diagrams of hands and feet, with arrows pointing left and right. His mother pulls on his limp right arm, forward and backward, forward and backward, as if rowing a boat."He couldn't move nothing at first," she says. "Now he can do some on his own. Show him, Damon."
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.
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.
