Detroit Free Press

IDITAROD DIARY, CHAPTER 2: In which we meet the champion, get licked, talk basketball, and learn that even mushers get jealous.ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- "Forget it. You don't have enough fur." That's what one local told me as I sought the champion of the dogsled world. "Forget it," he laughed. "Unless you got a cold nose and four paws, you ain't gonna get much from Susan Butcher."

CHAPTER 1: In which I travel to Alaska and learn that all dogs are not created equal, although most smell alike.ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Mush! Whoa!Get off my leg!All right. I admit it. Before arriving here for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race -- or, as they call it in Alaska, The Last Great Race On Earth -- my canine knowledge was somewhat limited. This, basically, is what I knew about dogs: If they urinate on your carpet, it's damn hard to get out.

One coach, upon learning that Chris Webber goes to church every Sunday, dashed off a letter saying, he, too, was a ...

Gerald Henderson was at the computer in his Philadelphia office Saturday when the phone rang. The Pistons. They needed a guard. Fast. Henderson, who had only been playing pick-up basketball three times a week, shut off the computer, packed a bag and got on a plane for Detroit. The next morning he was at the Beverly Hills Racquet Club, shooting hoops -- just hours before the Pistons would play the Lakers on network television. "Don't hurt yourself," one of the surprised pick-up players there told him. "They need you today."

Gerald Henderson was about to enter some data into the computer in his Philadelphia office Saturday when the phone ...

The doctor said she had two choices: radiate the foot, hope the cancer would die, or cut the foot off and keep the disease from spreading. Beth Hardman looked at her parents. She was 16 years old, a high school student with the smile of an angel, the kind of smile that gets you elected, as she soon would be, Homecoming Princess. And now she had to decide whether to keep a foot. Her Left Foot. They don't make movies about kids like this. Maybe they should."I think we ought to take it off," Beth told the doctor. "Let's set up the appointment."