by Mitch Albom | Feb 16, 2020 | Comment, Detroit Free Press, Sports
Dear Coach Mel Tucker: Consider this a welcome letter. Or a “welcome back” letter, because you were at Michigan State once before, in the late ’90s. Your duties back then, as a graduate assistant on the football team, you told me, included shoveling...
by Mitch Albom | Feb 5, 2020 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
At one point late in what was suddenly his final hour as Michigan State’s football coach, Mark Dantonio winced at a question about a lawsuit. “We’re not talking about that here,’’ he snapped. “This is a celebration.” It didn’t feel like one. And he didn’t...
by Mitch Albom | Nov 17, 2019 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Just before the final snap of what he called “the state championship,” Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh pulled aside his quarterback, Shea Patterson, and said, “This year, after you kneel down, keep the ball. Don’t throw it up in the air.” “I’ve got...
by Mitch Albom | Apr 8, 2019 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
They came for a trophy. They went home with a story. It’s a good story, sure, with choked-back tears and credit-where-credit-is-due hosannas. But a story is words and a trophy is solid. And at some point, the Spartans’ Tom Izzo needs to again lift something solid over...
by Mitch Albom | Apr 5, 2019 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Twenty eight years ago, Tom Izzo hung up the phone, sat down, and cried. He had just been informed that a high school star named Chris Webber, whom he had been recruiting for years, had chosen archrival Michigan instead. Izzo wasn’t even the head coach at Michigan...
by Mitch Albom | Feb 25, 2019 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
All game long, the ball was in his hands, a Greenergizer Bunny in a sea of yellow jerseys. Dribbling, driving, dishing, laying it in. He never came out. Never took a breather. Finally, after all that action forged a sizable lead, Michigan had no choice but to foul...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 21, 2018 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
EAST LANSING — The game hadn’t even started, and Devin Bush Jr. was trying to dig up the Spartan logo with his cleats. The Michigan linebacker hoofed at the midfield grass so aggressively, I thought he was going to get down on all fours and charge at a green cape. It...
by Mitch Albom | Jan 28, 2018 | Comment, Detroit Free Press, Sports
They won’t like it. It’s not what they’re used to. But things are changing fast at Michigan State, for trustees, administrators, the athletic department, even cornerstone coaches like Mark Dantonio and Tom Izzo. They’ll either change with it, or be gone. In the harsh...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 30, 2016 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
There was a crazy ending, though not like last year, but the day belongs to Jabrill Peppers, Jim Harbaugh and Wolverines EAST LANSING – There was craziness at the end (again) on a routine play in the final seconds (again) with the ball going the wrong way (again) and...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 4, 2016 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
I walk along the street of sorrow, the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I see a giant van pull up. “You moving in?” I ask a large Tiger. “Yeah. Want to help unload?” I take out boxes. There’s one with Miguel Cabrera bobbleheads, and another with Justin Verlander T-shirts....
