by Mitch Albom | Nov 18, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Once upon a time, as a young graduate assistant, Mel Tucker used to drive Nick Saban around. Now Tucker can send a private jet, and he and Nick can compare paychecks. Tucker, who has been at Michigan State football less than two seasons, is set to become the...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 31, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
EAST LANSING — In a game that has everything, it’s usually one thing that decides it. For Michigan football, the one thing was a mistake. For Michigan State football, it was a streak of lightning running back who hadn’t played in one of these intrastate wars...
by Mitch Albom | Nov 1, 2020 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Now that’s how you enter a rivalry. Ride into the other guy’s town, kick the doors in, and yell, “Howdy!” New coach Mel Tucker had exactly one performance under his belt at Michigan State, a forgettable seven-turnover loss to lowly Rutgers, before...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 18, 2020 | Comment, Detroit Free Press, Sports
Mel Tucker used to drive Nick Saban around. This was 23 years ago, when Saban was the head football coach at Michigan State and Tucker was a first-year graduate assistant. He would marvel at how Saban, sitting next to him, could wedge a briefcase beneath his...
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...
