by Mitch Albom | Jan 9, 2024 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
HOUSTON — And then, all Hail broke loose. Mikey Sainristil intercepted a fourth-down pass, a desperate heave by Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. that landed right in Sainristil’s gut. He took off the other way, eyes widening. Ten yards. Twenty yards. Thirty...
by Mitch Albom | Nov 26, 2023 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Thrillers aren’t thrillers until the hero gets in trouble. And everything that happened until the third quarter in the Big House thriller Saturday, when Zak Zinter went down with a knee injury so gruesome Fox wouldn’t show it on TV, was just buildup. After...
by Mitch Albom | Nov 12, 2023 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — They announced the attendance for Saturday’s game as 110,856, the second largest crowd in the history of Beaver Stadium. No surprise. Everyone wants to see an execution. And that’s what critics were hoping for, wasn’t it? Jim Harbaugh,...
by Mitch Albom | Nov 10, 2023 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
J.J. McCarthy wore figure skates — once. His mother, a former figure skater herself, got him to try a pair. He went on the ice and “kept falling on my face.” So he made an announcement: “I’m not wearing those things anymore.” He was 5 years old. Near as I can...
by Mitch Albom | Dec 2, 2022 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Not a good look. Admit that much. Even if you are a Maize and Blue maniac, your star football co-captain being arrested on a gun possession felony in early October, being allowed to play for Michigan football the very next day, not being charged for the next...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 30, 2022 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
The game was barely history before it became secondary. Moments after Michigan thumped Michigan State on the football field, a group of Spartan players assaulted a Wolverine player in the Michigan Stadium tunnel, roughing him up and shoving...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 28, 2022 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Here is Blake Corum at 6 years old, walking barefoot in the morning through thick Virginia grass, wandering lazily to a nearby creek. He picks up rocks, looking for crawfish. In the afternoon, he drops a piece of charcoal into a bucket of water, then dips a stick...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 16, 2022 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Good news, Mom and Dad. They passed their midterms! In their first true test of this 2022 football season, the Michigan Wolverines aced the run section, aced the pass section, aced the tackling section and finally — though not without some struggle — aced...
by Mitch Albom | Feb 4, 2022 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
On the first night of the rest of his life, Jim Harbaugh got snowed in. So he kicked back in a Minnesota hotel room, ate a hamburger and french fries from room service, and made phone calls to the important people in his life, telling them his decision was...
by Mitch Albom | Dec 31, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Cade McNamara is explaining his approach to the game. “I always liked making sure everyone was focused, making sure we took every game and every practice with a level of seriousness.’’ Sounds like what you’d expect from a major college quarterback, right? Except...