Detroit Free Press

We laughed at him, poked fun at him, maybe whispered behind his back about those silly ties and those corny cheers he led. But deep down, we all felt we should have been a little more like him -- this strange, thin man with the thick glasses who wandered through the aisles of our lives, yelling happily at the top of his lungs.The Brow is gone. And the stadium just got very quiet.

LONDON -- Now that we're into the second week of Wimbledon, the question begs to be asked: Will we actually talk tennis instead of underwear?Not that underwear doesn't have its place. But usually that place is, well, under something. Based on the media here, you'd have thought it was worn on the outside -- particularly if it belongs to Anna Kournikova.

The last time the Red Wings went this far, his hair was dyed, it was red, white and brown. Looked like a half-gallon of supermarket ice cream. I felt like pouring hot fudge on his head."We only did that because someone said, 'Let's grow playoff beards,' " Shawn Burr now admits, "and I didn't have enough facial hair to grow one."Today, seven years later, Burr has facial hair. Not a lot. Enough for a blond mustache, which, thickness-wise, is somewhere between Larry Bird and Rik Smits. In other words, not completely finished. But then, neither is Burr.

Marcus Ray knows better. He's a senior, he's a captain, he had all last year to hang with his buddy Charles Woodson and witness, up close, the vultures that come swirling when you have NFL potential. He's seen fast talkers. He's seen the jewelry and the nice suits and the fast cars.

ATLANTA -- That sound you heard was a bomb. The explosion at Centennial Park that claimed one life and affected thousands of others may be your first memory when someone says, "Olympics, 1996."But not your last.

The ball came down from the lights the way a pitchfork might come down from the lights, the way a live grenade might come down from the lights, you could watch its frightening descent and know exactly the terrible thing that was about to happen and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, you could do about it.There. I've just summed up a day in the life of the Lions' secondary.

You wouldn't say "My family is sick and dying, but my life is good." You wouldn't say "Everyone at work is in danger, but my life is swell."So I'm confused by the latest nationwide poll in which most Americans say they are happy with their lives, even though the country is in trouble.Hello? This is like saying "My car is about to go off that cliff, but no worries, I'm wearing my seat belt."