LAKELAND, Fla. -- If this were Rolling Stone magazine, the following might be titled "HERNDON -- THE INTERVIEW!" Not that you'd likely find Larry Herndon in Rolling Stone's colorful pages. He is not quite the earring and leopard-skin type.Actually, if magazines were people you might find him in Gentlemen's Quarterly. Maybe Family Weekly. Certainly not Commentary. Talking has never been Herndon's favorite activity, at least with reporters. Setting up an interview with him is not merely like pulling teeth, it's like waiting for them to grow in.
WIMBLEDON, England -- He went out holding his racket, not his crotch, which is a sign of maturity, I suppose. Jimmy Connors hasn't always been a grown-up. But when he exited Wimbledon Friday, a semifinal loser to a young and overpowering Pat Cash, he was given an ovation not only for today but for a lot of yesterdays. He got the old man's cheer.
SEOUL, South Korea -- She ties her shoes and grabs her tennis racket. She squeezes in the elevator behind two fencers and an East German handball player.Chris Evert.Olympian.She walks among swimmers and Greco-Roman wrestlers. She waits behind cyclists and discus throwers. She asks the cafeteria lady to hold the gravy on those potatoes, thank you.Chris Evert.Olympian.
And they say nightmares happen only in Boston Garden. Forget that. Here, as the buzzer sounded in a summer-hot Silverdome Monday afternoon, was Boston's Danny Ainge, heaving a basketball high in celebration and pointing bleep-you fingers at the disbelieving crowd."YES! YES!" he shouted, his team suddenly alive again in this gut-twisting Eastern Conference final against the Pistons."No . . . no . . ." the crowd seemed to whisper.
WIMBLEDON, England -- He went out holding his racket, not his crotch, which is a sign of maturity, I suppose. Jimmy Connors hasn't always been a grown-up. But when he exited Wimbledon Friday, a semifinal loser to a young and overpowering Pat Cash, he was given an ovation not only for today but for a lot of yesterdays. He got the old man's cheer.
SEOUL, South Korea -- She ties her shoes and grabs her tennis racket. She squeezes in the elevator behind two fencers and an East German handball player.Chris Evert.Olympian.She walks among swimmers and Greco-Roman wrestlers. She waits behind cyclists and discus throwers. She asks the cafeteria lady to hold the gravy on those potatoes, thank you.Chris Evert.Olympian.
And they say nightmares happen only in Boston Garden. Forget that. Here, as the buzzer sounded in a summer-hot Silverdome Monday afternoon, was Boston's Danny Ainge, heaving a basketball high in celebration and pointing bleep-you fingers at the disbelieving crowd."YES! YES!" he shouted, his team suddenly alive again in this gut-twisting Eastern Conference final against the Pistons."No . . . no . . ." the crowd seemed to whisper.
BOSTON -- Dave Henderson bounces. He is young and muscular and slides into the bag like a Boeing jet crashing in some distant desert, but then, whoop, he's back up again, springing to his feet -- so quick the dirt doesn't stick. Up, down, up. The perfect slide for the man from nowhere.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
