I ruminated on John Pruett’s 2008 retirement the challenges I had as the “other columnist” to Pruett on the pages of the late, lamented Huntsville Times. John worked at The Times 42 years. He collected readers and friends by hundreds. He wrote with grace and insight. He brought an air of positivity in the days … Continue reading In the shadows of the late, great John Pruett

A few days before our wedding two decades ago, a small package arrived for Patricia and me from Rancho Mirage, Calif. Inside, a CD. Dean Martin’s “Love Songs.” And there was a handwritten note from the sender, a man named Mike Downey. He had heard of the wedding from a mutual friend and wrote, “Sounds … Continue reading With fond memories and appreciation to a friend and inspiration, the great Mike Downey

If you’re fortunate in life, you outlive your heroes. Natural, that the favorite player or musician or mentor would be older and would die before you. If you’re fortunate in life, on a sun-kissed summer day, with a staggering agenda, you get to meet and spend time with your hero. If you’re especially fortunate in … Continue reading Brooks Robinson: A hero who didn’t disappoint

“The soundtrack of our lives” has become a well-worn cliché. But, forgive me, here I think it’s appropriate to dust it off another time. If you are a college basketball fan of the past four decades, the soundtrack includes the loud hyperbole, relentless enthusiasm, name-dropping, non sequiturs, cogent analysis and chain-saw voice of Dick Vitale. … Continue reading At courtside with Dickie V., and hoping he can be a Prime Time Player this spring

Any Southern sportswriter on the north side of 60 years of age will attest the greatest of all annual events didn’t have a scoreboard and didn’t have fans. It was the Southeastern Conference Basketball Media Days. We’d have all bought a ticket to attend, maybe paid our own way, in the late 1980s and early … Continue reading The ‘scoop’ that Dale Brown was going to give me

One of those polite, “so where you from?” sort of conversations went this way: “I used to be a heroin addict.” Not the sort of line to make a morning drive with a complete stranger very comfortable. And even if it makes no difference intellectually, and I was making no judgment, there is an inevitable … Continue reading A stranger’s confession: ‘I used to be a heroin addict’

Ushered into his office, the first time I met the legendary coach he was knee-deep in film. Literally. Bobby Bowden was studying an opponent in those ancient pre-video days, with a projector beaming the action from his desk to a screen on the wall. He opted not to use the take-up reel at the opposite … Continue reading That crazy kid who ran off to elope in Rising Fawn, Ga.: Remembering the great Bobby Bowden