Rememberances: Gordie & Colleen, Chuck Daly, Dave Pureifory, Mickey Goodwin
Open Mike | by Mike O'Hara | 03.9.2009/5:53AM
Contact Mike O’Hara at
Gordie & Colleen:
Gordie Howe had a rare quality for a superstar. He was more like us – the average working person – than a sports icon.
The rare talent that made him a hockey legend put him on a pedestal, but his demeanor and basic humility made him a real person. In that regard, he was one of us.
Howe retired from the Detroit Red Wings in the spring of 1971. A wrist injury was part of the reason. Long before the arrival of 24-hour cable news and something called “team coverage,” Howe’s retirement was a giant news story.
The press conference was at the Olympia Stadium on Grand River, where Howe had begun his career with the Wings in 1946 as an 18-year-old and played through the 1970-71 season.
Gordie and Colleen had a special relationship. Colleen was fiercely protective of Gordie and their kids, and she gave him guidance.
As Howe talked about his career with the Wings, he ticked off the goals, the games and some memories.
A special memory was when Gordie first met Colleen at the bowling alley on Grand River, not far from the Olympia. It was the Lucky Strike.
“I hope they never change the name of that place,” Gordie said, smiling and looking at Colleen.
Colleen died last week from effects of a progressive, debilitating injury. She was 76, and she and Gordie were married for 56 years.
So many years later, Gordie’s recollection of his first date with Colleen is simple, and real. Just like one of us.
Dave Pureifory:
For all the scouting, drafting and analyzing teams do to acquire players, sometimes one team’s move is a big break for another.
It was that way in the middle of the 1978 season, when the Cincinnati Bengals cut loose defensive end Dave Pureifory. The Lions signed him for the last eight games of that season.
They might have expected Pureifory to be a fill-in. What they got was a relentless player who started at left end for another four seasons. He retired after the 1982 season.
Pureifory, who died last week of pancreatic cancer, was more than a role player on a defensive line that featured Pro Bowlers Bubba Baker and Doug English.
Monte Clark, the head coach at the time, called Pureifory the “Tasmanian Devil.” It fit. He was perpetual motion.
Pureifory, a star multi-sport athlete at Inkster High School, made the NFL with Green Bay in 1972 as a mid-round draft pick out of Eastern Michigan. He was listed at 6-1 and 260 pounds, but he seemed shorter and heavier – not fat, but squat and muscular.
He was fast, quick, strong – and relentless. In two seasons, he led the Lions in sacks. That wasn’t easy playing opposite Baker and next to English. They gobbled up quarterbacks like they were Halloween candy.
Pureifory managed to squeeze out 11 sacks in 1981, his career high.
There was another side to Pureifory. When he arrived in Detroit, it was known that he did not like talking to the media. I once asked Floyd Peters, then the defensive line coach, if he would arrange an interview with Pureifory after practice.
No problem. After practice, Pureifory stopped and talked. He didn’t seem entirely comfortable, but he talked at length, and he was engaging. Peters might have helped break down a barrier. Soon after, another writer did an interview with Pureifory, and during the session, the writer remarked on how he sometimes had trouble reading his notes.
A few days later, Pureifory gave the writer a book – on how to take notes.
Dr. D.S. Ping of Saline is a long-time sports agent. He had a close relationship with Pureifory.
“You could not have had a better friend,” Dr. Ping said Sunday. “I have four kids, and until they were 18 years old, he had a birthday present for all of them every year.
“He was as good a human being as any person I’ve ever met. I’m going to miss him.”
Chuck Daly:
The Hall of Fame former Pistons coach is fighting pancreatic cancer.
He is remembered for so much from his tenure as coach of the Pistons – winning two championships, the fashionable clothes that earned him the nickname “Daddy Rich,” and his ability to manage egos of NBA stars.
Some of his sayings should be recommended reading for all coaches.
One was that “the players allow you to coach them.” Another was that the toughest game to win in a playoff series in the last one – the clincher.
In 1989, the Pistons had the Lakers down 3-0 in the NBA Finals, and were certain to clinch the first championship in franchise history.
On a night off before Game 4, Daly took a short flight from L.A. to Las Vegas to see Thomas Hearns fight Sugar Ray Leonard. It was a rematch of their classic battle in 1981, won by Leonard on a 14th-round KO.
On fight night, Daly stopped by a couple of sportswriters from Detroit, who knew Daly always had a good line handy.
What bought him to Vegans?
“I’m looking for somebody with a knockout punch,” Daly answered.
Hearns and Leonard didn’t have it. They fought to a draw – even though Hearns knocked down Leonard twice.
The next night, the Pistons had their KO punch – a 105-97 win at the Forum to complete a four-game sweep.
Mickey Goodwin:
Goodwin, who died on Monday of a stroke at his home in Melvindale, touched a cross-section of people in his boxing career. He and Hearns turned pro on the same card in 1977. Goodwin fought his last bout in 1994.
Mickey was training fighters at a gym in River Rouge, and he had some promising prospects. They were loyal to his memory.
One young fighter showed up at the funeral home Saturday afternoon wearing a T-shirt with a fresh, full-color silk screen on the back.
It was a picture of Goodwin with the words “In Memory of Mickey Goodwin.”
“It’s beautiful,” Mickey’s mother, Irene, told the young man.
Beautiful, and fitting.
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Rap Sheet: Pistons on Brink, Radio Apology (???), Porcello, the State of Statehood for Detroit
Open Mike | by Mike O'Hara | 03.6.2009/8:52AM
Contact Mike O’Hara at
What a week. The Pistons are back. A talk-show host had to apologize on the air. The Tigers are wondering what to do with a live, young arm.
And will the uproar in Detroit’s City Council result in Monica Conyers running for governor of Detroit, our 51st state?
Off we go.
Pistons firing again:
The Pistons are treading in the danger zone – dangerous for their opponents in the NBA East, but more perilous for themselves.
They are on their game again, riding a three-game winning streak with Rip Hamilton back as a starter going into tonight’s home game against the Golden State Warriors.
The Warriors are a mess – 21-40 and no chance to make the playoffs. It is all set up for the Pistons to win their fourth straight game and enhance their position in the East.
All is well. Or so it seems.
And that’s where the danger lies. The Pistons have gotten too comfortable too easily this year. They have taken too many things for granted, acting like they can flip the switch and win as they please.
That is reflected in their won-lost record at home – 15-14 at The Palace, where they used to reign. They were 34-7 last season, 26-15 the year before and 37-4 the year before that. But this season, there have been ugly, ghastly losses to some of the NBA’s weaklings.
But life is good again for the Pistons. Rip Hamilton is back in the starting lineup – as he should be. Allen Iverson has said he will accept coming off the bench, when he returns from a back injury.
The Pistons are 30-29 and have risen to the sixth seed in the East. It’s possible that they can rise as high as the fourth seed and start the playoffs at home.
Now they face their toughest opponent – themselves.
They’ve played without energy and cohesion most of the year and sunk to a low point of the decade with an eight-game losing streak.
The season turned around one week ago in Orlando. With Iverson out, Hamilton was inserted back in the starting lineup.
Hamilton found his old grove early. He ran the court, got open off screens and scored 31 points to lead the Pistons 93-85 upset over one of the East’s best teams.
The ball moved from player to player. It didn’t get stuck in one player’s hands, like when Iverson was starting.
On the telecast after the game, Pistons broadcasters George Blaha remarked: “They looked like the Pistons again.”
He was right. There was a crispness and purpose to their play that had been missing.
Two nights later, the Pistons won again in Boston. And on Tuesday night, they had the emotional homecoming with the Nuggets and Chauncey Billups, their former team leader and good friend.
From here on out, there are no more emotional returns, no points to make about who should start.
It’s just basketball – grinding out games for no reason except wanting to win. It is something the old Pistons used to do so well that we took it for granted.
Unfortunately, they did, too.
Hollow apology:
I was trying to remember how many public apologies I’ve heard in my career in the news business and lost count lost at about 20,000.
Some are heartfelt. A few have been comical. But most are predictable – a politician, athlete or other public figure forced to fess up in public after being caught doing something illegal, immoral or downright stupid.
And most of the time, we sit at the press conference and roll our eyes, knowing that there would have been no apology if the person trying to sound sincere hadn’t been caught.
And so it is with Wednesday afternoon’s apology by Mike Valenti, lead host of the afternoon talk show on WXYT-97.1, for reading jokes submitted by listeners about the boating incident involving Lions defensive end Corey Smith and three other men.
One man was saved. Smith and two others are still missing and presumed dead.
Funny stuff, huh?
The Lions complained to WXYT’s management. After that, the apology was made, on air.
I have no doubt that Valenti regrets the incident. He is smart and talented and an ascending star in the talk-show business.
But here’s the rub. It’s not like he woke up Tuesday morning with pangs of regret and voluntarily went on the air to apologize.
There was an institutional quality to the apology. The people who would be most offended are Smith’s family and friends, and his teammates on the Lions.
That leaves me wondering this: would Valenti and his partner, Terry Foster, leave the safety of the studio and make the same apology in person in the lockerroom in front of Smith’s teammates and suffer the reaction?
As they say in radio, we’ll be back after this break.
Porcello:
It’s hard to follow the logic that Rick Porcello is too young to make the Tigers’ opening-day roster. He turned 20 in December, but he has the best arm in camp. He throws hard, and he throws strikes.
Dontrelle Willis, who can’t throw strikes, turned 21 in January of 2003. He was 14-6 that year with the Florida Marlins. He struck out 142 hitters in 160 innings and was a future star. In fact, he has been over .500 only one other year – 22-10 in 2005 – and he’s been a liability since the Tigers acquired him in a trade last year.
The Tigers’ brass – Mike Ilitch, Dave Dombrowski and Jim Leyland – have an easy decision. Jump Porcello ahead of Nate Robertson and Willis and don’t look back.
Statehood for Detroit:
I’ve spent most of my life inside the city limits of Detroit, except for a hitch in the army, and a few years in South Dakota, my family’s ancestral home.
Actually, I don’t find the behavior of Detroit’s City Council much more extreme than most other municipalities in our area. We just have bigger assets at stake – Cobo Center, museums, the zoo, Belle Isle, the riverfront, and the water supply.
I wasn’t outraged to hear a proposal to make Detroit the 51st state – any more than I ever thought the people in the Upper Peninsula were lunatics for wanting to be their own state.
My first questions are whether my license-plate tabs are good for another year, and will Monica Conyers run for governor of Detroit?
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