Mike Celizic's Long Goodbye

A few days ago I received a stunning email from my old friend Mike Celizic informing me that he is seriously ill and might not have long to live (actually, Mike, in his own straightforward style, made the point much more bluntly). I have known Mike since 1966 or '67. We both come from Northeast Ohio, I from Euclid and Mike from the Painesville area (or from Leroy Township, to be more precise). We both attended the University of Notre Dame and joined in the Innsbruck study-abroad program. Our Freshman year at Notre Dame involved intense (really really intense) study of the German language and the German and Austrian culture. We were in different classes at Notre Dame because I was a raw beginner in German while Mike had studied it in high school and had even spent some time as a high school student studying in Austria.

We really got to know each other in the summer of 1967 as students in the Salzburg Sommerschule, 5 or 6 weeks of immersion in German language and Austrian life; and then in the intense year that followed at the University of Innsbruck. We shared this experience with 35 other guys--wonderful guys who became life-long friends. We know enough about each other to qualify for sainthood or waterboarding. It's not a stretch to say that the Notre Dame Innsbruckers grew to love each other in Salzburg and Innsbruck.

So my heart broke with this news from Mike.

Mike is a renowned and honored journalist, who began his career in 1970 with the Painesville Telegraph. At the Telegraph he did everything! I think he probably even cleaned up in the evening. One of his more important gigs was as a sports writer for the Bergen Record, a major paper out of the Hackensack, New Jersey area. He will end his career as a writer for msnbc.com, an author of about 7 books on sports, and a blogger of some stunning articles documenting his own illness and facing his own mortality. . . . .[more coming very soon]