As the Michigan State Spartans kick off the 2024 NCAA tournament this year, I am thinking of my dear departed Uncle Suds, just like I do every year around this time, and always take a moment to read this article from 2016, published on what would have been Suds’s 59th birthday:
They held Suds's funeral last fall in Michigan State's Alumni Chapel. Coach Izzo gave the eulogy.
"I like to say, great players play great," Izzo told the crowd, "but elite players make everyone around them better. And that is what Suds did: He made everyone around him better.
"I get stuff in the mail all the time from people saying they're my No. 1 fan. But I had only one No. 1 fan, and it was Suds."
Tom Izzo's No. 1 fan would have turned 59 years old today.
Suds made everyone around him better because his very nature taught you so much: how to be patient, how to be kind, how to understand other people better, and most of all how to be honest. I don’t know if it was due to Suds’s special needs (that’s what we always called them), but Suds told you the truth, in the most honest and literal way. This resulted in a lifetime of classic one-liners that those of us who weren’t even there at the time can quote when the situation calls for it:
“How do those shoes fit?” “Great, everywhere but the feet.”
“Suds, where are you going?” “Crazy, wanna come?”
“What do I want this for?” he once said at a college hockey game, as the puck sailed into the stands and landed near his feet. Suds immediately threw it back on the ice, resulting in a penalty for the home team.
Suds loved sports with a passion that I don’t know if most people experience in their lifetimes. Suds could tell you every man who played quarterback for the Green Bay Packers EVER. And every man whoever coached. He could tell you the first and last year Michigan State made a Final Four. Suds was the only person who was NOT an active college athlete to wear the same warmups and sweatsuits that a team did. When he visited me in DC a few years before he died, we were at the National Museum of American History and we overheard some teen boys say, “Yo, you see that dude’s shoes? Those are team shoes. I didn’t even know you could buy those.” Suds turned around and said “You can’t. Tom gave them to me.” Suds was a hypebeast and sneakerhead and never knew it. I miss him, especially this time of year, his favorite time of year. We miss you, Suds! Go Green. But just for you.