My best friend went to Highland High School in Illinois.
He now lives in Florida and is a Miami Dolphins season ticket holder. In fact, he owns enough Miami Dolphins season tickets to hire a bus or two to take a lot of his friends to key Dolphins home games. Given how hard of a season the Dolphins were having midway through this campaign, they have now had a somewhat reversal of fortune with four straight wins, I wanted to do something special for J.R. when he celebrated his birthday in November.
The Detroit Lions All Pro Tightend, Sam LaPorta, also attended Highland High School and is the first graduate of that institution to advance to the National Football League. J.R. had been braggin’ on LaPorta since his days at Iowa and declared him the best thing that ever came out of Highland High. I thought it would be nice to have LaPorta send a birthday greeting to my friend with an autographed portrait from one Highland High graduate to another.
I sent a portrait of the Lions tightend to him in Detroit and he was super gracious in autographing it and offering J.R. a birthday message from a fellow high school grad. The experience had my personal admiration for LaPorta multiply and I quickly rooted for him and his team like I had bet on their success.
Then, in the second week of November, LaPorta suffered a back injury that required surgery and, in all likelihood, will sideline him for the season. Critical injuries are becoming the norm for this talented Detroit team. Last year, with one of the most explosive offenses in NFL history, the Lions lost a car full of top players off their defense that depleted their stop unit and was no doubt a contributor to them losing their only postseason game while surrendering 45 points to the Washington Commanders.
In last week’s win over the Dallas Cowboys, a victory that kept them in the hunt for the NFC North Division title, Dan Campbell’s team suffered another injury to a key defensive player when safety Brian Branch went down with a season ending torn Achilles.