ALMOST GREAT
SMOOTH SAILING
n Even without Spike Albrecht,
Michigan coasted to an easy win
over Delaware State. Page 4B
A guard, a grandpa
and the end of an era
W
hen Frank Brunski
Jr. passed away on
Sept. 1, 2012, he left
behind a wife of 50 years, three
children, 10 grandchildren, one
great-grandchild and a legacy of
hard work.
One of those grandchildren
— Spike Albrecht —
adopted that hard
work ethic.
Frank was a
lifelong Hoosier. He
was born in Gary,
Ind., in 1938 and
stayed put in that area
his whole life. For 43
years, he worked as
a bricklayer in the
steel mills of Indiana.
You could count the
number of days he missed work
on one hand. He missed even
fewer of his grandchildren’s
sporting events.
“He was unbelievable,”
Albrecht recalled. “He came to
everything. He was the grandpa
that was so supportive and
bragged about me, thought I was
the best thing since sliced bread.
That’s how our relationship was.
We got along great.”
Watching Grandpa Frank,
Spike learned a thing or two
about hard work. When Spike
was a senior in high
school, Frank came over
and built a deck for his
family’s pool.
Spike embodied that
sense of hard work and
determination. He went
from having no college
basketball offers after
graduating high school
to a full-ride scholarship
to Michigan a year later,
after playing one season
in prep school.
When Grandpa Frank passed
away the week before Albrecht
started classes at Michigan, he
kept quiet about it. It tore him up
on the inside, but he had a college
basketball career to begin — one
most people never thought he
would have.
“I never wanted people to feel
sorry for me or anything like
that,” Albrecht said. “But it was
something that was just tough to
deal with.”
That’s Spike. He doesn’t want
to talk about himself. He doesn’t
want your sympathy. He just
wants to do his thing and go home.
So Friday — when he
announced that due to injuries
he would end his career with
Michigan — he was out of his
comfort zone. He was forced to
talk about himself, his time at
Michigan and his future.
Asked about his legacy, he
paused.
“That’s a tough question. I
don’t like talking about myself,”
Albrecht said. “I think that I
showed people you can’t ever let
someone tell you what you can or
can’t do. You know, my whole life
I was told I wasn’t good enough,
I wasn’t big enough, I wasn’t
strong enough, fast enough —
things like that. But I never really
let that faze me. And I always just
tried to go out there and prove
people wrong.”
For three and half years, that’s
what he did at Michigan. He
proved people wrong. His legacy
won’t be in his stat line, it’ll be in
everything you don’t see in the
box score.
Forget the 17 points in the
National Championship Game
in 2012. Forget the postgame
tweet to Kate Upton. Forget the
acrobatic pass to Aubrey Dawkins
against Illinois in the Big Ten
Tournament last year. Forget the
3s from deep, the circus passes
and the gritty defense.
Remember this: With Michigan
up 19 points in the second half
against Houston Baptist last
Saturday, Albrecht hit the deck
in an attempt to get a loose-ball
rebound. The ball went out of
bounds and Albrecht slapped the
floor with his right hand.
Michigan didn’t need that
rebound — it went on to win,
82-57 — but Albrecht wanted it.
So, with 12:10 left in the route of
the Huskies, Albrecht laid out,
new hips be damned.
Remember this: During
Michigan’s Final Four run
his freshman year, he was
simultaneously working on a
group project for school. He
never missed a meeting or an
assignment. His group got an A.
Remember this: When he
comes home from Michigan, he
goes into his mom’s second-grade
class and reads to her students.
Spike Albrecht — Michigan
basketball royalty — hangs out
with second graders when he
goes home.
And most importantly,
remember this: Spike Albrecht
cared. He cared when he hit the
deck for loose balls, when he’d
smile with a fan for a photo and
when he went back home and sat
in a second-grade classroom.
There was never an ego with
Spike. He was never bigger than
the game. And because of that, in
Spike, we saw ourselves. He was
the little engine that could, and
with him on the court, anything
was possible.
He left Michigan the same
way he came into the program,
with humility and gratitude.
After his press conference
Friday, he got up from his
seat, pushed his chair back in,
shook a few hands and — as
he walked out the door — said
thank you to everyone.
With the help of a work ethic
he learned from his grandpa,
Spike Albrecht made his dream
come true.
Grandpa Frank never got to
see him play college basketball,
but he would have been damn
proud if he had.
BSportsMonday
The Michigan Daily | December 14, 2015
“I think that I
showed people
you can’t ever let
someone tell you
what you can or
can’t do. ... I always
just tried to go out
there and prove
people wrong.”
FAREWELL, SPIKE
n The Michigan hockey team nearly
rallied for a series sweep of Minnesota
on Saturday night. Page 3B
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
SIMON
KAUFMAN