Remembering The Man Behind 'Tuesdays With Morrie'

Photo via Mitch Albom/Facebook

He was given a death sentence. But instead of wallowing in pity, or fear, Mitch Schwartz embraced the inevitability of death, and as his final lesson, helped other people accept it - and talk about it - too.

The Brandeis professor was given 12-14 months to live, diagnosed with ALS, and he used the opportunity to call others to him and talk about it.

Twenty years ago this month, The Boston Globe published a story by Jack Thomas about Schwartz that ricocheted into a series of interviews with Ted Koppel on Nightline, as well as the book (and later a movie) that becomes the best selling memoir of all time: “Tuesdays With Morrie.” The Boston Globe revisits this week Schwartz’s story, and the legacy it left.

Schwartz taught sociology at Brandeis University, and lived in Newton.

“Tuesdays With Morrie” stemmed from weekly visits with Schwartz from a former student to his home in Newton. Mitch Albom, who called the professor “Coach,” spent 16 weeks of weekly visits, which would later become the book that was rejected by multiple publishers.

Albom got the approval from Doubleday shortly before Shwartz death in 1995. Now, the book is still a top seller and used in schools, as are the Koppel interviews.

According to the Globe, Shwartz’s son Rob is working on two projects that focus on his dad: one a book Shwartz penned before his death, and he’s writing another about “the father the world didn’t know that might help explain Morrie’s wisdom honed over a lifetime.”

Albom’s website has pages dedicated to “Tuesdays With Morrie,” which spawned a series that includes “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” and “For One More Day.”

“Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague,” says Albom’s site. ”Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.”