BYU law professor fighting ALS

There are times, Michael Goldsmith laughs, when his students at Brigham Young University's law school are sure he is hiding in the witness protection program.

How else to explain a tough-talking Jewish lawyer from Queens, N.Y., at the mostly all-Mormon school in Provo, Utah?

"I think they were sure of it when I went back east to testify against John Gotti," says Goldsmith, who prior to coming to Utah had served as legal counsel to the New York State Organized Crime Task Force.

As is usually the case, the real story is less exotic: In 1985, looking for wide-open spaces and a home on the range, Goldsmith purposely — and without any nudges from the mob — looked to relocate to the West for "lifestyle reasons." A lawyer with experience not only in dealing with organized crime, but as a federal prosecutor and as a legal counsel to the United States Congress, he contacted both the University of Utah and BYU about teaching positions.

BYU, it turned out, had an opening — and Goldsmith's students have been buzzing about his background ever since.

But if there were any truth to the rumor, the law professor definitely blew his cover this week.

Turn to page 22 in the current edition of Newsweek magazine, and there, sandwiched between the historic news of Barack Obama's presidential victory, is a photograph of Goldsmith in a baseball uniform next to a bylined article by Michael Goldsmith of Heber City.

In the accompanying essay, Goldsmith reveals that he has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS for short — known to most of us as Lou Gehrig's disease.

The lawyer makes an appeal to America, and to organized baseball in particular, to find a cure for the progressively paralyzing neuromuscular disorder that leaves no survivors.

Our next Independence Day, he points out, will mark the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's famous farewell speech at Yankee Stadium, where the baseball great told of the illness he was suffering from that would subsequently take both his life and his name.

Since then, Goldsmith points out, "More than 600,000 Americans have shared Gehrig's fate, as medical science has made virtually no progress toward finding a cure.

"Why not make July 4, 2009, ALS-Lou Gehrig Day?" he asks. "Dedicate this grim anniversary to funding research for a cure; every major- and minor-league stadium might project the video of Gehrig's farewell, and teams, players and fans could contribute to this cause. An event of this magnitude has the potential to raise millions."