ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Michael Busch, a champion of the Chesapeake Bay and progressive causes during his record-tenure as Maryland's Democratic House speaker, battled for the environment up until the end of his life. He died Sunday at age 72.
Here are five things you didn't know about him:
1) Mike Busch was a serious NFL running back prospect before a knee injury ended his football career at Temple University.
2) Busch resisted the expansion of slot machine gambling in Maryland but few knew that his father had abandoned his family to move to Las Vegas where the elder Busch descended into gambling addiction and personal ruin.
“It’s a mystery that no one will ever know the answer to,” Mr. Busch told The Washington Post. “He never saw my mother again. He never saw any of my sisters. I tell you, I have a real tough time talking about it.”
3) In his younger days, Busch could be a hothead as a high school football coach. According to the Washington Post, during one 1978 game when his football team was tied, The Post reported, he gave a half-time pep talk that was more tough than love. “Fellas, let me tell you this: I don’t care if I go to jail, I don’t care what happens, but if we lose this game, none of you are riding home on the bus,” Mr. Busch recalled saying. He then threw a bunch of coins against the wall. “I said, ‘You better go over there and get a quarter so you have something to call your parents with, because you will not ride home with me if we lose this game.’ ”
4) When he wasn’t serving as one of the most powerful leaders in Maryland, Busch spent decades overseeing the youth athletics program in the Anne Arundel County parks and recreation department. He retired in 2018.
5) In 2017 Busch survived a living donor liver transplant with one of his sisters as a donor. Busch's physicians at the University of Maryland Medical Center diagnosed him with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a form of liver disease, that Busch said had been caused by a toxic reaction to a skin cancer medication.
Busch died Sunday in a Baltimore hospital of pneumonia, a complication of his serious health issues. He was 72