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In 1999, Albom was named National Hospice Organization's Man of the Year.
In 2000, at the Emmy Awards, Albom was personally thanked by actor Jack Lemmon during his acceptance speech for his Emmy for Best Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries for Tuesdays With Morrie. It would be Lemmon’s last major acting role.
In February 2003, Albom was called to testify at Chris Webber's perjury trial. Webber had been a member of the University of Michigan's basketball teams of the early 1990s. He was a member of the "Fab Five" players, the subject of a book by Albom. Webber and three other Wolverines who played in the 1990s were alleged to have received over $290,000 in improper loans from a man considered to be a booster of the University of Michigan, although amounts were never verified. The four other Fab Five members were not implicated and the school was cleared of any direct involvement or knowledge of the loans, which were made to players and their families.
In 2005, Albom and four editors were briefly suspended from the Detroit Free Press after Albom filed a column that stated two college basketball players were in the crowd at an NCAA tournament game, when in fact they were not. In a column printed in the Sunday, April 3, Albom described two former Michigan State basketball players, both now in the NBA, attending an NCAA Final Four semifinal game on Saturday to cheer for their school. The players had told Albom they planned to attend, so Albom, filing on his normal Friday deadline but knowing the column could not come out until Sunday – after the game was over - wrote the players were there. The Detroit Free Press also suspended the four editors who had read the column and allowed it to go through to print. But the players' plans changed at the last minute and they did not attend the game. Albom was in attendance at the game, but the columnist failed to check on the two players’ presence.
On November 22, 2005, Albom was the sole and final guest on Ted Koppel's farewell appearance on ABC’s Nightline. Koppel had gotten to know Albom through his broadcasts with Morrie Schwartz and the final program dealt with the legacy of those shows and Albom’s book.
In October, 2006, Albom’s third novel, For One More Day was chosen as the first book to be sold in Starbucks. At Albom’s request, one dollar from each book went to Jumpstart, a charity created to aid literacy in underprivileged areas. On a single day, October 26, as part of the promotion, customer-led book discussions were held in stores in 25 major markets, and Albom spoke, via phone, with all of them.
On October 22, 2007, Albom appeared with former New York Governor Mario Cuomo and Tony Bennett in “An Evening with Tony Bennett” to honor the release of Bennett’s Tony Bennett In The Studio: A Life of Art and Music, for which Albom wrote the foreword. The event was held at the Barnes & Noble Store in Union Square, New York
On May 30, 2008, Albom delivered the commencement address at his nephew’s high school graduation in Nice, France. In July of that year, Amazon.com released the speech exclusively on Amazon Kindle. Albom’s shares of the proceeds were donated to his charity for the homeless, S.A.Y. Detroit.
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