My hometown of Detroit and my current home city of Los Angeles are about as similar as Aretha Franklin and Lady Gaga. There is one similarity in that both cities don’t have professional football teams. Ok, ok, I know the Lions “play” in Detroit, but they haven’t been relevant since the Eisenhower administration.
As summer slides into fall and football season starts up, my childhood pigskin memories come floating back to me like a Tom Brady pass to the corner of the end zone. There were the countless back yard, front yard, and school yard football games. There were sunny Saturdays listening to Michigan football announcer Bob Ufer. And there were frigid Sundays watching the NFL on the couch with my dad, a bowl of popcorn, sodas, and needlepoint.
Yes, needlepoint.
You see, my mother was more into pyramids than King Tut. If it could be sold with a pyramid-marketing scheme, she tried it. Tuperware? Totally. Avon? Always. She tried a powdered milk product called Meadowfresh. My sister and I called it Meadowbarf. She got into a clothing line called Queensway that had our living room looking MGM’s costume department. She eventually worked in computers and banking for a number of years, but she could never shake a good sales plan. She even sold May Kay cosmetics in her retirement years.
Ah, but the best one of all was a needlepoint company called Creative Expressions because she had cheap labor. If it could be made with a needle and thread, Creative Expressions sold it. Pillows, wall hangings, and coasters come readily to my mind. She needed a full supply of finished products before heading off to some neighbor’s house for a sales party. So, my dad and I were coerced into using our Sunday afternoons as a yarn-based work camp.
But we got to watch football, and lots of it. Da Bears, the Giants, the 49ers, and the Redskins were the power teams back then. So, while watching Lawrence Taylor, Walter Payton, Joe Montana, or John Riggins, I’d be working my fingers to the bone making coasters.
A young football fan in Detroit has to become a frontrunner at an early age. A frontrunner is a fan who roots for first-place teams. It’s an allowable act for a child, but not for an adult, because it’s, well, childish. I discovered the NFL in the late 70s when the Steelers and the Cowboys ruled the gridiron. Friends on my block were fans of one or the other. Allegiances were forged in iron, like auto parts built in a downriver factory.
I sided with the Steelers, and with hands as soft as feathers I could catch any Nerf ball thrown my way while dodging trees in Danny Emmons’ front yard or using Alec Rogers’ swing set as my end zone marker. I dreamt of catching balls like Lynn Swan or John Stallworth, tossed through blizzard-like conditions by quarterback Terry Bradshaw at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium. I knew the Steelers’ starting roster by heart, but even to this day I can’t name one player from the Lion teams of the same era.
I’ve been to two Lions games total, both against the Bears. My dad had a friend in Chicago who would come to see the Bears play in the Pontiac Silverdome. He would load up one of those giant 70s vans with his buddies and enough beer to stock a college dormitory. My dad took me along and I got to play football with other kids on the grass surrounding the stadium before the game. My dad’s only rule: Don’t tell your mother anything. Apparently, what happens in Pontiac stays in Pontiac.
Detroiters have to view the NFL differently than other sports such as baseball or basketball. The Lions don’t have any rivals, because they lose to everyone. Without a rival, I don’t have a team to dislike. But Lions “fans” also have to live without the hope and anticipation that each new season brings. It’s a benign existence. We don’t have any thrilling playoff wins to recollect. But neither are there any heart-breaking losses to haunt our football-watching history. We live with disclaimers and sympathy. Whenever I meet a new acquaintance and the chatting turns to football, I have to sheepishly say, “I’m from Detroit,” when asked which team I follow. The person will always say that they’re sorry, as is I’ve lost a loved one.
So I watch the NFL almost as an alien in a foreign land. I am unable to give my heart to a team with which I don’t have a geographical connection. I grew out of my childhood crush of the Steelers. I didn’t fall in love with the Rams before they left LA. Who in their right mind wants to be associated with the Raiders? I don’t front-run and claim allegiance with the Colts or the Saints.
How bad are the Lions? Since 1930, that’s 79 years of football, they’ve won 46 percent of their games. They’ve appeared in only 17 playoff games. They are one of only four teams to NOT play in a Super Bowl. Since 1978 when the NFL went to its current 16-game schedule the Lions have had only seven winning seasons. They won 42 games in the 2000s. The Colts won 115.
I feel sorry for the players the Lions draft. They’ve had the first or second draft choice in three of the last four years. Reciever Calvin Johnson, quarterback Matthew Stafford, and defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh would probably be standout performers if they were on better teams.
True to form the Lions lost to the Bears yesterday. Stafford got sent to the locker room with a bum shoulder. Johnson almost made a game-winning catch but had his touchdown taken away by a weird rule. Suh had a sack. But a loss is a loss.
Living in LA gives me plenty of things to do on a Sunday. Sometimes I’ll do something outside, or I can stay in and watch football. Mercifully, the Lions aren’t on TV in LA. Maybe someday, in the distant future, they will win a Super Bowl. If so, I’ll be ready to needlepoint a set of championship coasters.
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