I was 5 when the Detroit Lions last won the NFL championship. That was 1957, if you’re not keeping track.
When I was 9, my Dad and I were invited to a Lions practice session at what was then Briggs Stadium. (You may know it as Tiger Stadium.) When practice finished, a towel-draped Captain Joe Schmidt took me through the locker room, where I met all the players, and they signed my program. Confronted with, ah, undressed men who were twice my Dad’s size, I was a tad intimidated. Defensive tackle Alex Karras said something along the lines of, “What’s wrong with you, kid?” That annoyed Dad.
When NFL home games were blacked out on the host team’s local TV stations, a top corporate honcho at Chrysler, where Dad worked, and who lived far enough away to pick up a Toledo station, would sometimes invite us to watch a game. The kids were supposed to play elsewhere in the giant house while the grownups watched the game in a “family room.” I would slip in to catch bits of the game, and remember once an announcer shouting excitedly as running back Howard “Hopalong” Cassady made a touchdown run.
The last Lions game I saw live was in 1967. We were living in Cleveland. Dad got tickets to see the Lions and Browns, so he, my brother Peter and I drove to Detroit for the game. It was in the last weeks of the legendary 1967 American League pennant race, when the Tigers fought it out with the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox and the Minneapolis Twins. All through the game – now Tiger Stadium – the announcers called off the inning-by-inning scores. The Lions lost; I forgot if the Tigers won that day.
Me? Hey, on my freshman high school team in Westlake, Ohio, if the coach needed a tackling dummy, he knew who to call. Theoretically, I played defensive tackle in my “epic” Westlake career, and I based myself off Karras, who, though a smartass, was one of the greatest defensive tackles ever. So, when Schmidt cut Karras in 1970, I was so annoyed I swore off the Lions — who weren’t even that bad then — as well as all pro football. And so it has been
I admit it: I was an arrogant snot
Well, yeah, sure, of course, but … ah … I’m kinda confused. I mean, what happened to the team that gave me such heartburn and headaches that I walked away from them more than 50 years ago? Since the day Schmidt cut Karras from the team — and the Lions weren’t even that bad then — I have ignored not just the Lions, but pro football. And enjoyed blissful autumn Sundays.
I love football, but I focus on college ball (which, as a Michigan State alum, has had its own miseries and rapturous joys). I can’t tell you how many NFL teams there are or where they are located (when did Cleveland lose the Rams?) nor, candidly, have I cared. A friend once asked what I did on fall Sundays without football. Well, rake leaves, work in the yard, bake bread, listen to music, read — there are other things to do in this world.
