My Life as a Detroit Lions Fan

Nov. 16, 2008

It is every sports fan’s dream that their team will win a championship at least once in their lifetime. The Detroit Lions have won a championship in my lifetime. I was nine months old at the time. Some 51 years later I am still waiting for the Lions to win it all while I am consciously aware of it.
As of last week, the Lions were nine games into the season and had not won a game. In a half century of futility, where it has often been dire for my beloved team, it now looks bleaker than ever. With seven games left, the Lions have a tough schedule ahead of them. None of the teams they face have losing records this season and the Lions could possibly be the first team ever to lose all 16 games.
My dad, Bob Ivory, played for the Lions in 1947. He grew up in Detroit, was an All-American at the University of Detroit, and was a scout for the Lions from ’48 to ’57. It is hard to say if there is a direct cause and effect, but they haven’t won since my dad’s last year working for them.
My dad was a great guy and I grew up worshipping him and the Lions. The first game I was aware of was when I was four years old. My older brothers were crowded around a black and white television. The Lions were playing the Minnesota Vikings and I remember the announcer saying it was the Vikings first year playing, so it had to have been 1961.

MEMORIES
I went to my first game at Tiger Stadium when I was six. We would often run into other former Lions among the crowds streaming into the old stadium. Leon Hart, Jim Gibbons, Dick “Night Train” Lane – my dad knew them all and he would introduce me to them. They were big friendly giants. I had read all about them in the Detroit Free Press and the Football News, which was published out of Detroit and would come in the mail every week. I neatly stacked copies of the Football News on my desk in my bedroom. I memorized all the players’ names, numbers and their statistics. My dad would try to stump me on my knowledge, but seldom would. Sometimes he would use some of my more obscure stats to win bar bets.
In the ’60s the Lions were known for their defense with players like Alex Karras and Joe Schmidt, but they were a few years removed from their championship years and frustration was starting to set in. After a loss on a cold snowy day in December, the fans threw snowballs at the coach, Harry Gilmer, as he was leaving the field.
Joe Schmidt was the coach for the next five years. His teams only made the playoffs once, losing to Dallas by the rare football score of 5-0. He finished with a record of 43-35. He is the only Lion coach to finish with a winning record in all the time that I have been a fan. None of the coaches, other than Dick Jauron, who was an interim coach after Steve Mariucci was fired in 2005, have ever been hired as a head coach in the NFL again.

GLIMMERS OF HOPE
Since then, it has been years of mostly losing seasons, with a parade of coaches, changing at an average of one every three years. There have been glimmers of hope now and then. The Lions made the playoffs about a half a dozen times, but in 51 years, they have only won one playoff game. That was in ’91. The win put them one game from the Super Bowl. It felt surreal. I couldn’t believe it. The next week they were trampled by the Washington Redskins on a muddy field, losing 41-10.
The upside to the revolving door of coaches was that my dad was in the moving business. He estimated he moved in and out about 13 head coaches and 53 assistant coaches over the years. Rick Forzano, who had an upbeat, rah, rah style and lasted two and a half years as head coach, said he knew he was in trouble when he got a call from Bob Ivory. Also, in the Free Press around that time, I remember a writer referring to a new rookie running back as having “more moves than an Ivory van.”
So why have they been so bad? Many Lion fans blame William Clay Ford -- who has owned the team since 1964 -- for the Lions’ failures. Try as he might, he just can’t seem to hire the right people to get the job done. His commitment has been substantial, including building a new stadium in downtown Detroit. As an example of questionable priorities, I have heard some Lions fans say they hope things will get so bad for the Ford Motor Company, that he will have to sell the team.

ERA OF DISASTER
It was William Clay Ford, of course, that chose the well-regarded former player and TV commentator Matt Millen to run the team in 2000. Millen took the Lions from years of mediocrity into an era of unprecedented losing and disaster, culminating into the current state of the 2008 winless version of the team. At one time, fans would struggle to find analogies to describe the Lions, now the Lions are used as analogy by Jay Leno and the like to describe other failures.
There is a guy at a local beer store who will tell a joke when you buy something. He asked me: “Why won’t they give Grand Rapids a pro football team?” Answer: “If they do, Detroit will want one.”
So the next question is, why do I still pay attention to the Lions? No one else in my family does. Even my mother quit watching some years ago saying, “They play stupidly.”
There is, of course, the connection to my dad – who died in ’89 – that I can’t let go of, but also, it is still fun. Football is an exciting game. Although a game’s outcome might be more predictable with the Lions than with other teams, you never know what exactly will happen. I see sports as an exercise in loyalty. It is a process of submitting oneself to your team’s story, whatever shape it takes. Sadly, this year’s story is “Will they win a single game?”

LION FACTS:

• Matt Millen, who was finally fired this season after the Lions lost their first three games, had a penchant for hiring guys with the initial M in their names. First, Marty Morninweg, who went 5 and 27, then Steve Mariucci, followed by Rod Marrinelli. He also hired Mike Martz to run the offence. If he was so interested in alliteration, he should have considered the coaches Jimmie Johnson or Bill Bellichik who were available at the time and now have won six Super Bowls between them.

• There was actually one other Lion coach that left with a winning record since 1971. That was Gary Moeller who had four wins and three loses after taking over for Bobby Ross who quit in the middle of the season when he couldn’t take losing anymore. When Matt Millen was hired to run the team, his first move was to get rid of Moeller. The coaches Millen hired have gone 31 and 86, so far.
• After Millen took over, the Lions lost 24 straight road games, an NFL record. Even Millen described his tenure as “beyond awful, worthy of having one’s balls shot off.”

• The Lions have not won in Green Bay since Brett Favre became their quarterback. That’s 16 years in a row.

• Of all the NFL teams that have been playing since before the ‘60s, the Lions are one of two teams along with the Arizona Cardinals never to make it to the Super Bowl.

• Singer Marvin Gaye, more than anything else, wanted to play for the Lions. He tried out in 1970, but didn’t make the team. Lion greats Mel Farr
and Lem Barney sang background on his hit “What’s Going On?”
• In 1999 the Lions went into their last game of the year with a 7 wins and 8 loss record. With a win, they could finish at .500 and avoid a losing season. They won the game, became one of the rare teams to qualify for the playoffs with a .500 record and promptly got walloped by the Washington Redskins and finished the season 8-9.

• This one is really sad, but true. In 1971, a Lion, Chuck Hughes died of a heart attack at age 28 in the middle of a game. The Lions retired his number 85 and give an award every year to the most improved player on the team in his honor.

• Since 1961 the Lions have lost 92 more games than they have won.