I’ll start.
I’m 57 and have been a fan since 1977 when I started playing pee wee football. Grew up a hockey fan but started following the NFL in the 70’s.
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yep my grandpa would watch the tigers and lions, I’d say around 1976. they took me to disney in florida and we went to a spring training tigers game in lakeland, SRO and that started me up on sportsball.
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56
1973
Lem Barney, Altie Taylor, Mel Farr Charlie Sanders.
Rockne Freitas!
Steve Owens was gonna be The Next Big Thing!
Billy Sims WAS, until his knee disagreed.
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Billy Sims was the player that solidified my fandom. The Another One Bites the Dust era, all four weeks of it, were awesome. And then I was soon introduced to the SOL.
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I am currently 32 and have been watching the Lions obsessively during Mariucci’s first season. I first became a Lions fan when I was like 6 or 7 playing Madden, but never payed much attention to the actual games. I started watching some in the late 90’s, but it was sporadic.
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Just turned 52. Late ‘70’s teams with sims, hipple, danelson, that dominate dline… the usfl vs nfl days
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I’m as old as my tongue and slightly older than my teeth. Been watching them long enough to tell my children to pick another team when they were growing up.
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I’m 63. Detroit sports were on tv or radio in my house or my other close relatives/friends, all of my life, although, I didn’t really start getting into the Lions until 68.
Before that, my attention was devoted mostly to the Tigers and Wings. Baseball and Hockey were the first sports I played.
The older kid across the street and his buddies, (one of whom was Pat Sheridan) were football players, and they were the coolest kids in the neighborhood.
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So far, I’d be the oldest by far. Let’s just say I’ve been a fan since they put me on a little league team called the Tigers (1962) and that I was alive the last time the Lions won a championship. Alex Karras and Joe Schmidt were my earliest heroes until Lem Barney came along. I can remember watching the Lions get beat by Dallas 5-0 on a snowy B&W 10 inch TV with rabbit ears because our main TV needed a “new tube”. Yeah, I’m really old.
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It’s incredible how loyal Lions fans are. When I see stories about which fans deserve a championship and the Lions are not first, I have to laugh. The lowest lows are lower than even teams like the Browns.
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Yes, brother. The NFL was really hard to be devoted to at that time, especially if you were not “in market”. You could only get snippets of your team on local news if they happened to be one of the five or six games they showed highlights of on Sunday night sports. And thank God the Lions had the Thanksgiving tradition, which I made my Dad rush home for after we had to watch his high school team in person every year (BTW they produced Joe Theismann and Drew Pearson). We usually got home midway through the second quarter which was torture for me! Baseball was a little different, because there was a chance of your team being on the “game of the week” every Saturday over the long baseball season, and the Tigers usually were on at least two or three times a year. And you could also watch them another 5 or six times during the year when they played the Yankees on Channel 11 WPIX in New York. So baseball was much easier to follow especially if you were for a non-local team.
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I think MCDC gets it. When he talks about biting kneecaps, he’s channeling Lions fans frustration. This is not coach speak.
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Honest to God, my eyes got moist reading this. Very weird, I know, sorry.
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I’m 35 and I dont remember a time I wasnt a fan of the Lions. I have journal entries from my first grade class writing about the Lions.
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Only Lions game I ever attended was a Saturday night game with Billy Sims starting for Detroit.
Started mid 70’s
Turn 58 in next week.
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Hold my beer. I’m 73 and the first football game that registered for me was the 1957 NFL Championship game–which the Lions won 59-14 against the Cleveland Browns. Talk about bait and switch…
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Always been a fan. Started watching consistently probably when i was about 13 which was early Barry and the three headed QB battle era.
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I turn fiddy in four days.
Been a Lions fan since I remember. It started on Thanksgivings watching the game with dad, uncle and brothers. Billy Sims was the hook
Then the playoff win in 91 got me way more interested. I think I’ve watched every game now since the mid 90’s. The advent of posting boards and internet set the hook deeper. Being able to talk to other fans on the Freep and Mlive and argue about picks and study the draft added layers to this thing
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“So far” are two great words.
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51 in a couple weeks. Billy Sims got me hooked.
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