Detroit Lions, the cursed path of the losing NFL team and the family redemption of Henry Ford’s great-granddaughter

The city of Detroitthe automotive giant ford and the Lionsone of the most popular teams in the NFL, they are practically the same. But it wasn’t always like this. Everything has a beginning, even if this beginning bore a sign of bad omen: it arrived bathed in lead and blood, on one of the saddest days in the history of United States of America.

Henry Fordthe mind behind the mythical FordT and the serial chains that revolutionized production industrial, was born in 1863 on a very poor farm on the outskirts of Detroit, and moved to the great capital of the state of Michigan only at the age of 16, three years after the death of his mother and ignoring his father’s request. With that decision he escaped a fate that saw him among cows, chickens and horses; something her great-granddaughter would end up repeating Sheila Ford Hampa century and a half later.

The creation of Ford Companyin 1903, He elevated Detroit to the automotive cradle of the United States and the city became the fourth largest in the country behind New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, enjoying and suffering economic variables that would influence each decade. In between, and with the same ups and downs, the soccer.

It was the 1930s when the Portsmouth Spartans, Ohio, failed to escape the Great Depression and had to be sold to Detroit to be renamed the Lions. Sports things in those lands, marked by numbers and finances. In 1935 they won their first championship and in the 1950s they added three more, in 1952, 1953 and 1957.

There were a few years left before the birth of NFL as we know it today, with its Super Bowl circus and its millionaire television contracts, and it was a little less so until the arrival of the Fords, which occurred on a date remembered throughout the world but for reasons beyond our control. sports.

On November 22, 1963, William Clay Ford (father) He paid $4.5 million and became the Lions’ majority shareholder, but the next day’s headlines in Detroit would be different. While Henry’s grandson launched his new personal (and commercial) project, 1,900 kilometers away, on the streets of Dallas, a merciless shooting ended the life of President John F. Kennedy.

The so-called “Kennedy curse” also ended up hitting the Lions, who under Ford’s command stopped being that team accustomed to titles to win only one playoff game in the next 60 years and became the second franchise with the most defeats in history. NFL, with 710, surpassed only by the Arizona Cardinals.

Additionally, they are one of four teams that have failed to reach the Super Bowl, let alone win it.

In the 2000s, the Lions hit rock bottom: tired of the constant pallor, the fans organized themselves pickets AND marches on the streets of Detroit to ask for the heads of the coaches and team executives, and the most fanatics went to the show Ford Field Stadium (opened in 2001) with cardboard bags on their heads, as a sign of shame for what the team has generated for them.

The worst has arrived 2008when they closed the season with 16 losses and no wins, an unprecedented record in the Super Bowl era and only equaled some time later by the Cleveland Browns, in 2017. Being the first to “do it” meant that the automaker’s team took immediately considered him “the worst in history”, subjected to all kinds of ridicule and with references that have also reached The Simpsonsa reflection of American culture.

Everything started to change in June 2020 for the Lions, when Martha Firestone Ford He handed over management of the franchise to his daughter Sheila. At 94 years old, the granddaughter of the founder of refractory stone and widow of the grandson of the creator of the ford, ended her brief tenure that began in 2014 after the death of her husband, who purchased the Lions on the day of Kennedy’s death in 1963. William Clay Ford (junior), the only son of her four children, remained dependent of the car manufacturer. It looks like a chapter of Successionand maybe that’s why the Detroit crowd treats them like royalty.

Led by Sheila, the Lions concentrated on putting business aside and recovering the love for American football, a value they had lost after the arrival of Ford (father), who always seemed to consider the franchise as an asset in the his colossal company, where around 200 thousand people work and which this year, until October, had accumulated almost 5 billion dollars in profits.

THE Great granddaughter by Henry Ford honored the inventor of the automobile who changed the world and was concerned with forging his own path from an early age. In 1973, when she was 22, she became one of the first 177 women to graduate from Yale, the conservative university where her father had studied, and she did so with honors. She played tennis semi-professionally while studying sports education and management, waiting for a chance in the NFL, when the league still had no room for women.

To tell the truth, American football is still a man’s game: of the 32 NFL teams, only six have a woman at the helm, a true caste that is not only accessible to millionaires, but is almost always long-lived, heterosexual and white. .

“I will not interfere, but I intend to be informed,” was the mantra or warning the new Lions boss, 72, gave to his staff. Her message was clear from the first moment: with her, the Lions family became more important than the Ford family.

Change doesn’t happen overnight in the NFL, and Sheila had a rocky start, dealing with several setbacks, losses and incidents she wasn’t used to. In June 2021, for example, you gave a speech at the stadium that bears your name with the atmosphere of an audience that welcomed you with whistles AND whistleswhich he endured with a stoicness that would have been a source of pride to his ancestors.

That year, with the arrival of Jared Goff, a quarterback who promised to be a star of the Los Angeles Rams but was discarded and criticized for having lost a Super Bowl, begins to show good signs: he finishes with a record of 3 wins, 13 losses and a draw; who has grown significantly in 2022, with 9 wins, 8 falls and positive numbers after five years.

With the support of two ancient symbols of Lions, Daniel Campbell as a coach and Chris Spielmann in the position of CEO, the new Lions of Sheila Ford They have a record of 11 and 4 in 2023, and this week celebrated their first division title since 1991, which secured them a direct ticket to the playoffs in January.

Raised in one of the most famous entrepreneurial families on the planet, the Ford team owner can already consider herself exhausted with the budget that will close her year. But Sheila has already lowered the threshold: her dream is to finally win a Super Bowl, what she called her “noble cause” for “the city of Detroit, the fans, the state and everyone who has supported the Lions for so many years” . “years”.

After all, and a lot, Detroit, Ford and the Lions are still the same.