Flint Artifacts: Flint Central High School Coach Howard Auer Appreciation Trophy

Rust Belt Super Bowl

It's official. The Detroit Lions are not the worst team in the NFL.

Detroit Lions 38
Cleveland Browns 37

Flint Portraits: Mark Ingram

Flint Southwestern grad Mark Ingram, now a running back at Alabama, is being mentioned as a Heisman Trophy candidate.

Ray Glier of The New York Times reports:

“Little Mark,” as he was known by his family growing up around Flint, Mich., recently called his maternal grandfather, Art Johnson, who was a running back at Michigan State in the late 1950s, and asked him how to stiff-arm the talk about the Heisman, college football’s top individual award. Ingram seems suspicious of fame’s grip, almost as if it helped bring down his father.

“He told me, ‘Grandpa, I’m just a sophomore, there are better players on this team, this shouldn’t be happening,’ ” Johnson recalled in a telephone interview. “He said he just wants to win a championship.”

Finally

The Detroit Lions win!

Logo-riffic

In the discussion of the Detroit Lions new logo, I forgot to highlight my favorite version. It has a childlike simplicity mixed with a hint of seventies-era automotive badging, despite the fact it was dropped as the primary logo in 1969. And unlike the most recent incarnation, this lion doesn't look like he needs to lose a few pounds. Not sure it would work on a helmet, but I still think this is the best of the bunch.

The Detroit Lions: Shimmering Silver Glitter

Hey, the Detroit Lions have a new logo, which looks more like a wolf or a San Jose SabreCat than a Lion to me. (For the record, I've worked in San Jose and I can safely say that no matter how bad things get in Motown, it will never be as bad as San Jose.) The new proprietary font is cleverly called “NFL Lions” and, as you can see above, it is one ugly ass font. In fact, that font is far more offensive to me than last year's 0-16 season.




Now it's easy to poke fun at the Lions, like the folks at Real Clear Sports did with their suggestion that the team adopt a new Cowardly Lion logo.


But I'm trying to be constructive when I suggest that the Lions should take the opportunity to connect with Detroit history (Stroh's Brewery) and a favorite pastime of seemingly all Michiganders (drinking beer) and simply adopt the Stroh's Beer lion as their official mascot. As you can see below, the Stroh's lion has a cool crown and what appears to be either a pair of nunchucks or two lead pipes, which the Detroit football team can obviously use. Granted, later versions of the Stroh's lion indicate he traded in the weapons for a college diploma and some sort of butter-churn implement, but let's ignore that.




Of course, even if you don't like the new redesign, it can't be as bad as the 1980-81 upgrade: "The Lions changed the dull silver stripes and trim on their uniforms to a shimmering silver glitter. This only lasted two seasons because of complaints by other teams about the glare."

Whaley Park Revisited

A drive up Franklin Avenue to Whaley Park can be a sobering experience these days. The St. Mary's football team used to jog up Franklin in full pads for football practice. The Wildcats also played their home games at the park. This was where Coach Sam Isaac held sway. It's good to know the goal posts are still standing, even if one of the crossbars is made out of yellow twine.

Bone-Breaking Tackles

This picture pretty much sums up my football career in Flint. It was taken in the St. Mary's cafeteria when we celebrated our 6-0 season in 8th grade. (Yes, those are purple converse with gold laces.) Bill Suttles is responsible for the broken arm. And Pat McGinnis did the honors in freshman football the next year at Powers. Same broken arm after the same pathetic arm tackle. Thankfully, soccer was added at Powers, saving me from further injury and humiliation.

Spring Practice

UM-Flint may not have a football team yet, but it does have a football club.

Running Quarterback

Are the Detroit Lions cursed? The fate of fugitive ex-QB Jeff Komlo would indicate they are.

The Thanksgiving Mud Bowl

Tom Foote, the official Flint Northern Viking, at halftime of the 1967 Thanksgiving Day game.

To help us celebrate Thanksgiving, Randy Gearhart passed along some great shots of the 1967 Thanksgiving Day game at Atwood Stadium between the Northern Vikings and the Central Indians. For obvious reasons, it came to be known as The Mud Bowl.

The endzone at Atwood.

Two minutes after a completing a fourth-quarter, 43-yard pass play that put the Vikings in scoring position, All-State co-captain William Wallace heads toward the end-zone to seal the 6-2 victory.

Before he was “The Church Guy,” Randy was Drum Major for the 1967-68 Flint Northern Viking Marching band. "You should have seen my white uniform after the Thanksgiving Day game!" he says. "Not a pretty sight."

For more memories of Flint Northern in 1968, head to www.68vikings.com.

Turkey Day Gridiron Memories

Northern's Art Johnson hauls in a 50-yard game-winning touchdown pass on fourth-and-19 in the 1953 Turkey Day showdown with Central

Now that we're into November, you may find yourself missing the old Northern Vs. Central Thanksgiving Day football games. Thanks to former Flint Journal reporter and editor Larry Gustin you can relive some of the action from Atwood on DVD and help restore the old stadium at the same time.

Larry explained the genesis of the project in a post on mlive last year:

"When I learned there was a group trying to restore Atwood Stadium, I thought it would be cool to offer up a few of the great Northern-Central high school Thanksgiving games on DVD as part of the momentum, maybe for fund raising. After all, those classic football games made Atwood the city's center of attention along with IMA Auditorium.

"I remembered some of the old Northern-Central films were gathering dust atop a file cabinet in The Journal sports department when I worked there 1960-63 (I was then in the news room until 1984). When I asked about the films in conversation with Len Hoyes and Dean Howe, they hadn't seen them in years. Turns out, they were in the bottom of a file drawer. So when I mentioned those old films to Journal sports writer Dan Nilsen at the Buick Open last summer, he said he knew where they were and brought them out to me at Warwick Hills."

Ken, a regular reader, has made an order and, although the footage isn't state-of-the-art, he thought it was well worth the cost. Besides, it will probably be more fun than watching the Lions.

Here's all the ordering information:

Games available: 1938, 1942, 1951, 1952, 1953 (the color 1953 film has edited highlights and added sound), 1955, 1956, 1957 (first half only), 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1964 (second half only), 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 (second half only), 1973 (first half only), 1974, 1975, 1976.* No others available at this time (summer 2008).

Each film is available on DVD for $25 plus shipping and handling.
Half of price goes to Atwood Stadium Authority for stadium restoration fund.

Order by phone or mail:

VIDCAM Productions
7550 S. Saginaw St., Suite 1
Grand Blanc, Mich. 48439
Phone (810) 694-0996
Contact: Craig Smith (craig@vidcamproductions.com)

Please note films were transferred to DVD as found. Some are in black & white, some in color, quality varies, perhaps not every play is recorded. In some cases, as noted, only half of the game is available. VIDCAM was chosen by the Authority to handle orders.

We want more game films! Did anyone you know shoot amateur film of Thanksgiving games not listed above? Do you have or know of an official game film? We have a few segments of other games, and want any you may have of Northern-Central games played on Thanksgiving (1928-1976). We particularly want 1947, 1949, 1950, even if it’s only a few feet.

Football Homecoming

Courtney Hawkins, former Michigan State wide receiver and a nine-year NFL veteran, has returned to Beecher High School to coach the football team.

Shawn Windsor of The Detroit Free Press writes:

"Hawkins thinks of Beecher as a state of mind; it is also a 5-square-mile rectangle on the outskirts of metropolitan Flint. It is a place that is, in some ways, unrecognizable to Hawkins, who graduated from Beecher High when the town still survived on the auto industry.

"Since he left for college, Beecher has lost its McDonald's, its Wendy's, its Arby's, its Kmart. 'All that is left are party stores selling liquor and Lotto tickets,' said Brenda Bauer, whose 15-year-old son, sophomore Matt Bauer, plays offensive tackle for Beecher.

"When Hawkins was winning state championships in basketball and track in the middle and late 1980s, some 900 students attended Beecher High School. This year, only 455 students are enrolled. That high school is now shuttered, an empty shell home to crickets, pigeons and weeds, except for Hawkins' office, which the district keeps open because the gym and lockers are used for sports, as is the football field that's still on the property.

"High school students were shipped to the middle school, where a metal detector is the first thing they see every morning.

"'It's sad,' said Hawkins, not sure what else to say."

Beecher is currently 7-3. The Bucs play their final game Saturday against St. Charles.