Mickey's Musings: Costco, SYI and Family
Welcome to Mickey's Musings, my weekly notebook where we skip the linear narrative and dive straight into three completely unrelated, but entirely fascinating storylines that are bouncing around in my head.
We’ve all been there: You head into Costco for toilet paper, but now you are standing in a traffic jam of oversized shopping carts because someone is handing out half a bite-sized pizza roll on a tiny paper plate. As you meander around the store eating samples you stumble across something that really hits your palate. Now there is this guilt where you have a deep psychological urge to buy a 3-pound tub of honey-garlic meatballs just because a nice person in a hairnet handed you one on a toothpick. You get home and realize these meatballs weren’t that good, but in the moment that small sample fooled you.
To me that’s similar to some of these Lions players. In the small sample size, they’re not bad. Tyler Lacy, Derrick Moore – and dare I say this aloud – Rodrigo – in small sample sizes they’re not bad. They can step in and give a guy a blow - let Hutch sit out for a play or two to catch his breath from all the double teams. Maybe Rodrigo comes in to allow Derrick Barnes a break on a short yardage situation and save a little on his body so he can do the things he is good at – cover and blitz. But, if we get to the point those guys are playing 50-60% of the snaps, or more, we’re in trouble. For example – Roger McCreary playing 97% of the snaps in any game is not a good thing. Small sample, sure – just not 97%.
The second item this week is SYI. SYI stands for Summer Youth Initiative. It is a program sponsored by our local Chamber of Commerce where companies hire high school students for the summer and their wages are paid out of a grant. Our agency participated in it for a number of years. They held a job fair in the spring where for an entire day we would have a multiple sessions of applicants come to interview with us for 90 minutes. Typically, we’d have a full classroom of 20-25 kids each time. Our strategy was to talk about what we do and then break into small groups of 7-10 kids where we would do group interviews and then compare notes. One of the questions I would ask the kids was “What kind of car best describes you and why?” Lots of times I’d hear things like “A Cadillac because I’m a classic” or “A red corvette or a Maserati because I’m quick” that type of thing. One time I had a student say, “I’m like a 1999 Chevy pickup because I’ve been beat up, but I’m dependable and I just keep rolling along doing what needs to be done.” I basically hired that kid on the spot.
I thought of that reference in regard to the Lions/Jets game. Things didn’t always go our way, but the Lions just kept rolling along and doing what needed to be done to come away with the win. Chuck Clark is in his 10th season in the NFL. When Dan Campbell gave him a game ball after the Jets win he said, “It’s hard as hell to win in this league, dawg. Let’s take advantage of this and next week go get another one.” That’s so true. Survive and move on.
The last item is family.
Honestly, I didn’t watch the Lions game live, as I was at Comerica Park. I actually went to all three games of the Justin Verlander celebration. He was my youngest daughter’s favorite player growing up and she made a very nice post on Facebook about us hanging out all weekend. We had daddy/daughter games and Friday and Saturday. Then on Sunday my wife as well as her husband and my 8 month old grandson joined us. I’m sure everyone reading isn’t just a Lions’ fan, but a sports fan, and you saw JV’s daughter come to the mound to take him out on Saturday. If you didn’t shed a tear watching that, you probably need to get checked out. That’s my point…From a fan standpoint, isn’t that what sports from are really about? The bonding and the experience? That’s where it’s at. I just turned 60, so I can honestly say I’ve been following sports for 50+ years. For the NHL, NBA, MLB and NFL – that’s easily 200 seasons combined of Detroit sports fandom. The Tigers won in 1984 when I graduated from high school. The Pistons won two with the Bad Boys and then again in 2006. In hockey we had the “Dead Things” for a lot of years until 1997 when they became the barometer for the NHL and won 4 Stanley Cups over 10 years. The Lions? We all know how many titles they’ve won. That adds up to 8 championships in 200 seasons. Suffice it to say, titles are few and far between. Even they fade as from about 1990-2005 the Tigers had a long lean stretch, the Wings haven’t made the playoffs since 2016 and the Pistons lost a whole lot of games between 2006 and the time Cade Cunningham came to Motown.
The thing that doesn’t go away? The bonds that develop.
We each have our own traditions. Whether that is putting on your Lions jersey to hang with your family for a few hours on the couch on a Sunday or piling in the car to head to Ford Field to tailgate before going into the game, or texting your family and buddies as each pass is completed or with each missed tackle. In the end, the bonding with your people, that’s what’s important. That is what football is all about.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOO LIONS!!!!!!!
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