The National Football League Detroit Lions are a team with a long storied history that began almost 85 years ago.
The team was originally based in Portsmouth, Ohio (east of Cincinatti) and the name of the team was the Portsmouth Spartans. They began playing in 1929 as an independent professional team and would join the NFL a year later in 1930 because of the Great Depression.
Spartans Uniforms
The Spartans had great success within the NFL, however Portsmouth was a very small city to have an NFL team in and the team would be sold and moved in the 1934 season to a bit larger city: Detroit, Michigan.
Spartan Stadium, in Portsmouth, OH (recent)
The team played at Navin Field, later known as Briggs Stadium, and later on Tiger Stadium through the 1974 season.
The Lions won four NFL Championships, tied for 9th overall in total championships amongst all 32 NFL franchises, and have had a couple of the not-so-good noteable things within the NFL.
The first is the fact that the last championship that the team won was in 1957. This span of time gives the notariety of the second-longest NFL Championship drought (as of the 2012-2013 season) behind the Arizona Cardinals. The second is the designation of being the only team to ever have a winless season of 0-wins and 16-losses for the 2008 NFL season.
1950's Aerial of Briggs Stadium where the Lions played
As of December 2013, they are only one of four current teams to never have played in the SuperBowl since that ultimate contest has only been played since Super Bowl I on January 15, 1967, following the 1966 regular season.
The Detroit Lions made a commitment to bring the pride of Detroit back to Downtown Detroit in building Ford Field. In keeping this commmitment, they also decided to build a new training and practice facility here in Allen Park, MI.
The facility was designed in order to have no rival in the league and be the envy of all the other teams in its magnatude and functionality.
It was built on a 22.7-acre parcel of land and the facility construction broke-ground in August of 2000 and was completed almost a year and a half later in 2002.
Dec. 10 1957: Game against the Cleveland Browns
where Detroit won the game, 20-7 and placed the
Western Division of the National Football League
into a three-way tie.
Total cost for the facility was around $33.5 million and encompasses around 460,000 square feet and includes 3-1/2 practice fields (1 outdoor, 2.5 indoor), training/weight room, meeting rooms and offices including a library, studio and 103-seat auditorium for press conferences and team meetings.
Once it was completed, the team and personnel moved in and were greeted by the 23'x26' mural at the main entrance depicting nine of the Lions team members who have been inducted into the Football Hall of Fame.
The building is environmentally friendly, and was built with renewable and recyclable products such as bamboo flooring, latex paint, and rubber floors throughout the facility.
Roary
It's a sight to behold.... and if you listen carefully,
you may see a Lions player or two....
And if you're lucky... you might even hear them roar.