Focus on the play-by-play.

My dad and I didn't have the best relationship when I was younger.

He was tough on me as a kid.

But my fondest memories of time with my dad centered around our favorite football team,

the Detroit Lions.

My dad is from Michigan.

My mom is from North Carolina.

The only sports I was ever allowed to watch were teams from Detroit, though I grew up in Arizona and North Carolina.

We watched the bad boys, Detroit Pistons, and basketball, and the Red Wings and hockey, who were horrible at the time and didn't get any traction until the 90s.

And so, of course, for football, it was the Lions, who sucked until 89. That is when Barry

Sanders was drafted. Every Sunday, my pops and I would go to the bar around the corner from our

house to watch the Lions play. These were the days of the satellite dish. We couldn't afford to

bolt one onto our roof in our home in Arizona, and forget the subscription fee for the football package, too.

There was just no money for that.

So my dad and I would meet his buddy, another lion fanatic, at a crappy little pub with an aging bar lined with swivel bar stools, which were a highlight for a kid.

They knocked back beers, and I drank my soda as we watched the Lions play.

The bar also laid out salty peanuts in their shells in the community bowls. We cracked them,

ate the nuts, and threw the shells on the floor. I became a hardcore Barry Sanders fan from the

moment I watched his first game against the Arizona Cardinals in 1989 when he ran for about 71 yards.

Here he goes. Whoa, look at him go. He's still going. We screamed at the screen.

Watching the Lions was a tradition even after we moved to North Carolina. Eventually, we did get a

satellite dish on the side of our trailer, complete with a direct TV package so we can watch

...