In my two-and-a-half years at Last Word on Sports, I’ve always believed strongly that a writer should remain objective in his or her work. I’ve also believed that a writer shouldn’t make himself and his life a central focus of his discourse. After all, the athletes, and not the media, are the news-makers, and they are the basis for what we do as journalists. It’s like my father always used to say; “the media’s job is to report the news, not create it.” Since the day I became a NFL writer, I’ve made it a personal rule to try to avoid cramming personal opinions, anecdotes, and biases into my columns.
Today, however, I simply must violate my own rule.
Thank You, Calvin Johnson; On Megatron and My Father
With the news of Calvin Johnson’s retirement breaking earlier this week, it would be impossible for me to write a column free of objectivity and personal opinion. I can’t avoid emotion and I can’t eschew my personal connection to this story. The fact of the matter is that I live approximately ten minutes from Detroit and my connection to the city is strong. I can step outside my house and see the Detroit skyline in the distance. While I love the game of football, and enjoy reporting on the NFL as a whole, I am a Lions fan first and foremost. Honolulu blue is in my blood.
Sports have been a big part of my life ever since I was a small child. I have my dad to thank for that. He was an excellent athlete and former championship-winning high school coach, and sports have always been a central focus of his life. I’m fairly certain I had baseball bats and hockey sticks in my hand by the time I was able to stand.
Throughout my childhood and teen years I played and followed almost every sport with one notable exception: football. Sure, I knew a little bit about the game, and I knew my dad was a Lions fan, but I hardly ever watched it on T.V. We would go to the occasional game and I always enjoyed it, but the spark just hadn’t been lit yet.
That all changed in 2007.
I sat on my couch on April 28th of that very year and watched the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft with my parents, and I nearly jumped for joy when the hometown Lions selected Georgia Tech wide receiver Calvin Johnson. While I didn’t know a whole lot about professional or college football at the time, what little I’d seen of him jumped off the screen.
It didn’t take a genius to see what Lions fans were getting: a generational talent. Standing 6’5″ and weighing nearly 240 pounds, Calvin had 4.35 speed and could practically jump out of a gymnasium; an athlete so unique and special, that he was sure to change the way the world looked at the wide receiver position. That was it. I was hooked. And so began my love affair with the NFL.
From that point on, football became an obsession for my family. We’d watch almost every NFL game we could, my dad and I would have hours-long discussions about what the Lions could do to improve in the off-season, and we even started playing fantasy football in the process. The Lions and the NFL were on our minds more than you could possibly imagine.
We rode the highs and suffered the lows. We were fans in the truest sense of the word, and the more we watched, the more Calvin Johnson continued to jump off the screen. Nicknamed “Megatron” by former Lions receiver and teammate Roy Williams, Calvin became a dominant force in the league in no time, routinely blowing past defenders and out-jumping triple coverage to make circus catches that perennially populated highlight reels around the world.
To be sure, it didn’t take long for Megatron to become a household name, and even when the Lions struggled, his play was always a reason for continued optimism. In a lot of ways, he kept Detroit in the NFL spotlight. In no time he became the consensus best wide receiver in the league and people from all over the country were tuning into Lions games to watch him dominate.
Calvin Johnson was all you could want from the face of an NFL franchise. An elite talent, humble, and dignified, he always represented the organization with pride and class, even in the face of some difficult seasons. You would never see him lose his cool, or make a spectacle of himself. His confidence was quiet, and his play spoke for itself.
Over the course of his nine NFL seasons, he made so many terrific memories for my family that I couldn’t begin to name them all. One, however will stand out for the rest of my life.
Without question, my favorite “Megatron Moment” is even more special to me today than it was when I first experienced it. It was December 22nd, 2012. We had a running tradition of going to a Lions game around my birthday almost every season, and this particular year we happened to have tickets to a Saturday night showdown against the visiting Atlanta Falcons. This was a significant time for the franchise because Johnson was chasing history. Entering the Week 16 contest needing 182 receiving yards to break Jerry Rice’s single season yardage record of 1,848, Calvin was clearly on pace to re-write the record books.
My dad, my brother, and I were pumped for the game, and while we thought it would be amazing to see him break the record in person, we assumed the record would fall in Week 17 versus the Chicago Bears. You just don’t ordinarily see a wide receiver rack up 182 yards in one game.
But Calvin Johnson is no ordinary wide receiver.
That night, in front of a raucous Detroit crowd, Megatron caught 11 passes for 225 yards, smashing the record and sending us into a frenzy of excitement. In typical Calvin Johnson fashion, he quickly made his way over to the sideline, handed the ball to his father, Calvin Sr., and returned to the field to get back into the fray. No frills. No excessive celebration. Just modesty and work ethic.
Certainly, that moment belonged to Calvin and his father. But up in the rafters, it felt very much like the moment belonged to my dad and me as well. We had witnessed our favorite athlete achieve one of the most important records in football together. It was special. It was emotional. It was meaningful.
It’s even more meaningful now.
Last July, my dad passed away. It was the most painful experience of my life and I don’t think I’ll ever truly get over it. It’s not something I’m usually comfortable talking about, but this is absolutely one of the best platforms to discuss his memory.
In the last eight-plus years of his life, my dad and I uncovered our shared passion for football. Though our time together on this planet was relatively short, we crammed more father-son moments into that time than most men get with their dads in a lifetime, and I am truly grateful for that. Our love of football and our Detroit Lions was a key bonding ingredient. We talked about it almost every day. He took pride in reading my columns. We even talked about fantasy football the last day I ever saw him.
Watching the 2015 NFL season unfold without him sitting there in his regular chair was absolutely surreal. While I may never watch another Lions game with him again in his earthly form, I will always hold onto the cherished memories of the past. Memories that I wouldn’t have were it not for Calvin Johnson.
Life is strange sometimes, but it’s important to remember that the world around us is always changing, even if we wish that weren’t the case. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my dad, and to a much lesser extent I’m not ready to say goodbye to the career of one of my heroes.
I will always remember Calvin’s time in the NFL for a litany of reasons. A lot of young Lions fans grew up on Barry Sanders. I grew up on Calvin Johnson. His accomplishments both on and off the field are too numerous to list. He walked away from the game with the same humility, modesty, and dignity he’s always exhibited. And after nine years of dominance and determination, he can take pride in the fact that he left it all on the field. I will always respect and appreciate what he’s done for the NFL, the Detroit Lions, and my family, and I know that he will be successful in whatever the next chapter holds for him.
So Calvin, in the off-chance that you read this, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for the memories. Thank you for nine years of excitement, entertainment, and optimism. Thank you for December 22nd, 2012. Thank you for being an All-Pro wide receiver, and more importantly, an All-Pro human being. But the one thing I want to thank you for above all else is really quite simple.
Thank you for bringing me closer to my father.
