Detroit Lions Weblog

WCF Speaks!

Emerging from whatever obscure station he currently resides within, Lions owner William Clay Ford provided some in-depth and interesting responses to questions from the Detroit media yesterday. The quizzical and mysterious nature of Ford takes on a philosophical caste whenever he briefly appears to make a few statements and seemingly disappears again from the spotlight.

In some ways, I would compare Ford’s statements to Plato’s cave allegory.

Plato imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of the cave entrance, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to seeing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

In a heavy-handed way, Lions fans are analogous to the chained denizens of cave-land. Their perceptions of the Lions football organization are ascribed meaning and forms are given to the formless, since they so rarely are given a real glimpse of the malfunctioning operations of the team. Amid the “projected shadows on the wall” or the public relations presentation of the franchise, there are mixed-in moments of clarity, despite that department’s best wishes, where Mr. Ford will provide treasured revelatory comments:

Q : Speaking of that, why did you part with Matt Millen and was it difficult for you?

A : Yeah … that’s a friend of mine and always will be. He has a lot of wonderful qualities, it didn’t work out. We parted ways, it’s history.

Q : What spurred it then?

A : You can answer the question as well as I can. Everything. It just wasn’t going right.

Q : There were reports you hadn’t paid him since then — are those accurate?

A : Oh, we’re all squared with the board and I’ve talked to him on the phone a couple weeks ago. Everything’s fine. We’re still friends. And I’m glad he’s got the job he’s getting.

Q : So there’s no issue anymore?

A : No, no, no, no.

Q : What about (general manager Martin) Mayhew? Why did you decide to stay with him and Lewand?

A : I’ve always liked Martin. He’s been a little bit in the background and never really had an opportunity to shine. And when those positions came open, I thought, well, we’ve got a guy right here who’s eminently qualified. And he’s risen right to it, handled it without missing a beat. He’s been terrific. And the same with Tom. He’s a terrific organizer and manager and does all the things you’d like to have him to do. They do it without any fuss or pretense; they just get the job done. Their attitude is kind of the same thing I’d like the players to get: “We’re here to do a job and we’ll do it.” So I’m very happy with the whole front office setup.

Ford is both candid and expects the fans to appreciate where he is coming from. Even if he is incredulous, he truly wants us to see the intrinsic organizational value (as dubious as it may seem) of the Tom Lewand and Martin Mayhew, despite their deep involvement with the team’s failings. I was a little surprised that he would discuss Millen at all, and frankly am glad to hear that he thinks Millen was a failure, just like everyone else. There was a time when it was still unclear if he believed Millen was doing a good job, despite the team’s record.

Socrates next asks Glaucon to consider the condition of this man. Wouldn’t he remember his first home, what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners, and consider himself happy and them pitiable? And wouldn’t he disdain whatever honors, praises, and prizes were awarded there to the ones who guessed best which shadows followed which? Moreover, were he to return there, wouldn’t he be rather bad at their game, no longer being accustomed to the darkness? “Wouldn’t it be said of him that he went up and came back with his eyes corrupted, and that it’s not even worth trying to go up?

I often question whether, unbound from chains, and if the Lions ever were a “good” football team again, whether I could truly understand and appreciate the significance of that event, given how accustomed I have grown to the team’s failings. Would I want to face the magnitude of that change, would I avert my eyes?

Socrates asks if it is not reasonable that the prisoners would take the shadows to be real things and the echoes to be real sounds, not just reflections of reality, since they are all they had ever seen. Wouldn’t they praise as clever whoever could best guess which shadow would come next, as someone who understood the nature of the world? And wouldn’t the whole of their society depend on the shadows on the wall?

That’s what is truly confusing. Do we choose to be Lions fans, or are we chained to them by geography, like the cave-dwellers? As fans of the franchise, do we understand what has lead to their prolonged ineptitude, can we predict their future, or is our judgment clouded in some way?

Q:What was last year like for you?

A: It wasn’t fun for me. I feel so sorry for the fans in Detroit. I mean, I give them full marks for showing up. We didn’t perform the way we should’ve performed or the way we could’ve. I felt worse for them than I did for myself. I thought it was horrible every time we’d lose. But the guys who stuck through it, I can’t tell you how great that makes you feel. And for the ones that walked away, I couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t much fun to watch. It was pretty boring because you could about guess the outcome.

Q: Anything bother you in particular about the way they lost?

A: I don’t know. I guess almost every game had its moments where you think if something happened different, we might’ve won, but we never did. But I can’t pinpoint even a couple an event or even a couple of events that led to it. It was flat-out disappointing.

Q: Did the empty seats last year and the blackouts send a message?

A: Yes, people were getting fed up. And I don’t blame them a bit. We didn’t put up much of a show for them. And God knows what’s gonna happen this year, more than anyone else does. But I think we’ll give an honest day’s effort and I think that’s all they want. Of course they want us to win, and so do I, more than anything, but I think if they realize we’re going down with our guns blazing, I think that’ll be a very positive thing to have happen. And it did not happen last year.

On some level, Ford reveals that he may understand how devoted Lions fans have been, depite the team’s many failings. The general perception has been that Lions ownership is completely oblivious to the thoughts and feelings of Lions fans, they just wanted to count the gate receipts and sell merchandise. This is the first time I am aware of, that Ford has shown any empathy for the plight of Lions fans.

Socrates remarks that this allegory can be taken with what was said before, viz. the metaphor of the Sun, and the divided line. In particular, he likens

“the region revealed through sight” — the ordinary objects we see around us — “to the prison home, and the light of the fire in it to the power of the Sun. And in applying the going up and the seeing of what’s above to the soul’s journey to the intelligible place, you not mistake my expectation, since you desire to hear it. A god doubtless knows if it happens to be true. At all events, this is the way the phenomena look to me: in the region of the knowable the last thing to be seen, and that with considerable effort, is the idea of good; but once seen, it must be concluded that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is right and beautiful — in the visible realm it give birth to light and its sovereign; in the intelligible realm, itself sovereign, it provided truth and intelligence — and that the man who is going to act prudently in private or in public must see it” (517b-c).

In the end being a fan, in concert with the Ford’s owning the franchise, provides me a great deal of joy. In the process of writing this blog, despite my technological and writing inadequacies, I have grown as a person and benefited greatly from that process. So whether the team wins or loses, as it often has, which will always pain me, this is the best way I know of to attempt to attempt to understand “…the idea of good, but once seen, it must be concluded that this is indeed the cause for all things of that is right and beautiful”. Thanks, Mr. Ford.