If you don’t feel confident as a Detroit sports fan, I don’t blame you.
It’s been a while since we’ve been world champions … since our jersey has hung on “The Spirit of Detroit” in true victory, not just as a prop.
In the meantime, the Detroit Lions have taken us to the edge — and ultimately didn’t deliver (but don’t say that to Dan Campbell’s face). I do think we’re awfully close with this team.
The Detroit Tigers were a miracle team. Pitching chaos under skipper A.J. Hinch? That’ll never happen again, but I skipped work to watch every game of their playoff run. Did you? It was thrilling and fun and everything we needed to get our mojo back. The Detroit Pistons have a new coach and a star in Cade Cunningham and are showing signs of life. The Detroit Red Wings are the same, but with an even newer coach and a new vibe. I’d give most credit to hockey fans ’cause y’all continue to go to those games, even when times are tough.
So what does this mean for us as Detroiters? I’ve always felt like we’ve got a chip on our shoulder. People always talk about Detroit in terms of people, not places. So often, when they talk of us as a place, it’s about crime. Goofy politics. How it’s hard to open a business here.
But beyond that, people ask me:
“What makes Detroit so special?” “Well, it’s the people,” I’d say.
And for so long, I thought that was just a terrible cop-out of an answer.
Because we’re not other cities, we have to fill the gap with our personalities. Like, “You’re not tall enough to date the person you want, but you’ve got a big personality.” That feels cold sometimes, doesn’t it?
But as time goes on, I realize that the people actually do make this city. Maybe it’s that I’ve traveled more and seen more of the world. Maybe it’s that the sports teams have started to plug in and get the work done and get glowing national attention.
At the end of the day, however, it is the people who make Detroit so special. We are sarcastic, tough, forgiving, inquisitive, sweet, ugly, beautiful, and everything in between.
And when someone comes to town and asks, “What’s cool?,” we go out of our way to deliver — because the chip on our shoulder ensures that you have a great time while we figure out the dirtier details.
We make sure people coming here for the first time, the second time, whichever time, have the best time. Because we have something to prove.
And that’s a mighty beautiful thing.
There’s something to prove in the year ahead. We have to finish strong (looking at you, Red Wings and Pistons). We have to find our rhythm (looking at you, Tigers).
And because football is king, we need the Detroit Lions to win a Super Bowl next year.
But in the meantime, tourists will continue to be curious about us regardless of the score — on the field of play or in the national news.
And I know that Detroiters are finding our confidence in knowing we’re just as good as the rest of the country.
Ryan Patrick Hooper is the host of In the Groove on 101.9 WDET, Detroit’s NPR station (weekdays from noon to 3 p.m.).
This story originally appeared in the April 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our digital edition will be available on April 7.
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