By Dean Vaglia
Leader Staff Writer
Longtime member of the Oxford community Gregory Brooks is the Detroit Lions’ 2021 Fan of the Year.
Now living in Metamora, Brooks is a 35-years season ticket holder, regularly hosts tailgates at Ford Field and has only ever missed three home games.
“I bleed Lions,” Brooks said. “When my daughter was born … me and the docs were in the delivery room watching Robert Porcher get drafted back in 1992. We held off on our wedding to go and see the Lions play at the Silverdome.”
While many people in Michigan become Lions fans simply by default, Brooks had an extra-close connection to the team that got him hooked.
“My best friend and neighbor’s dad was the personnel director for the Lions,” Brooks said. “Also the special teams coach for the Lions at the time, Joe Madden, was another one of my buddies’ dads and we lived in the same neighborhood. So when we were pretty young … We were able to run around in the locker room after the games and see Billy Sims and a bunch of these guys. I got hooked being that close and being around it all the time.”
Since then Brooks has been a dedicated fan of the Lions, finding a continual interest in the team’s underdog status.
“Number one, I’m very loyal,” Brooks said. “I’ve always been a fan, I always will be a fan. I always root for the underdogs anyway, and it has been pretty easy with the Lions over most of these years.”
Brook’s time as Lions fan has since shifted from the locker room to the streets surrounding Ford Field.
“We’ve got a party bus; an old Ford 1972,” Brooks said. “We call it ‘The Beast.’”
Every home game Brooks and co. fill up “The Beast” and tailgate — though not in the way you might think.
“We wanted to do something to help out,” Brooks said. “Like, we’re there on Sundays and missing church, so I’m like ‘What can I do to help?’ So we started what we call ‘The Beast Feast.’ Everybody that goes to tailgates — like Rod Charles [DDA Chair and Oxford Township Trustee] is one there — we bring things to pack lunches for the people who are in need and homeless. We do that at the beginning of our tailgates and we pack them, get them ready and when we walk into Ford Field everybody takes a lunch or two and we pass it out to anyone we can find who wants one or needs one or is hungry.”
As fan of the year, Brooks joins 31 other NFL super fans in Los Angeles this February for Super Bowl LVI.
“The biggest thing I like about [winning Fan of the Year] is being able to tell other people about what we do,” Brooks said. “Trying to help the community and trying to set an example, and sharing what we do with The Beast Feast and maybe encouraging other people to do something similar at their tailgates in other cities.”
NFL fans of the year are selected among contest entrants who sign up or are nominated online. Entrants submit two essays judged on their “Passion, Enthusiasm and Fandom for Your Favorite Team and the NFL” as well as their “Inspirational Story” and “Community Spirit.” Each team nominates a fan from its pool of entrants, who are sent to the Super Bowl where the NFL fan of the year is decided.