Detroit — Detroiters know what the outsiders think. They hear the TV news anchors. They read the newspapers. They know about the city’s nation-high unemployment rate and the image that pops into mind when people think about Detroit.
In that image, the outsiders see homeless people scattered throughout the downtown streets.
They hear sirens screaming nonstop.
If a professional team from Detroit wins a championship or excels on the national stage, the outsiders smell smoke from the latest riot.
That’s the image that led Forbes magazine to name Detroit America’s Most Miserable City in 2008.
Have those things happened in Detroit? Of course, and residents don’t deny it. But Detroit wants you to know they happen in every city.
As tens of thousands of college basketball fans travel across the country to Detroit for the 2009 Final Four this weekend, 58-year-old Detroit native Randy K. Chatman asks only one thing of the outsiders.
“Don’t judge the stereotype,” Chatman said. “Judge the people.”
Strong-willed people
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were slightly more than 1 million people in Detroit in 1990. In 2000, that number shrunk to fewer than 1 million for the first time since the 1920s. The current population estimate, as of July 2007, is about 915,000.
Thousands of people have already left and others undoubtedly will, but there is a sense of pride for the people who remain.
Chatman, who was born in Detroit, already left once. He moved to Brown City, Mich., a small city in the thumb, but was recently laid off from his job at Link Technologies LLC, a company that makes rubber and plastics for LEER, a truck accessories manufacturer.
Jobless, Chatman opted to come home to Detroit, where he is now selling shoes, T-shirts and fragrances at flea markets. He is hoping to get his vendor’s license soon, so he can join a group of about 75 vendors in the Black Merchants of Detroit, who set up tables at various assigned spots in the city to sell their merchandise.
Ambrosia Nattage is a bright and bubbly 22-year-old. Born and raised in Detroit, she is now a psychology senior at Wayne State University. She also has spent the last three-plus years working at Detroit’s Breakfast House & Grill at Merchants Row, where she is now one of the managers.
Although it’s surrounded by numerous empty and run-down buildings on Woodward Avenue, the restaurant where Nattage works is doing “extremely well” since its opening in October 2005.
Robert King moved to Detroit from Alabama in 1979 to find a job after his family was struggling in the South.
Today, that concept seems disillusioned. Back then, it was viewed as a smart thing to do.
“You could find a job anywhere around here,” said King, who just turned 60. “Heck, if you wanted to work two jobs, you did it no problem. Three jobs? You might’ve had a chance, if you wanted to.”
Those days are long gone.
At a time when the national economy is falling further into debt, Detroit is the poster child for the country’s current recession.
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The metropolitan area of Detroit-Warren-Livonia has a nation-high unemployment rate of 14.6 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
King said it’s those layoffs and economic struggles that have changed Detroit in his 30 years there.
“The economy is worse,” said King, who works as a security guard. “People weren’t doing the things they do now. In ’79 you never saw people sleeping in the streets. Today you have (war) veterans sleeping in the streets. I ain’t never seen that before.”
A strong-willed business
Hundreds of businesses have come and gone since 1936.
Elwood Bar & Grill has remained nearly constant.
Originally built in 1936 on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Woodward Avenue, owner Chuck Forbes moved the bar to the corner of Adams Avenue and Brush Street in 1997, after plans were announced to build Comerica Park, the home of the Detroit Tigers. The bar closed down from 1997-2002, during which it underwent a complete restoration to its original form. When the Elwood reopened in 2002, not only did it have Comerica Park right across Adams Avenue, but it also had Ford Field, which opened in September 2002, on the other side of Brush Street.
Because of its location, the Elwood sees thousands of people come through its doors for Tigers and Detroit Lions games. In the past few years, Detroit has hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, Super Bowl and World Series. Based on the increase of sales the bar saw then, Elwood general manager Elizabeth Markle said she expects another spike this weekend.
With MSU coming to town, she expects it to be even better.
“I think that, being State is coming, it will be a little bigger than it would have been with the other cities,” Markle said. “I think they’d rather be down here — even if they don’t have a ticket — and see the action and watch the free practices (on Friday). (The weekend) was going to be big, but I think it’s going to be bigger because we have a little more of our home team here now.”
The strong-willed team
Tom Izzo has heard the question a thousand different times since the 2008-09 college basketball season started.
“With the Final Four in Detroit, there’s been a lot of talk about the economy in Michigan,” a reporter would ask. “You know this state as well as anybody from recruiting all over the state. Will you talk about the pride you have in the state of Michigan, its people?”
Each time the MSU men’s basketball coach hears the question, his eyes quietly shift down or to one side or the other. He slowly lowers his head, shuffles his feet at the podium, then answers.
“This state is — I guess I embody the state, the state doesn’t embody me,” said Izzo, 54, who was born in Iron Mountain, Mich., and has lived in Michigan his entire life. “It’s a blue-collar state. (Detroit’s) a blue-collar city, if you ask me … I think that’s why I like recruiting in our state. There’s issues everywhere and there’s problems everywhere, but I think you get a tough kid out of this state — Detroit, Flint, Saginaw. You just get a tougher kid.”
In his 14 years as head coach, Izzo has coached approximately 80 players. About 48 of them have been Michiganians. Eight lived or went to high school in Detroit, while 11 have been from Flint.
On the 2008-09 roster, nine of MSU’s 16 players went to high school in Michigan.
Two of them, sophomore guard Kalin Lucas and junior forward Jon Crandell, grew up near Detroit.
Another, sophomore guard Durrell Summers, grew up in the heart of Detroit. Summers’ first high school, St. Martin DePorres High School, closed after his sophomore year. Both of his parents, Duryea and La’Andrea, have been two of the thousands of Detroiters laid off.
And that’s why it’s so important for Detroit that the Spartans will be in the Final Four this year.
It isn’t because they can help debunk the stereotypes, even though they’ll try.
It isn’t only because MSU fans will travel to Detroit and spend money at bars, because tens of thousands of fans would have been here anyway.
It’s because of what they stand for.
MSU isn’t a prima donna school, and the Spartans aren’t a prima donna basketball team.
They defend. They rebound. They play with emotion and toughness. They’re blue collar.
It’s not just that they succeed that impresses Detroiters.
It’s how they succeed.
“Oh my God, that’s what I love about Tom Izzo,” Chatman said with his eyes raised and a smile. “If they get outrebounded, he makes them put on football pads at practice! A lot of his teams like to play physical, and if you don’t like to play like that then it’s tough to do good, and State knows that and they love it. I just love their style.”
