Jeff Backus

The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League , and play their home games at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit. Originally based in Portsmouth, Ohio and... called the Portsmouth Spartans, the team began play in 1929 as an independent professional team, one of many such teams in the Ohio and Scioto River valleys. For the 1930 season, the Spartans formally joined the NFL as the other area independents folded because of the Great Depression. Despite success within the NFL, they could not survive in Portsmouth, then the NFL's smallest city. The team was purchased and moved to Detroit for the 1934 season. The Lions have won four NFL Championships, the last in 1957, giving the club the second-longest NFL championship drought behind the Arizona Cardinals. The Lions are one of four current NFL teams that have yet to qualify for the Super Bowl. The 2008 team became the only team in NFL history to lose all 16 regular season games since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978.
more

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan. It is one of the original eight Public Ivy universities and is one of the founding members of... the Association of American Universities. U-M also has satellite campuses in Flint and Dearborn. The university was founded in 1817 in Detroit as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, about 20 years before the Michigan Territory officially became a state. What would become the university moved to Ann Arbor in 1837 onto 40 acres of what is now known as Central Campus. Since its establishment in Ann Arbor, the university has physically expanded to include more than 584 major buildings with a combined area of more than 31 million gross square feet , and transformed its academic program from a strictly classical curriculum to one that includes science and research. U-M was the site of much student activism in the 1960s. When presidential candidate John F.
more

Midland is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan in the Tri-Cities region of the state. It is the county seat of Midland County. The city's population was 41,863 as of the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area. The Dow Chemical Company was founded in... Midland in 1897. Its world headquarters are still located there. Through the influence of a Dow Chemical plant opening in Handa, Aichi, Japan, Midland and Handa have become sister cities. The Dow Corning Corporation and Chemical Bank are also headquartered in Midland. The city was also named #4 Best Small City to raise a family in by Forbes Magazine. As of the census of 2000, there were 41,685 people, 16,743 households, and 11,000 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,254.9 per square mile . There were 17,773 housing units at an average density of 535.0 per square mile . The racial makeup of the city was 93.38% White, 1.82% African American, 0.29% Native American, 2.69% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 0.57% from other races, and 1.19% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.92% of the population.
more