 
Lilpup
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Username: Lilpup
Post Number: 1422
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, October 21, 2006 - 1:29 pm: |    |
Winning season offers lesson for all
THE FLINT JOURNAL
Saturday, October 21, 2006
By Matt Bach
The Detroit Tigers are part of the lesson plan in Anthony Coggins' classroom.
The Holly High School social studies teacher uses the Tigers' world champion teams of 1968 and 1984 to illustrate how people rally behind a winner, and how that can ease the stress and tension of troubled times.
The 2006 Tigers are Coggins' latest example of using a common goal to accomplish great things.
"I use the Tigers to teach the idea of how a whole city can come back together and what can happen when people focus on one goal," Coggins said. "When everyone gets focused behind one thing, amazing things can happen.
"There are people in Detroit and Michigan who flat out don't like each other, but everyone got behind the Detroit Tigers this year. It's fun to watch."
When the Flint resident teaches U.S. history students about civil rights issues, the Vietnam War and race riots in Detroit in the late 1960s, he reminds them that despite all the tension taking place, people rallied behind the racially diverse Tigers featuring Willie Horton, Al Kaline and others.
In the mid-1980s, when the country was experiencing an economic recession and the area's auto industry continued its downturn, the "Bless You Boys" season of 1984 helped people feel good about something.
Today, as the Tigers play the first game of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, the final chapter of the Tigers' season has yet to be written. But the story of an underdog melding as a team, beating the odds and rising above expectations has already been formed.
It's a real-life story with which just about everyone can identify.
"Three years ago they were a laughing stock of baseball and there was talk about even eliminating the Tigers from the major leagues," Coggins said. "There's no real star this time. It's more of a team effort, which is what life is really about. Nobody can get by on their own in society anymore. You have to work with other people.
"When a team has a dream season like this and ends up going to the World Series or championship, it brings us together and allows that community to forget about the troubles. Even if it's for one day or one week, people realize there are some pure good things out there."
Coggins, 34, speaks from experience.
He was 12 in 1984 when the Tigers won the World Series.
So excited about the '84 victory on Oct. 14, 1984, Coggins and two buddies made a sign, "Honk for the Tigers" and went out on a street corner. For hours they cheered and jumped for joy as vehicles drove by, horns blaring. In that one moment, he said, it didn't matter who was driving by because they all shared the common thread.
"We were getting honks all day long," said Coggins. "Anybody driving by was honking. It didn't matter who you are, what race you were, or financial status or social status, everyone supported the Tigers."
That moment on the street corner was captured by a photographer and published in the Oct. 17, 1984, issue of The Flushing Observer. Inspired by the success of this 2006 Tigers team, Coggins recently tracked down a copy of the paper that contained his photo.
Jacqueline Windle-Salim, 73, of Flint doesn't really think about the Tigers and the team's impact on society, but she knows the team has made a huge difference in her life and brought her together with others.
The Tigers were a common bond she shared with her father, her children, her second husband and many others. She's followed the team since 1948, when she turned on the radio and heard a Tigers game for the first time.
"I wouldn't go out with my second husband until he offered to take me to a Tiger ball game. That was our first date - after being single for 32 years," said Windle-Salim, adding her husband, Dick Salim, died 17 months after they were married, but she turned him into a Tigers fan.
Her dad, Ernest Dicaire, was also a huge Tigers fan and she fondly remembers the bond they shared because of the team and their playful arguments over the 1984 Tigers.
"We used to argue and he would tease me about Chet Lemon," Windle-Salim said. "I would say that man could make a leap-frog catch and jump out of the ballpark."
Her father died in March at age 93, a couple of weeks before this season began.
These days, she prefers to watch the Tigers with her old English sheep dog that she calls Magglio, in reference to Tigers outfielder Magglio Ordonez.
"I'm going to be home today watching them," she said. "It'll be nerve racking. They're going to give me ulcers." |