As the Detroit Lions continue to stumble towards the finish line of one of the more miserable seasons in their 75-year history, journalists of local and national flavor alike have bantered the possibility of Detroit losing their signature Thanksgiving Day game.

It's never good when the home team loses, loses a lot and loses in a manner that's of an embarrassing nature, week after week, and this subject matter that threatens the viability of the Turkey Day game is a by-product of that losing culture. However, losing this game would be a great injustice for many reasons, but it's a subject rooted in America's ugly side of entitlement more than any other reason. The donut-eaters who fill press boxes at national sporting events feel compelled to tell you that they deserve an amazing, competitive game to cover, write about, televise or report upon every year. Yes, there's truth that the National Football League ought to be concerned at the long stretch of uncompetitive games, seasons and Thanksgiving Day contests the Lions' have played in the last 10 years. At the same time, this game, it's roots and traditions go back to a time when the NFL was struggling to earn a national fan base of any kind, and it leaned on the passionate Detroit football fans in 1934 to begin a rite of passage in America that's survived nearly five generations.

What's also of interest is what was sacrificed in the southeastern Michigan region from the Thumb to the state line in Toledo for this national-televised Thanksgiving Day game. Specifically, many high school and collegiate traditions that were shuttered in the 1950s and 60s, resurrected only when the Lions opened play in the Pontiac Metropolitan Stadium, better known as the Silverdome.

Many marquee, signature games within the prep landscape in Michigan were played on Thanksgiving Day. In metro Detroit, Royal Oak High's Acorns and Birmingham High's Maples played 45 times on Turkey Day, starting in 1915 or 1916, the first year of play unconfirmed. It was Royal Oak High's Eva Moore, a counselor at the now-closed school on Washington Avenue, who drummed up the idea for a trophy, a ceramic brown jug. Birmingham end John Sheppard painted the jug red, white and blue to symbolize the school colors of both schools. The Acorns to the south end of Woodward Avenue took 24 wins to Birmingham's 14, while seven games ended in a tie. Royal Oak forfeited the 1925 game but it's '35 squad earned recognition as the state's football champion.

In Saginaw, Arthur Hill High and Saginaw High commenced their spirited rivalry on the famed Thursday day of feast. Former Detroit Tiger broadcaster Paul Carey watched many a game from the sidelines as his father, a long-respected game official, worked the contest as the game's Referee. These games were the staple of the high school season for many years in the Midland-Bay City-Saginaw region. Yes, there's a tradition in 'The Valley' that speaks to basketball prowess but before the hardwood game came to prominence as we know it today, football was king in Saginaw.

The Goodfellows Game at Briggs Stadium pitted the Detroit's Catholic League champion versus the Detroit public school league champion, then known as the Metropolitan League. Often the winner earned distinction in state media polls as the state's title winner. That game ceased in 1967, but it's legacy lives on in the memories of so many former players and coaches.

Today, the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) stages the championship games of it's annual football tournament on Thanksgiving weekend at Ford Field. From 1983-2002, prep title games were played in one of the only facilities to host a Super Bowl after the Silverdome successfully hosted Super Bowl XVI, still one of the highest-rated Super Bowl in television history. After Detroit successfully hosted Super Bowl XL, the same will be said of every championship game played at Ford Field since 2006.

How many state associations can say that? For what was sacrificed to make the pro game possible here, should our football community have to lose the charter Thanksgiving Day game just because the Lions are lacking in the left side of the win-loss ledger?

These traditions, along with Detroit's Thanksgiving Day parade and NFL football game, were built upon the backbone of Detroit's prep football history and the region's sporting passion. It was WWJ-950 AM that took the initiative of broadcasting the first professional Thanksgiving Day game to a national radio audience, a 19-16 victory that the Chicago Bears took from the Lions at the now-demolished University of Detroit stadium. The Bears, under legendary coach George Halas, were gross favorites that day but were entangled in a dogfight by the Lions, who had recently relocated from Ohio, where they were known as the Spartans. It was that game effort that endeared the Lions to their new neighbors. NFL football on Turkey Day was then just a dream that became reality in Detroit.

Thanksgiving Day in Detroit and the traditions that surround this one game go back further than any of us have been alive, and that should be taken in account by the many journalists, executives, and decision-makers that offer, make or enforce opinion as it relates to the Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit.

One of the required caveats to attaining quality assignments is securing high ratings. These ratings come, in large part, from those coaching in the games referees work. This is the most oft-overlooked factor in just how skewed the entire officiating process unfolds. When the referee makes or is perceived to make a mistake in a big game, the questions always wind towards the inevitable: “How did this guy get on this game?” The answer is always the same. The coaches rated him among the best of the bunch, in a local, statewide, regional or national scope.

Phil Luckett. Remember that name? He's remembered as the referee who incorrectly handed the Detroit Lions the football on Thanksgiving Day to begin overtime in 1998. Most fans recall that Jerome Bettis of the Steelers correctly guess the coin’s flip but Luckett failed to acknowledge Bettis’s call. The Lions, of course, took the football and drove down the field far enough to allow kicker Jason Hanson to kick the game-winning field goal to earn the Lions a 19-16 win on national television.

Guess what? Luckett wasn’t totally wrong. In fact, a Pittsburgh sportswriter actually apologized to Luckett in a column after finding that Luckett, by rule, acknowledged the first, barely audible call by Bettis, which immediately was trumped by his louder, more audible second call. Few media members, either watching the game live at the Pontiac Silverdome in suburban Detroit or watching on television, knew the rule. Luckett did, but his nature, including a less-than-authoritative presence, was his own worst enemy.

In the days following the game, Luckett’s name was inseparable from the “how did this guy get on this game” comment. Obviously he had been rated high enough from the NFL coaches and observers to earn the 'referee' designation, assemble a crew and earn a premiere national television assignment. There’s only 16 referees working on NFL Sunday's each year. It's laughable to believe Luckett could fool all these people that often and sneak into the position of NFL referee by accident. In fact, it's not possible. Of course, the media was frenzied with the story and later, Luckett went back to his former Back Judge position. In a game the following season, Luckett was run over by a wide open receiver ready to catch a touchdown pass….and Luckett was soon out of the NFL. But Luckett isn’t the only goat to be remembered. Who recommended him for the referee position? Most important, what criteria was used to make that determination?

Ratings. The silent, unaccountable ratings.

Coaches control a great responsibility in rating officials, but a primary problem is most coaches know little about officiating. Most sports rely heavily on ratings from coaches because, like officials, coaches are always at the contest. Most NCAA sports at the Division-I level also have an observer and a rating from a fellow crew chief, but the rating from the coach is the constant at all levels of professional, collegiate and high school competition.

It's a flawed system no matter how anyone looks at it. Coaches don't know officiating anymore than officials know coaching. I've coached. I'm not good at it and I have complete respect for coaches that make it look seamless. For me to be able to rate a coach and feel like my opinion is unqualified is impossible and unfair to the coaches. Yet the truth remains: The assignment process and the rating process starts with coaches, like it has for the past 100 years.

In researching the origins of the assignment process, I found the assignments were doled out 100 years ago in much the same manner they are today in terms of rationale and merit. There was a rating system in place and it came primarily from coaches. There was a geographical consideration in place, and finally, there was an opinion of merit. The coach or assignor thought the official was competent to handle the assignment.

I spent a recent afternoon with my good friend “Touchdown Jesus”, also known as the library at The University of Notre Dame -- yes, all you television fans, that building wasn‘t erected for football. It‘s actually a real school building and in that building, there‘s books and archives and all sorts of historical reference. Remember it was Lou Holtz, the former Notre Dame coach, who said just two weeks ago on ESPN that he's written more books than he's read in his lifetime.

It's here, tucked inside the considerable archives of the Notre Dame history, where the dealings of a rookie coach by the name of Knute Rockne comes to life. Back them telegrams were today's text messages and letters were e-mail and Internet rolled into one. Contracts were sent back and forth and game assignments were extended to officials deemed deserving just like today. Coaches and departments heads of rival schools discussed which officials were deserving, or not, as the case may be for various reasons. Naturally, within this archive, the letters detailed the officials who routinely received the bigger game assignments, just like today’s assigning programs that detail which officials go where.

In letters between Rockne and Michigan’s Fielding Yost, game dates were set and officials were assigned. The two men openly discussed the abilities of many official and suggested to each other the merits and referrals of available officials. I bristled at the notion put forth in today's Detroit News article by a handful of Notre Dame historians that Michigan and Notre Dame's 35-year hiatus in their football rivalry from 1943-1978 came to pass because of Yost's anti-Catholic belief. That notion would be quickly dispelled if anyone saw the archives I saw.

Yost and Rockne were not at all unlike the coaches and assignors of today who find a comfort zone with certain officials and those officials are then easier to assign to certain schools, conferences and post-season assignments than others. Likewise, younger officials or those unproven are climbing a steeper hill than most, having to overcome getting in the door and then having to deal with a coach that requires you to prove yourself all over again.

That's not to say some things haven't changed. Former umpire Rocky Roe went to the big leagues in no time flat back in the 1970s by today’s standards because someone thought Rocky Roe could umpire, and that somebody had the power to say as much. Today you had better be into a pro school by your 24th or 25th birthday. That buys a prospective umpire four or five years to push their way through the minors and get into the big leagues, where, if they're you’re lucky, they’ll stick. Even if you’re in ‘The Show’ by age 30, chances are you’ll be out by age 50 or so. The days of the grey-haired veteran are evaporating.

The young, mobile, trained official is the new omega in today’s 2.0 officiating world. As for the alpha of how we get those officials, rate those officials and find those officials? It hasn't changed much, since the days of the buggy whip and Western Union.

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, and is working on a follow-up title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries!