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Ex-Lions 1st round NFL draft pick, uncle of Brad Holmes: Detroit is place to be
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- Ex-Lions 1st round NFL draft pick, uncle of Brad Holmes: Detroit is place to be
It could be said that Luther Bradley, the Detroit Lions ' first-round pick in the 1978 NFL draft, is an authority when it comes to big crowds and big occasions connected to football.
Bradley's experience dates to Dec. 31, 1973, when, as an 18-year-old freshman student attending Notre Dame, he played in the Sugar Bowl at a packed Tulane Stadium in New Orleans , where the Fighting Irish defeated Alabama, 24-23, to claim a national championship.
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On that evening, Bradley and his Notre Dame mates performed valiantly in front of 85,161 fans. And the mention that more than three times that number of people are expected to converge on downtown Detroit when the NFL draft festivities begin Thursday brings a smile to Bradley's face that can even be felt over the phone.
Luther Bradley, a former first-round draft pick for the Detroit Lions and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan consultant, stands outside the Ford Field main entrance in Detroit on Tuesday, April 25, 2023. Bradley was an All-American defensive back at Notre Dame, where he played in two national championships and was selected 11th overall in the 1978 NFL draft.
"Not in my wildest imagination when I played for the Lions (from 1978 to 1981) did I think anything like this would ever happen in Detroit," said Bradley, a native of Florence, South Carolina, who became a Detroit resident early in his Lions career. "This was a place where players didn't want to come, but the city has completely changed.
"Detroit is now the place to be!"
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More: Fans can participate in multiple activities at the NFL Draft Experience in downtown Detroit
Earlier this year, Bradley says he was taken by surprise when a friend from Muncie, Indiana — the place where Bradley starred at Muncie Northside High — called to say that he was coming to Detroit for the draft.
Since that time, Bradley has wrapped his mind around the magnitude of the draft as an extravaganza that transcends football, but even when droves of people spread out across downtown and spaces beyond for the festivities, Bradley will often be focused on just one person. It's the same person who has made the two-time college football national champion an even bigger local celebrity when he attends church services at New Prospect Missionary Baptist Church in northwest Detroit.
And that person is Bradley's beloved nephew, who also is known to the football world as Brad Holmes, executive vice president and general manager of the Detroit Lions.
Luther Bradley, a former first-round draft pick for the Detroit Lions and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) consultant, smiles as he rides an escalator inside the BCBSM headquarters in Detroit on Tuesday, April 25, 2023. Bradley was an All-American defensive back at Notre Dame, where he played in two national championships and was selected 11th overall in the 1978 NFL draft.
"The people that come up to me in church — these are not really big football fans, but they congratulate me for what Brad and the team have done," Bradley, a trustee at New Prospect, explained. "You can see and feel their excitement."
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Bradley says he also plans to be in an exciting spot on Thursday evening during Day One of the NFL draft when he attends a draft party with his wife, Sylvia (Sli) Shelby Bradley, at Ford Field. While that party is going on, roughly a half-mile away at the NFL draft theater near Campus Martius park, top draft prospects will be waiting to hear their names called by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Bradley, who played four seasons in the Lions' defensive backfield, says the prospects will have an experience that is much different than his draft night in 1978.
"Times have changed; I was the 11th pick overall and I just received a phone call from the team," Bradley recounted of the 1978 draft, which was conducted May 2-3 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. "It was the same for my Notre Dame teammates that were taken ahead of me in that draft, (defensive end) Ross Browner (eighth overall) and (tight end) Ken MacAfee (seventh overall), they just received a phone call. The top prospects now have an opportunity to be flown out to the draft and hear their names called and be celebrated during a ceremony that will be seen by the world."
But as much as things have changed about the NFL draft through the years, Bradley said there is one thing that will never change.
"For all the top prospects that will be sitting there in the theater, you still don't really know where you will go until your name is called and that makes you feel a little uneasy," said Bradley, who in the 1978 draft was drafted right after Gordon King, an offensive tackle out of Stanford, selected by the New York Giants ; and just before Clay Matthews , a linebacker from the University of Southern California, taken by Cleveland . "There will be players in this draft that won't go as high as they thought they would, but you have to be patient and understand that the draft is need-based and every team has different needs."
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Bradley may have had some butterflies floating in his stomach during his own draft day, but he says that will not be the case when the Lions make their 2024 draft selections — beginning with the 29th pick in the first round — because he knows a little something about a man who will be heavily involved in the decision-making process.
"I used to be nervous when Brad first started in this position, but not anymore because he has proven himself time and time again through the selections he has made," said Bradley, who pointed to the extensive time that Holmes as a young man spent with his grandfather, Luther Bradley Sr. — the first Black coach for Muncie Community Schools — as key to Holmes' early training to be a professional football executive. "Brad is just a guy who really works at his craft, and he tries to perfect it. I believe he's the best drafting general manager in the league — I really believe that. And he's not done, he's always working to get better, and better, and better."
Luther Bradley then provided a message for Lions fans and the city of Detroit as a whole with the draft party festivities about to begin.
"There is going to be more excitement and more big wins to come from our football team because together, Brad (Holmes) and Dan Campbell are a great team," he said. "But let's embrace this moment and these three days of hosting the draft as much as we can, because this is a big win for our fans and the entire city."
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Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and a lifelong lover of Detroit culture in its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city's neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at stalley@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott's stories at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/ . Please help us grow great community-focused journalism by becoming a subscriber .
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ex-Detroit Lions top NFL pick Luther Bradley excited for draft
