Pride of Detroit’s Fan Spotlight: Andy “Sandman” Morse

Detroit Lions fans are a special breed. It takes a special kind of commitment to go through the ups and downs of a Lions season and then continue to go through it all again year after year. It’s because of that commitment that it’s safe to say the Lions have the best and most loyal fans in the world. For the next month, we’re going to celebrate some of them here at Pride of Detroit.

Today’s fan is one that Lions Twitter is well aware of for his famous Lions Slowlight videos that he makes every season. Of course I’m talking about Andy “Sandman” Morse. Andy is a season ticket holder and owns his own HVAC company in Detroit.

You may remember Andy from his very gracious charitable act that made national news in 2017. After a Detroit man had his season tickets taken away for posting pictures of Lions fans protesting during the national anthem and captioned it with racist slurs, Andy stepped in and took the tickets off the Lions hands with the idea of giving out out two tickets to a different charity each week.

I’ve gotten to know Andy a little bit since I started covering the team. He’s a great guy and he even gave us our oven mitt. I’m not kidding.

We actually use this, too.

Since I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Andy, I think all Lions fans should as well. So got in touch with Andy to ask him some questions about his history as a Lions fan. Here’s what he had to say.

How did you become a Lions fans?

“To be honest, I got into football in general because my mom would take me to MSU football games as a child, and I always watched the MSU v.s UM game, but I probably became an actual invested Lions fan when I got a copy of Madden 95 for the SNES. I would always play as the Lions because they were the local team and my love for football and the Lions grew from there.”

Who is your favorite Lion ever?

“I have been a Stafford fan since day one. Calvin and Barry have always been amazing but the highlights of my fandom have been since Stafford has been here, and I’ll always have a spot in my heart for him. Every heart attack I have suffered is from one of the Stafford comebacks. I have gone into work Monday a few times with no voice from screaming in Ford Field.”

What is your favorite Lions moment ever and why?

“It’s probably a split between the Stafford fake spike game and the 2009 Browns game. The 2009 Browns game is pretty special to me because I wasn’t a season ticket holder yet and picked that game early as the one I thought the Lions would win that year. Everyone knows the story but from the stands you had no idea what was going on or how bad Stafford was hurt but you knew you were watching something special when your rookie QB tosses 5 TDs and grits out a crazy win because Bryant Johnson got pushed out of the endzone by Hank Poteat.”

What’s your thoughts and predictions for the Lions this coming season?

“Last year was rough for me, the entire year felt “Off”. There were times during training camp where you could sense excitement and see how much different Patricia was from Caldwell, and then other times where you could tell that our team didn’t feel like a team. I’m excited and hopeful that after a year under Patricia and with more of “his” players in the locker room that we will see the turn around some of us expected last year. With Kerryon having a full year under his belt and hopefully a better planned offensive attack I expect the Lions to play winning football, but probably not exciting football. Control the ball/clock and limit mistakes and grind out wins will be the name of the new Detroit Lions, and while winning will always be the #1 priority, I’ll be a little sad if we don’t get to see 2011-2017 Gunslinger Stafford from time to time.

Defensively, I expect to see growth along the DL and LB spot, but we will need to see growth and some moves pay off in the CB and S department for me to feel good. Training camp and Pre-season will be very telling of how far along this team is under Patricia and while I hope to have a winning season I won’t put a stamp on it until the end of pre-season.”

You can follow Andy on twitter @Sandman7773 and visit his YouTube page here.