The field was just dirt, the yard lines drawn in with chalk.

It was only green from about April to July, the grass gone a month before the Detroit Crockett football team started its fall conditioning.

As the months passed and the days started getting shorter, parents drove to the field and left their headlights on so their sons could finish practice after dusk.

“It was kind of like that Peanuts character ... the dusty guy,” former Crockett assistant coach Tim Hopkins said. “That’s exactly how everybody would go home, with dust up their face, dust up their nose, socks dirty. You’d never stay clean on that practice field.”

It was a public park, meaning the team’s home field wasn’t exactly home. Nothing was. The high school itself was a long trailer, and before games and practices, the team would walk across a parking lot to their makeshift locker room in the basement of Spain Elementary/Middle School.

If you stood on the 50-yard line of the “Shack on Mack” and looked to the right, you could see Ford Field. To the left, you’d see I-75, the road to the Pontiac Silverdome.

And the 25-member team worked to play at both places, consistently making it to the state playoffs and molding Division-I college players.

Brandon Graham had played football for the Detroit Giants of the Police Athletic League for seven years when, in eighth grade, he was asked to join that team with the trailer and the dust field. He called it the best move he has ever made.

That’s obvious from where he is now, a Michigan junior defensive end who currently leads the team in sacks. He was a Ted Hendricks Trophy candidate for the best defensive end in the country last year and is constantly questioned about possibly leaving early for the NFL.

But it wasn’t so obvious when he came to Michigan as an overweight and undermotivated freshman, with a self-described case of senioritis that started after his last high school football season and lasted all of his first year in college.

Throughout his football career, Graham had his tightly-knit family both on his side and off his back.

He had more than 60 members at Fan Day this summer, and even his great-grandmother asks for copies of his photos and articles on the Internet so she can put them on her wall.

But his mother, Tasha, believes she shouldn't have a strong influence on his football-related decisions — he needs to "take his destiny into his own hands."

Regardless of his decisions over the years, Graham's football and family lives have been constantly intertwined.

Home cooking

The Michigan football team doesn’t practice on Mondays, so Graham drives home to Detroit to see his family.

His parents aren’t together, and he’s quick to admit he’s a “momma’s boy.” Tasha is the first person he visits. And before he drives almost 50 miles home, his grandmother, Linda Graham, finds out what he wants to eat for dinner.

“We’ve had so much turkey and dressing on behalf of Brandon, we’re not going to want it for Thanksgiving,” Tasha said with a laugh. “He wore it out.”

That Thursday in November is always a production for the Graham family. There are two Thanksgivings — one at his mother’s and one at his father’s. Tasha’s feast involves 50 to 60 family members, most bringing a potluck dish to pass around. After eating at his mother’s, Graham drives 10 minutes to his father’s house to celebrate a second time.

Graham may have left for college, but his food tastes never really left home. He tries to make dinner in his apartment at least twice a week, working around football practice and classes because he’s “not too busy where (he) can’t cook.” His favorite meal to make is spaghetti topped with deep-fried chicken.

“I can cook real good, just from watching for so many years,” Graham said. “I just remember stuff so good. … My momma taught me how to make this meatloaf she made. Aw, man, just learned how to make that. So that’s gonna be another specialty right there.”

He says he doesn’t like to eat too late, but laughs a little when he says he can work it off if he does.