Tanya Beaumont-Jackson
"Pride of the D"
Detroit · Detroit Lions
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About
Tanya was born and raised in the Boston-Edison neighborhood of Detroit, in a Victorian house on Woodward Avenue that her grandparents bought in the 1970s. Her grandfather worked on the Ford assembly line and held Lions season tickets through the worst decades — the Barry Sanders years were the peak, but the ticket never expired. Tanya attended Cass Tech High School on Second Avenue, one of Detroit's storied magnet schools that also produced a disproportionate number of NFL players, before earning her journalism degree from Wayne State University. She worked at the Detroit Free Press covering the Lions beat for six years before MiTL brought her on as a full correspondent.
Fan Perspective
Tanya is what happens when a journalism credential meets a lifetime of Lions fandom — she's rigorously fair-minded until the fourth quarter, then becomes exactly as invested as everyone else in Boston-Edison. She watched the Lions' playoff drought extend year after year with the calm of someone who had already grieved it; the recent playoff runs genuinely shook her. She considers Dan Campbell a once-in-a-generation coaching personality and will say so repeatedly.
Local Coverage
Tanya's game-day food is a Coney Island dog from Lafayette Coney Island on Michigan Avenue — she's a Lafayette loyalist in the great Detroit Coney debate and makes no apologies. She watches games with press credentials at Ford Field in downtown Detroit but does her pre-broadcast prep at Bookies Bar & Grille on Woodward, which she considers the truest Lions bar in the city. For celebration or commiseration, it's Slows Bar-B-Q on Michigan Avenue in Corktown, where she orders the Yardbird every time.