James Jahnke | Detroit Free Press
KISS!!!!!!!!
Gene Simmons and the boys gave a shoutout to the Cadillac football team on the band’s Facebook page today. Along with a picture of Kiss with Cadillac football players in 1975, the post read: “Good luck to our friends, the Cadillac HS Football team as they play their 3rd playoff game tonight. They are 12-0 so far this year! We go way back!”
(The Vikings actually are only 11-0 heading into tonight’s 7 p.m. Division 4 regional final at Comstock Park. And if Son of Swami is right, 12-0 isn’t in the offing. But still, pretty cool.)
A little background on the Kiss-Cadillac connection:
Back in 1974, when the powerhouse Cadillac Vikings started the season with two losses, assistant football coach Jeff Neff had the idea of playing Kiss music in the locker room as a motivational tool. After all, the music was fast and loud, and, in football, as he explains, Kiss stands for “Keep it simple, stupid.”
Once the Kiss songs started flowing, the Vikings won the last seven games of the season.
In the midst of those victories, Neff got in touch with Kiss and eventually heard directly from its members. “My chair is located in the same place where Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons called me,” Neff told the Free Press in 2012.
That started a connection between the band and the school that, in 1975, led to a famous visit. Kiss, scheduled to play around that time at a Michigan college, accepted Neff’s invitation to come to Cadillac High for homecoming.