How KISS Saved a Michigan High School Football Team: 1975

The band KISS was formed in 1973...just two years later, they helped encourage a Michigan high school football team on to glory.

In the early 1970s, the Cadillac Vikings finished the football season undefeated. So naturally, when the next season started, expectations were high – not just from the team, but from their family members, the faculty, their classmates, and the whole darn town. No pressure, right?

Wrong. The constant pressure affected their concentration and they were playing below par...they lost the first two games. What to do? Someone suggested playing Rock & Roll in the locker room before they hit the field to practice. What to play? How about a band that was basically just starting out - they sounded and looked like they would be quirky enough to lighten the team's load. The band chosen was KISS. It didn't hurt that the letters stood for an old football slogan: “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”

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The outcome: the team won all seven remaining games! The tale made the small town news and spread. The members of KISS got wind of the story and made the trip to Cadillac in October '75 just to play for the school's Homecoming dance.

In October 2015, Cadillac threw the “KISS Cadillac Homecoming 40th Anniversary Celebration” which included the unveiling of a monument to KISS: an 8-foot tall, 5-foot wide, 5000 pound laser-etched black granite memorial.

On March 19, 2019, KISS performed in Grand Rapids as part of their “End of the Road” tour. While onstage, Paul Stanley mentioned Cadillac, and a photo montage was shown on a giant screen, with a good handful of images from that legendary Homecoming appearance back in 1975. Cadillac audience members went nuts.

Take a look at the gallery below...