There once was a time when Garnett Mims used his legs to evade hard-charging defenders on worn football fields across Detroit as a standout high school running back during the early 1980s for the Cooley Cardinals coached by Ernie Thomas.
And if anyone wonders if the now 62-year-old Mims still has juice in his legs, that question was answered on a Wednesday morning earlier this summer, when Mims could be seen powering a black 12-speed bike from the 16000 block of Tireman Avenue on Detroit’s west side to Belle Isle.
On that day, each movement that Mims made on his bike brought him closer to Detroit’s riverfront and a free event on Belle Isle that annually attracts thousands of people. However — with no disrespect to the many men, women and children that came out to Belle Isle for the 41st annual Metro Detroit Youth Day — Mims said there really was only one person he was hoping with all of his heart to see.
That person was the founder of Metro Detroit Youth Day, the late Ed Deeb, who died Sept. 2 at the age of 89.
“When I got on Belle Isle and the people from Ed’s staff told me that he wasn’t well enough to come out, I started to cry because I was so sad. I just wanted to see him one more time before he left this Earth,” stated Mims, who made a spontaneous decision to pedal his bike to Belle Isle that morning when he didn’t hear back from a couple of friends he reached out to for a ride. “Then I continued to cry because I was so happy about all of the people and families that Ed helped through the years before he went to heaven.”
On the morning of Sept. 9, Mims described how he was first touched by Deeb. It was during the summer of 2013 at Belle Isle when Mims was literally blown away by the sight of a “million-zillion” kids participating in Metro Detroit Youth Day, one of the largest youth events in the country, which also attracts supporters from throughout Detroit’s business and civic communities and even celebrities that want to be a part of a good cause. Mims’ attraction to the positive scene led him to seek out Deeb.
And a year later, Mims took his place on Belle Isle among the many community members and organizations that inspire young people at Metro Detroit Youth Day, at a booth he manned promoting fitness. In subsequent years, Mims helped in a variety of other ways during the weeks and months leading up to Metro Detroit Youth Day, including outreach — sometimes door to door — to local businesses that provided needed items like water and cleaning supplies. And, at some point, early in that process, Mims says he went from being a helper to someone who was being helped and “mentored” by Deeb as much or more than any of the young Metro Detroit Youth Day participants.
“What I learned from Ed is that it’s not about the money, it’s what you do with your life,” Mims, the 11th of 17 children born to John Lee Mims and Sallie Parker Mims, said. “Ed said: ‘Start giving back to your community and see what happens.’ And also, like my father used to say, Ed told me to ‘do everything exactly as I tell you.’ “
One of Deeb’s “fatherly” recommendations to Mims about a decade ago led Mims to another devoted community servant, Luther Keith — who died March 5 — whose legacy includes the creation of the nonprofit ARISE! Detroit, sponsor of the annual Neighborhoods Day across the city on the first Saturday in August. Like his experience with Metro Detroit Youth Day, Mims felt an immediate connection once he learned about the variety of ways that Neighborhoods Day allows residents to celebrate Detroit neighborhoods and Keith’s eclectic background, which included being a Hall of Fame journalist and a professional blues singer along with a community leader.
“Singing, dancing, gathering, cleaning up, helping people in need, and doing anything else you can think of to keep the neighborhood right and tight,” Mims said while describing what Neighborhoods Day means to him. “Luther Keith was a genius. At his funeral, I gave his wife and daughter a portrait of the ‘Boss Man,’ that also showed different things he did in the community. They told me that no one had done anything like that. And I told them that everyone is different, but that was just something that I wanted to do because Luther Keith was another of my great mentors.”
Being a bit “different,” and applying his talents to different endeavors over the course of his lifetime, including construction contracting, security, fitness training, singing, song writing, marketing, coaching youth football and volunteering for causes like Metro Detroit Youth Day, Neighborhoods Day, Sound Mind Sound Body Academy and the Detroit Chapter of the National Alliance of African American Athletes comes naturally to Mims. But Mims revealed that there was a time in his life as a young man when being different was not a good thing. That was the case when his unruly behavior got him kicked out of Mumford High School, the school where all his brothers and sisters before him had attended. Mims says, at that point, his future appeared bleak until his mother’s prayers and pleas were felt by Mumford’s principal, Irving Petross, who asked that Mims be admitted to Cooley High School, where Coach Thomas and Principal Walter Jenkins were prepared for his arrival.
“When I got to Cooley and Coach Thomas and Principal Jenkins kept telling me to do the right thing, they were really telling me to do what I had been taught at home — at 19932 Stoepel (near Eight Mile Road),” said Mims, who began to be recognized for good reasons at Cooley, including in the Detroit Free Press sports section, where on Nov. 28, 1981, Mims was listed as an honorable mention selection on the Free Press’ All Metro Football Team, which helped to earn him a scholarship to Ferris State University. “My mother was a prayer warrior — she prayed for everyone in Detroit — and my father was one of the first African American Boy Scout leaders in the city. I came from a great, great, great neighborhood with families that had a million kids who all became our great cousins from another mother. We had great teachers, too, I just needed to be reminded of that, which I was when I got to Cooley.”
In recalling his days at Cooley, Mims relived a time when he accompanied his music teacher to the Pontiac Silverdome and sang the national anthem before a Detroit Lions game with his music teacher’s wife. Mims said his joyful moment continued when he was given an opportunity later to meet Lions players. But while still a big Lions fan, Mims says at this moment of his life he enjoys talking about his favorite community “superstars” even more, like Deeb and Keith, and others, like the Rev. Marvin Winans, and brothers William and the late Norman Dabish, who taught Mims how to “train right” and be fit at the original Powerhouse Gym they founded in Highland Park. Mims says these mentors and more guide him daily, and that he is always on the lookout for new mentors, even as a seasoned adult, because, as he puts it: “You can learn great things all day, every day.”
And the man who humbly talks about how his persistent communication with the Detroit Police Department following the hit-and-run death of his beloved older brother Maurice Parker Mims in 2016 helped to bring the person responsible to justice two years later, also has no problem offering up a little advice of his own — especially when it comes to helping everyday Detroiters to become more involved in their communities.
“The main thing that I tell people all the time is that if you want to get something done in your neighborhood, is to find out who the City Council member is for your district and find out who your City Council district manager is and get connected to those people,” said Mims, who, for about the past five years, has been rehabbing the building he purchased from the city of Detroit on Tireman near Greenfield and the Southfield Freeway with the hope of turning it into a “Life Home Center,” that will provide “mind and body” programs and resources for families and youths. “I learned this from my mentors who got things done in the city. You have to connect with the council members and managers that serve your neighborhood, and I’m not talking about that fancy, new kind of social media. I’m talking about old-school communication, where you are heard and seen by an actual person. Blow up their phones, load up their emails, and stop by their offices when you can. You have to make yourself known.”
One person who is happy that Mims made himself known to Deeb years ago is Dr. Barbara Jean Johnson, the co-chair of Metro Detroit Youth Day, whose relationship with Deeb went back 40 years.
“I praise God for letting Mims come into our lives in support of Metro Detroit Youth Day,” stated Johnson, who spoke during the morning of Sept. 11, as she was preparing for a Sept. 13 event at the Michigan Carpenters and Millwrights Building (11687 American Street) where Deeb’s legacy will be celebrated through the presentation of awards to young people that auditioned to be a part of an “American Idol”-style event at this year’s Metro Detroit Youth Day, and adult volunteers. “Mims is a breath of fresh air and everything he does comes from the heart. If he says he’s going to do something for the kids, you know he’s going to do it. Even if it means riding his bike across town to do something, it’s going to get done.
“Mims has a heart — he’s authentic. And it’s so important to have volunteers like him to keep what Ed started alive.”
Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and a lifelong lover of Detroit culture in its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city’s neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at stalley@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott’s stories at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/. Please help us grow great community-focused journalism by becoming a subscriber.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroiter with 16 siblings later found two great mentors in Ed Deeb and Luther Keith
Reporting by Scott Talley, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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