After 50 years, another Chiefs title would be sweet music

By KEN DAVIS

Super Bowl Sunday has arrived.

Finally.

The wait has been excruciating. The past two weeks, since the Chiefs and 49ers won their conference championships, have crawled along with all the speed of a tortoise racing a snail. The last week alone seemed to take 50 years.

Yes, I’m a Chiefs fan. I have been since 1963, when the Chiefs moved into my hometown of Kansas City. That 50-year comment is a reference to the last time the Chiefs were world champions, beating the Minnesota Vikings in the final game between the old AFL and NFL. You’ve probably heard that a few times this week.

Fifty years is a long time to wait. So much has happened since that 1969 season when coach Hank Stram and a collection of future Hall of Famers beat the odds and dominated the Vikings on both sides of the ball. Now the Chiefs are back, and coach Andy Reid has his best chance to silence his critics with his first Super Bowl victory, a win that would undoubtedly print his ticket to immortality in Canton, Ohio.

The teams arrived in Miami on Sunday. Super Bowl Opening Night was Monday with players from both teams smiling, strutting and showing plenty of swagger. Media obligations and practices occupied the rest of the week until both teams checked out Hard Rock Stadium Saturday and held their walk-through sessions.

With all that going on in South Florida, I’m here in Connecticut with so many  thoughts racing through my head. Thoughts from my childhood. Thoughts from 50 years ago.  I’ve pulled them from a file folder labeled “memories.” But they are much more than that. They are lifetime treasures.

Before my 10^th birthday, the Chiefs had motivated me to become a sports journalist. That is the path I have followed for more than 40 years now. There may be thousands of fans jumping on the Kansas City bandwagon this week. That’s not me. My relationship has been long term. The Chiefs have been my team through thick and thin, through the division championships and all the painful playoff disappointments.

There have plenty of those heartbreaking, agonizing defeats. But they’ve all been brushed away by this incredible ride.

The best memories I have focus on watching Super Bowl IV with my father and grandfather. Mike Garrett’s touchdown after Stram called the famous “65 Toss Power Trap” play. The powerful Chiefs defense frustrating quarterback Joe Kapp and the Vikings. Wide receiver Otis Taylor high-stepping down the sideline into the end zone on the pass play that sealed the deal. Stram got $500 to be mic-uped for that game and the world found out that he encouraged the Chiefs to “matriculate the ball down the field.”

Priceless.

Len Dawson was the quarterback of that team. Lenny The Cool, the guy who historically smoked a cigarette and drank a Fresca during halftime of the first Super Bowl.

 

Now Kansas City has gone crazy over a third-year QB named Patrick Mahomes. Magic Mahomes. Ma-homie. Kids wear headbands and get their hair cut just like this hero. In August, a KC grocery chain unveiled a cereal called Mahomes Magic Crunch and the boxes flew off the shelf. He has taken a good franchise and molded it into a great team, winning the NFL most valuable player award in his first full season and bouncing back from a dislocated knee cap to lead the Chiefs through their magnificent playoff run this season.

Back in those early Super Bowl years, the Chiefs had a linebacker nicknamed Honey Bear. Willie Lanier. My favorite player on those teams. Now the leader of a revamped Super Bowl defense is Honey Badger, safety Tyrann Mathieu, who has provided essential  leadership and direction in his No. 32 jersey.

That’s a lot of honey.

I remember an autographed Polaroid picture of me with Fred “The Hammer” Williamson, taken at the Katz Drug Store at 75^th and Metcalf in my hometown of Overland Park, Kan. Not sure what happened to the photo but I remember it was impressive standing next to a 6-foot-3, 219-pound defensive back who doubled as a movie star. I also seem to remember an autograph session at the same store with running back Ed Podolak.

I was 11 when the Chiefs won their only Super Bowl. Before that they played the Green Bay Packers in 1967, even before the title game became known as the Super Bowl. That first one, won by Green Bay in the Los Angeles Coliseum, was simply called the AFL-NFL Championship Game. It was a big deal, although certainly nothing like today Super Bowl games. My father had a business associate from Kansas City, who was in attendance and brought back a program from the game that I continue to cherish. It might be the most cherished item in my collection of sports memorabilia.

The cover price was $1. The 2020 program sells for $19.

Sometime between that first title game and the Super Bowl victory in 1970, there was a hospital stay when I was 8, maybe 9, years old. I honestly don’t remember , the year, but I do recall being petrified because I needed surgery. That’s never easy for a kid. One vivid memory involved my ride on a hospital gurney, through the swinging doors into the operating room. It reminded me of an episode of Dr. Kildare, the 1960’s hospital television drama starring Richard Chamberlain.

I was scared.

But most of  the fear melted away one day when a local celebrity showed up in the hallway outside my room. It was Bruce Rice, sports director of the KCMO television and radio stations in Kansas City. My family watched his sports segment every night. He was the connection between fans and the Chiefs. He was a big deal in town.

Rice’s young daughter was in the hospital as well. My dad flagged him down and asked him to visit me in my room. Turns out that was the start of the rest of my life. A day or two later, he showed up again. This time he was carrying a Chiefs media guide and an autographed photo from Dawson.

I was in heaven. Right then and there, I knew I wanted to be a sports journalist. Radio, TV, newspaper. I didn’t care. I just wanted to cover sports. I wanted to be Bruce Rice.

A few years later, when I was in eighth grade, we were assigned a project focusing on our career aspiration. I went to the Channel 5 studio and interviewed Bruce. He couldn’t have been nicer. I took my Panasonic cassette recorder so I wouldn’t have to rely on handwritten notes. When I got home, I was devastated to find that I had failed to push the “record” button. There was nothing on my tape.

A phone call to Bruce saved the project. I explained my stupidity (a result of nervousness) and he politely ran through my questions again so that I could put his answers on tape. He was amazing, a true professional and very understanding.

Sadly, Rice died way too young in 1978. He suffered a heart attack in Pittsburgh, traveling with the Chiefs. It went undiagnosed until he returned from the road and he died the following day. One week later, the Chiefs lost at home to the rival Oakland Raiders. Coach John Madden presented the game ball to the Chiefs in memory of Bruce. It was an incredible gesture. Earlier that week, the Chiefs had renamed the press club at Arrowhead Stadium in honor of Rice.

Bruce Rice was my hero. If I hadn’t met him in that hospital room, I have no idea if I would have become a sportswriter. I was so lucky to experience his influence and compassion at a young age.  I never considered any other profession. Rice, Dawson and the Chiefs deserve all the credit.

Of course, Dawson did something back then that you would never see these days. Imagine Tom Brady or Drew Brees doubling as a TV sportscaster while still playing quarterback in the NFL. Dawson did that. He went to work for Channel 9 in Kansas City while he was still playing. He had a long career, working at the local channel, then calling NFL games, and finally spending several years on the Chiefs radio network before retirement.

 

Imagine my thrill when I wrote a book on Kansas basketball a few years ago and Channel 9 did a feature on me. Dawson didn’t interview me but he was anchoring when the feature aired. When he spoke my name and promoted a book signing I had scheduled, I felt as if my career had come full circle.

From that first day in Kansas City, the Chiefs have played a huge role in the city’s community. Owner Lamar Hunt, the man who named the Super Bowl and whose name is on the AFC championship trophy, stressed that involvement and made it a hallmark of the franchise. The team’s remarkable fan base, now known as Chiefs Kingdom, is a reflection of that – both at Arrowhead Stadium and on the road. There will be a sea of red in Miami today and the Tomahawk Chop will be audible from coast to coast – with the possible exception of San Francisco.

As a kid, I never played organized football. I was too much of a wimp to endure a hard hit. But I did play youth baseball and basketball and one opponent in both sports was Stram’s son, Stu. He had the same fire hydrant build as his father and was a fierce competitor no matter what sport was playing. The son and daughter of Super Bowl defensive end Jerry Mays were classmates at my high school. And kicker Jan Stenerud lived just blocks from my junior high school.

The Chiefs have always been more than a football team. And that’s why the Kansas City metropolitan area has craved this moment. Here in Connecticut, I’ve bumped into a few Chiefs fans who simply say, “This is our year.” That is the wish from the Heartland. And after a 50-year wait, the hunger is intense.So many of my longtime friends have the fever. Last week, a high school friend sent me a box of Chiefs goodies that included a hat, a can cozie, a Mahomes shopping bag, a magnet from the AFC championship game, and even a bag of microwave popcorn. Gwen, and so many others in the Kingdom, have that hunger that can only be satisfied with the Lombardi Trophy and a parade through downtown Kansas City.

That would be sweet.

When kickoff rolls around tonight, I’ll be reelin’ in the years, thinking of my father, my grandfather, and my uncle, a former season-ticket holder who passed away in November and sadly will miss this moment by just a few weeks. All three of them would love this team. The Chiefs are talented, confident and cocky. They are fun to watch and they overcame a lot to reach this stage. In so many ways, it is their time.

When the Chiefs went all the way in 1970, we celebrated as a family. Within minutes, we heard the sound of car horns honking all over the city. Sounds silly, but I remember my dad going outside to his car and joining in with the others. What a beautiful noise.

I’ve got a bottle of champagne ready this time around. A taste of the bubbly would be perfect to quench my 50-year thirst. I’ll call my son, who now lives in the Kansas City area, and we will party like it’s 1969. He has adopted my Chiefs and we share the passion. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and so many families in the Kingdom feel the same way.

In fairness, I must warn my neighbors. When the game ends tonight, there might be the sound of a honking horn emanating from my driveway. This is New England. Not Kansas City. But tradition is tradition.

And I’ve waited a long time for this moment.