"HERE WE GO AGAIN"?...I DON'T THINK SO

Am I disappointed? Yes.  Am I Frustrated? Yes.Do I want to lead a lynch mob out of      Arrowhead, Marching Matt Cassel, Todd Haley, and Scott Pioli to the center of town for a public hangin’, the likes of Kansas City hasn’t seen since the late 1800s?  No.

Please, believe me I understand your pain.  I understand the frustration of seven straight playoff losses.  I understand the frustration of trying to rally behind a promising quarterback who at times is so bad in the clutch it seems like he may be throwing the game for gamblers.  I feel your pain Chiefs Kingdom.  I feel your pain.
Yes, they fell again.  Another first round failure, after a season of so much promise and hope.  It’s a bitter pill to swallow.  But like so much medicine, it tastes like crap going down.  To most in the Chiefs Kingdom this is business as usual with their beloved Chiefs. 

January 16, 1994, The Houston Astrodome; the Chiefs beat the Houston Oilers 28-20.  The Chiefs were led by a proven Super Bowl champion.  Joe Montana had already sealed his place in Canton by dominating the 1980s and specializing in post-season play.  Following the win fans thought they were destined for glory.  It seemed as if Montana and Allen, along with numerous, future NFL and Chiefs Hall of Famers would finally get Marty Schottenheimer, Carl Peterson, and the late Lamar Hunt their Lombardi Trophy.  However, a gut wrenching 30-13 beating at the hands of the conference rival Buffalo Bills would soon dash their dreams. 

It seemed the Chiefs were under the control of a cruel curse that had previously been reserved for baseball teams with ancient sins against Sultans and hoofed creatures.  But there was no curse.  There was no cosmic mystical force against us.  Why did the chiefs lose fall yet again in a race to the Super Bowl? 

-Because the Bills the bills were destined to be the team with the most superbowl appearances in a row and lose them all???

-Because Jim Kelley used possum fat instead of Dapper Dan to grease his mane???

-Because Bruce Smith was created in a lab by a mad scientist, who had a grudge against quarterbacks who have never had a concussion???

There may have been a lot of reasons.

The following years brought some promising seasons and some exciting play, but it all ended the same way.  The late 90’s were generally disappointing all around.  It turns out, not every former San Francisco 49ers quarterback (Bono, Grbac) is a good as Joe Montana or Steve Young, and just because you are a great defensive coordinator (Gunther Cunningham) does not mean you will be a great head coach.  

Underline that with the bittersweet problem of then General Manager Carl Peterson.  Peterson was loyal.  He was loyal to his owner, he was loyal to his players, and he was loyal to Kansas City.  The Chiefs resembled a small town family owned business much more than smash-mouth NFL team.  Chief’s fans loved him and they hated him. 

Peterson kept Kansas City competitive, but with the exception of Marcus Allen from the hated Raiders, he never had what it took to land “the big deal”.  Not to mention, Peterson was a little less than terrible when it came to the draft.  With the exception of a now scattered few, the Chiefs Had to have been the worst drafting team from 1995-2005.

Top all of that with the tragic death of Derrick Thomas, who by many opinions would have very well ended his career as the greatest pass rusher of all time.  This broke the hearts of Chiefs fans and discouraged most hopes of a successful Super Bowl run for Kansas City any time soon. 

Following a short and unsuccessful stint by Herm “You play to win the game” Edwards; the ever loyal Chiefs Kingdom was feeling little hope, and becoming obnoxiously cynical.  Towards the end of Edwards last season Peterson made a few comments that came as somewhat of a relief to many Chiefs fans.  Peterson all but admitted the problem the organization had been experiencing may very well be his fault.  He always said if he was one of the reasons for the downward spiral of the organization then he would address that problem as well.

At the end of the season Edwards and Peterson resigned.

As if closing a red curtain on the second act of a more than tragic play, fans were unsure but mostly hopeful about the future of their Chiefs.  Along with the death of the beloved owner, AFL forefather, and the real mayor of Kansas City, Lamar Hunt; the Chiefs had most certainly entered the next chapter if not another volume of their storied franchise’s history.

Now in the untested but capable hands of Lamar Hunt’s son Clark, the Chiefs began the hard, long road to a Super Bowl.  Signing New England’s VP Scott Pioli and Arizona’s Todd Hailey as Head Coach, The brave trio began to forge a new trail and cultivate a new era of winning in Kansas City.

That should pretty much bring us up to date. 

My apologies for the brief (yeah right!) history lesson.  But I think in order for Chiefs fans as well as any NFL fan to appreciate and separate this 2010 season apart from our historically poor playoff runs, on e must know our history.

I promised myself and others at the beginning of the season, I would be satified with a winning record (as opposed to the modest 4 wins of 2009).  I told myself I would be satisfied with improvement on both sides of the ball.  I promised my family I wouldn’t be upset if we didn’t make the playoffs because we are rebuilding.  But her I sit, sulking like a three year-old after dinner and desert, but was denied gummy bears by his mommy.

So why is this any different from any other playoff loss? Why is this any different from any other rebuilding year?

This time The Chiefs hired a proven builder in Pioli, who has a record of getting the job done.  They have hired a fiery young coach in Hailey, who has already led an offense to the Super Bowl.

This trio of Hunt, Pioli, and Hailey have already done what few NFL teams have; pulling a worst to first turnaround, and winning the vicious dogfight that is the AFC West division championship.  Doing what has been done with the young and mostly raw and immature talent that is the Chiefs, is deserved of a very high honor.  Hailey received this honor last week, being named the 101 award’s AFC coach of the year.  Which is an accomplishment by itself considering the award is voted on by national media member.  A group who has of late not shown Kansas City much love when credit is due.

I have been called an eternal optimist before.  People say I am a dreamer, but I‘m not the only one.  So Chiefs fans I beg to lay aside you disappointment.  Lay aside your cynical pessimism, and join me in not just looking fondly on the 2010 season, but celebrating it.  The Kansas City Chiefs are the AFC West Champs!  And they have come further anybody ever thought they would, including myself.

So let’s join together and defend our beloved team this spring and summer

…And for the first time in a long time, let’s say with confidence, hope, and promise of post season success, There’s always next year!

MISERY LOVES COMPANY: "PLEASE COME IN".

    With 2010 now over and 2011 underway, we sports fans are enjoying one of our favorite times of the year.  As College football winds down, the bowl games heat up.  As the NFL prepares for her final week of the regular season, the playoffs wait just a week away.  College basketball is finishing up most of the non-conference/non-exhibition warm ups are behind us and are now programs are ready to play their conference foes.

With all the match-ups, and all of the story lines that accompany them, the scandals, and debate that surround this time of year, one has a tough job deciding what to write about and in what direction one is being led. So I ignored all of that and decided to write about…myself.

I am not conceited or anything, but you as my reader, have the right to know who or what is generating these articles week after week.  So I thought I would share a little about myself for those of you who do not know me.

I am married with two sons, one three years old and one almost seven months.  My wife is very supportive of my writing, mostly because I think she is sick of me rambling on to her about things she could care less about.  Don’t get me wrong.  She loves sports she is a KC Chiefs and Royals fan.  She is a Mizzou alumn.  She loves her Tigers.  But she doesn’t like the Chiefs, Royals, and Tigers the way I like the Chiefs, Royals, and Tigers.

I was born in Columbia, MO.  My father and mother are an odd couple.  They were drawn together by forces greater than themselves.  They had to be, for their love was forbidden.  My father, a die hard Chiefs fan, was married to the enemy.  My mother is a Broncos fan.  But do not feel sorry for me, as if I have grown up in a house divided.  Like so many Broncos fans, when the Chiefs win, “Oh I don’t really care about football.” Was her typical post game, go-to remark.

My Dad taught me nearly everything I know about sports; how to play, how to enjoy, and how to follow them.  Most importantly he taught me how gripe about sports.  My dad grew up an hour away from The Truman Sports complex.  He knew the Chiefs and Royals of a different time.  The Chiefs and Royals the not only won, but dominated in the 70’s and early 80’s.  I was put to bed at night with stories of Bobby Bell, Len Dawson, and Buck Buchanan, Cookie Rojas, Amos Otis, Freddy Patek, and the great George Brett.

I was lucky enough to watch George Brett play.  I respect and admire him a great deal.  With all of his faults, King George was and is still the greatest hitter I have ever seen.  My youngest Brother as well as my youngest son both share the middle name, Brett.  Is this sick?  Is this sad?  Is this cool?  Yes, it is all of those.

My love for competitive sports is a sick and aggressive disease, that I am convinced will one day kill me.  Or maybe it will force my wife to put me out of my misery.  But as a life long Royals fan.  Misery is something I have grown accustomed to.  Since the culmination of Kansas City’s A.L. dominance in 1985, Kansas City has been a barren wasteland, a baseball desert, where a fan’s thirst was quenched in September and dried up again in January.  Generally, because when the Chiefs were again becoming a force in the 90’s, after the 80’s yielded little harvest, they seemed to have trouble getting out of the playoffs. 

Being a Kansas City sports fan is burden and a curse.  It doesn’t matter how knowledgeable you are about the world of sports.  It doesn’t matter how many stats you know, how many games you have been to.  When people hear you are a Kansas City fan, you are usually laughed at.  You are looked at as an outsider, someone who has no knowledge of the game.  Most sports intellectuals see you as a sad, but harmless peasant who lives so far away from their most holy culture centers, located on the East and West coasts, that we must be so uneducated to have heard of this thing called winning.

So what keeps me going back to Kauffman (Royals’) Stadium every summer and Arrowhead Stadium every winter?  Why do I defend them against elitist and obnoxious Cardinals, Yankees, Cowboys, and Rams fans?  Well, the answer is…I…really don’t know. 

Maybe it’s the fact that if I gave in, if I quit on them, it would certainly admit defeat to all of my in state baseball brethren. St. Louis Cardinals fans really are some of the best in baseball.  This of course makes them the worst.  Debating with a Cardinals fan is nothing short of banging your head against a brick wall.  Just when you think it’s getting softer and you are almost to the other side, you realize it’s just your skull caving in.  In reality, the Cards have quite a foundation to stand on and plenty of ammunition in their arsenal. When it comes to arguing for the greatest club in MLB history, The St. Louis Cardinals are in the discussion with only a few others.  But we won’t get into that.  Not today at least.

As I get older and maybe a little wiser, I learn how to enjoy sports as opposed to laboring over them.  Watching games should not be a gut wrenching, cardiac arrest inducing event.  I have learned to love sports for sports sake.  This doesn’t mean that I don’t still root for the teams I have grown up loving.  But it does make me a more tolerable person during and after Baseball, Football, and Basketball games.  I am no longer a grumpy person Monday through Saturday because the Chiefs lost on Sunday.  I am not a cynical jerk every day because the Royals have dropped ten of the last fifteen games. Or trade our best most productive players, for two Norwegian pitching prospects, one elderly minor leaguer who’s never been to the show, and a $20 Hy-Vee meat department gift card.

It may have to do with my family.  You can learn a lot about yourself throwing baseballs to a three year old holding a bat way to big for him.  You can learn a lot about life by taking a three year old to a ball park, stadium, or arena be it at a high school in Columbia, MO or a Billion dollar sports complex in Kansas City or St. Louis.  The sports we love are children’s games.  Some of us were blessed to get have played as long as we did.  Some are blessed enough to still be playing.

This has helped me find my happy place.  A place where I watch Baseball, Football, Basketball, hockey, soccer, curling, mixed martial arts, and any other type of human competition, because I love to watch us stretch our limits.  I love to watch us dig deep and throw three more strikes.  I love to see us break out of our shells and push as hard as we can, until something greater than ourselves is sustaining us.  I love the unpredictability, of a team who is down but believes they can beat anybody anywhere anytime; “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat”.  This has allowed me to explore and enjoy other parts of my life I had been neglecting.

Now please don’t worry.  Not all of my articles will be this touchy feely.  I still have strong opinions and will share freely.  I often choose sides, but only after I attempt to look at things from every angle.  I may make you angry; I may make you feel validated. Most likely I will make feel sorry for my wife and children.  But no matter what the subject matter, I have found objectivity and appreciation through the same sports that once made me bitter and intolerable.

Thanks you for reading my very first post.  Please share your comments and become a follower.  Check daily for updates, and weekly for feature articles from me and special guest bloggers. 

Next week, the gloves come off.  Happy New Year!