CHIEFS TRY A NEW APPROACH, THE QUESTION IS, ARE YOU BUYING INTO IT?
Linda & I departed St. Joe this morning & I'd like to thank Paul & Michael at the Comfort Suites, they were very helpful in making our 5-day stay much better. The volunteers at Missouri Western were amazing but I wish they had completed their rafflle as promised last night. I have to admit I'd never spent a night in St. Joe, but the town & it's people really impressed me, made us feel welcome & for that I say thank you. If you're ever there at breakfast time, stop at Le Peep, 2 blocks south of Frederick on Woodbine, the best breakfast ever, seriously, it was delicious. Had a superb dinner at V's Italian tonight in K.C. to celebrate my father-in-law's 84th birthday. I've eaten in this place for over 40-years, it's still fabulous. Tomorrow we'll head back to the Lake but not before we make a quick trip to Sports Nutz, the ultimate Chiefs store, just 1/2 mile north of Arrowhead Stadium. I'm currently off Chiefs merchandise, just a personal thing, but they have hundreds of items from Mizzou & I've yet to swear off any Tiger stuff.
This afternoon, our trip from St. Joseph to Kansas City took us by the Truman Sports Complex & I couldn't resist, I had to pull off I-70 & drive down the hill for our own little tour. Honestly, Arrowhead looks spectacular, the Founders' Plaza on the north side is everything I thought it would be. The fountains, the bronze statue of Lamar Hunt, the inlaid pavers with engraving paid for by thousands of Chiefs' fans. I'm thinking about getting my own paver, God knows I've worn my Chiefs' "fandom" on my sleeve for over 40 years. Why not a paver at Arrowhead? I loved seeing the large engraving dedicated to Buck Buchanan, one of the all-time great Chiefs on & off the field & a Pro Football Hall of Famer. The other fabulous component of Founder's Plaza was the diagram of the fabled "65 Toss-Power Trap", the play that broke Super Bowl IV wide open. It's imbedded right in the pavement. As you might have seen in the famous NFL Films highlight, Hank Stram grabbed WR Gloster Richardson on the sideline & said "tell Leonard(Dawson) 65 Toss Power-Trap." Mike Garrett scored on the perfectly blocked play, making the score 16-0 right before half & for all intents & purposes, the game was over. It's just a very cool touch. I love what I saw of the new Arrowhead.
I slammed the Chiefs for the totally lame promotion they fooled their fans with last night(scroll down to last night's post). On the trip down here to Kansas City, we heard the opening of Between the Lines on WHB 810 sportstalk radio, host Kevin Keitzman chimed in with basically the same gripe & he was 110% correct. Keitzman had broadcast from Chiefs' Camp all week & felt he had been mislead by the Chiefs. I want to be clear about this, the $10 admission went to Missouri Western, which softened the blow with many fans, myself included, but many of the 3,000+ fans left within the 1st hour because they knew they had been duped. I felt that way & Keitzman did too. He promised his listeners he wouldn't promote another "Farewell to St. Joe" next year unless he knew what the team had planned. Good for him & anyone else who saw this snorefest & thought the Chiefs could have cared less about us dopes who shelled out ten bucks.
So now the team, with their beautifully renovated stadium to pay for, will open a practice next Wednesday evening at 6:15 inside Arrowhead. Opening a practice to the public inside Arrowhead hasn't been done in a long time, but things aren't what they used to be, the economy is horrible, disposable household income is way down & the Chiefs aren't exactly the hottest ticket in town, winning only 10-games over the past three seasons. This is also the night before they play the Eagles in the same building, so I think this practice will be nothing more than a run-thru in T-shirts & shorts. But there's no admission charge, parking is free & the Chiefs are going to spring for a fireworks show after the practice concludes. But you may be subject to endless sales pitches for season tickets, so beware. Personally I'd go just to snoop around to see if it is as impressive inside as it is outside. But I don't see us driving up next Wednesday, I got my fill of Chiefs' practices recently & the possibility of me buying season tickets right now is slightly less than the chance of me being on the cover of GQ.
I'm rather ambivalent about the Chiefs right now, who, like the National Football League, had us eating out of their hand & then little by little things began to erode. Hopefully the league will look at teams like Kansas City, teams that had long waiting lists for season tickets, teams with an ultra-loyal fan base who have fallen on hard times & not make the same mistake. Fix it before you run it off the rails. Yes the economy has affected Kansas City's fan base but poor management has been the major cause of a shrinking season ticket base. A decade ago, there were 21,000 people on the season ticket waiting list & a season ticket base of 70,000. I've been told by an excellent source the base isn't even over 40,000 for the upcoming season. I'm not kidding, I was told it was hovering around 38,500 season tickets. Many of those that chose to keep buying season tickets are no longer interested in wasting 6 hours on a Sunday watching a rerun of 1980's style futility. Look on eBay & StubHub, you'll be amazed at the number of Chiefs' tickets for sale, by the game or for the entire season. I'm talking thousands & thousands.
I flew in to see Chiefs' games 29 times when we lived in Las Vegas, I planned many a vacation around a trip to Arrowhead. I brought friends with me on a few occasions, non-Chiefs' fans who loved the atmosphere of Arrowhead & often returned the following season. So did I, the tailgating, player introductions complete with fireworks, the National Anthem & the Air Force flyovers, jeez, I'm getting goosebumps just writing about it. Seeing the Chiefs in Arrowhead was truly special. But how long will it take to feel that sensation again? Yes, Arrowhead is better than it's ever been, but cosmetics, architecture & a fan friendly design aren't what made the place great way back when. It's been home to every single K.C. member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame & many that belong in there. Joe Delaney played in Arrowhead, so did Christian Okoye & Priest Holmes, James Hasty & Deron Cherry. Great players, making great plays got the fans revved up & it was the fans that made Arrowhead great. It was the fans, wearing every sort of Chiefs garb imaginable, creating, as John Madden used to say, "the best smelling parking lot on earth." It was the fans in the lower deck who refused to sit down until halftime & when the 3rd quarter started, they were back on their feet, screaming whenever the opponent had the ball, silent when the Chiefs were on offense. These fans understood the game & I honestly believe they understand what has happened to their beloved football team.
The social networks & the internet have ginned up a new group of Chiefs' fans, blindly loyal, boastful, but if things don't get better in a hurry, their limited attention span will move them in another direction. Many of the fans that made Arrowhead what it was have taken a wait & see attitude, no longer buying everything that comes out of One Arrowhead Drive to be gospel. Some of those fans have surrendered their tickets for no other reason than they just can't afford them in this economy. Pay Susie's tuition or renew our season tickets? That's a reality, but Kansas City isn't the only city nationally to be experiencing hard times. Kansas City is much like Jacksonville, Tampa or even St. Louis, towns with teams that have fallen & they can't get up. Plenty of smaller market teams continue to thrive, so the economy can only be blamed so much. If the Chiefs' record had been reversed the last three seasons & had gone 38 & 10, I wouldn't be writing this, I'd be planning several trips to Arrowhead this fall. I flew 1500 miles to see 29 Chiefs' games, but now I live 140 miles from Arrowhead & I don't know that I'll even make it up for a game this season.
The Chiefs began leaking oil about 12 years ago, but we kept our focus, never doubting next season could be the one. But with every disappointment, it chipped away some of that enthusiasm until it was nearly gone for many of us. You don't win but 2 playoff games in 40 stinkin' years, you begin to feel like, well you begin to understand what a Cub fan feels like. My loyalty for this franchise will never falter, but I can't say the same for my enthusiasm. For many years I wondered how long it will be before we won another playoff game, now I just wonder if we will even get into another playoff game.
I guess what soured me & thousands like me is the attitude we hear emanating from the front office. I could swallow a ton of attitude if you had done something with this franchise to be arrogant about. But after watching 4 seasons of no defense under Dick Vermeil, 3 seasons of Chinese fire drills under Herm Edwards & last years "stick it up your *#& tour" with Todd Haley & Scott Pioli at the helm, you'll have to excuse me for not being totally on board with everything you say & do. Chiefs' fans have every right to be cynical, every right to wait & see, remember, this is the "Show Me" state. So show us already, Chiefs' fans can make that stadium rock again, make it the loudest place to play in the National Football League. Can Hunt, Pioli & Haley assemble a team good enough to make that happen? Don't tell me, show me.
This afternoon, our trip from St. Joseph to Kansas City took us by the Truman Sports Complex & I couldn't resist, I had to pull off I-70 & drive down the hill for our own little tour. Honestly, Arrowhead looks spectacular, the Founders' Plaza on the north side is everything I thought it would be. The fountains, the bronze statue of Lamar Hunt, the inlaid pavers with engraving paid for by thousands of Chiefs' fans. I'm thinking about getting my own paver, God knows I've worn my Chiefs' "fandom" on my sleeve for over 40 years. Why not a paver at Arrowhead? I loved seeing the large engraving dedicated to Buck Buchanan, one of the all-time great Chiefs on & off the field & a Pro Football Hall of Famer. The other fabulous component of Founder's Plaza was the diagram of the fabled "65 Toss-Power Trap", the play that broke Super Bowl IV wide open. It's imbedded right in the pavement. As you might have seen in the famous NFL Films highlight, Hank Stram grabbed WR Gloster Richardson on the sideline & said "tell Leonard(Dawson) 65 Toss Power-Trap." Mike Garrett scored on the perfectly blocked play, making the score 16-0 right before half & for all intents & purposes, the game was over. It's just a very cool touch. I love what I saw of the new Arrowhead.
I slammed the Chiefs for the totally lame promotion they fooled their fans with last night(scroll down to last night's post). On the trip down here to Kansas City, we heard the opening of Between the Lines on WHB 810 sportstalk radio, host Kevin Keitzman chimed in with basically the same gripe & he was 110% correct. Keitzman had broadcast from Chiefs' Camp all week & felt he had been mislead by the Chiefs. I want to be clear about this, the $10 admission went to Missouri Western, which softened the blow with many fans, myself included, but many of the 3,000+ fans left within the 1st hour because they knew they had been duped. I felt that way & Keitzman did too. He promised his listeners he wouldn't promote another "Farewell to St. Joe" next year unless he knew what the team had planned. Good for him & anyone else who saw this snorefest & thought the Chiefs could have cared less about us dopes who shelled out ten bucks.
So now the team, with their beautifully renovated stadium to pay for, will open a practice next Wednesday evening at 6:15 inside Arrowhead. Opening a practice to the public inside Arrowhead hasn't been done in a long time, but things aren't what they used to be, the economy is horrible, disposable household income is way down & the Chiefs aren't exactly the hottest ticket in town, winning only 10-games over the past three seasons. This is also the night before they play the Eagles in the same building, so I think this practice will be nothing more than a run-thru in T-shirts & shorts. But there's no admission charge, parking is free & the Chiefs are going to spring for a fireworks show after the practice concludes. But you may be subject to endless sales pitches for season tickets, so beware. Personally I'd go just to snoop around to see if it is as impressive inside as it is outside. But I don't see us driving up next Wednesday, I got my fill of Chiefs' practices recently & the possibility of me buying season tickets right now is slightly less than the chance of me being on the cover of GQ.
I'm rather ambivalent about the Chiefs right now, who, like the National Football League, had us eating out of their hand & then little by little things began to erode. Hopefully the league will look at teams like Kansas City, teams that had long waiting lists for season tickets, teams with an ultra-loyal fan base who have fallen on hard times & not make the same mistake. Fix it before you run it off the rails. Yes the economy has affected Kansas City's fan base but poor management has been the major cause of a shrinking season ticket base. A decade ago, there were 21,000 people on the season ticket waiting list & a season ticket base of 70,000. I've been told by an excellent source the base isn't even over 40,000 for the upcoming season. I'm not kidding, I was told it was hovering around 38,500 season tickets. Many of those that chose to keep buying season tickets are no longer interested in wasting 6 hours on a Sunday watching a rerun of 1980's style futility. Look on eBay & StubHub, you'll be amazed at the number of Chiefs' tickets for sale, by the game or for the entire season. I'm talking thousands & thousands.
I flew in to see Chiefs' games 29 times when we lived in Las Vegas, I planned many a vacation around a trip to Arrowhead. I brought friends with me on a few occasions, non-Chiefs' fans who loved the atmosphere of Arrowhead & often returned the following season. So did I, the tailgating, player introductions complete with fireworks, the National Anthem & the Air Force flyovers, jeez, I'm getting goosebumps just writing about it. Seeing the Chiefs in Arrowhead was truly special. But how long will it take to feel that sensation again? Yes, Arrowhead is better than it's ever been, but cosmetics, architecture & a fan friendly design aren't what made the place great way back when. It's been home to every single K.C. member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame & many that belong in there. Joe Delaney played in Arrowhead, so did Christian Okoye & Priest Holmes, James Hasty & Deron Cherry. Great players, making great plays got the fans revved up & it was the fans that made Arrowhead great. It was the fans, wearing every sort of Chiefs garb imaginable, creating, as John Madden used to say, "the best smelling parking lot on earth." It was the fans in the lower deck who refused to sit down until halftime & when the 3rd quarter started, they were back on their feet, screaming whenever the opponent had the ball, silent when the Chiefs were on offense. These fans understood the game & I honestly believe they understand what has happened to their beloved football team.
The social networks & the internet have ginned up a new group of Chiefs' fans, blindly loyal, boastful, but if things don't get better in a hurry, their limited attention span will move them in another direction. Many of the fans that made Arrowhead what it was have taken a wait & see attitude, no longer buying everything that comes out of One Arrowhead Drive to be gospel. Some of those fans have surrendered their tickets for no other reason than they just can't afford them in this economy. Pay Susie's tuition or renew our season tickets? That's a reality, but Kansas City isn't the only city nationally to be experiencing hard times. Kansas City is much like Jacksonville, Tampa or even St. Louis, towns with teams that have fallen & they can't get up. Plenty of smaller market teams continue to thrive, so the economy can only be blamed so much. If the Chiefs' record had been reversed the last three seasons & had gone 38 & 10, I wouldn't be writing this, I'd be planning several trips to Arrowhead this fall. I flew 1500 miles to see 29 Chiefs' games, but now I live 140 miles from Arrowhead & I don't know that I'll even make it up for a game this season.
The Chiefs began leaking oil about 12 years ago, but we kept our focus, never doubting next season could be the one. But with every disappointment, it chipped away some of that enthusiasm until it was nearly gone for many of us. You don't win but 2 playoff games in 40 stinkin' years, you begin to feel like, well you begin to understand what a Cub fan feels like. My loyalty for this franchise will never falter, but I can't say the same for my enthusiasm. For many years I wondered how long it will be before we won another playoff game, now I just wonder if we will even get into another playoff game.
I guess what soured me & thousands like me is the attitude we hear emanating from the front office. I could swallow a ton of attitude if you had done something with this franchise to be arrogant about. But after watching 4 seasons of no defense under Dick Vermeil, 3 seasons of Chinese fire drills under Herm Edwards & last years "stick it up your *#& tour" with Todd Haley & Scott Pioli at the helm, you'll have to excuse me for not being totally on board with everything you say & do. Chiefs' fans have every right to be cynical, every right to wait & see, remember, this is the "Show Me" state. So show us already, Chiefs' fans can make that stadium rock again, make it the loudest place to play in the National Football League. Can Hunt, Pioli & Haley assemble a team good enough to make that happen? Don't tell me, show me.
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