A week after my Dad told us he had six months to live, we hunkered down in his house for Missouri’s bowl game, the last of many Tiger football games we watched together through the years.
Though competitive, I rarely saw the old man get angry during games. This was different. He cussed and threw the remote when the Tigers failed to score at the end of the Liberty Bowl against Oklahoma State.
“You’d think one damn time they could win a game like that,” he said.
I tried to lighten the mood, saying, “Well, now that you’re not going to be around, you know they’re going to play for a national title in football and make a Final Four in basketball. And you know the Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl.”
Truth be told, I didn’t believe any of that. Mizzou has kicked us in the groin so many times I fully expect to be sitting here like Dad was at 75 without either happening.
A few weeks later, the Chiefs hosted the Patriots in the AFC Championship game. Dad and I didn’t watch the game together, but we exchanged phone calls and texts all night. I remember telling him afterward that Kansas City probably would play in a Super Bowl the year after I died.
“I don’t know, son,” he said. “Patrick Mahomes is something special. I’ve never seen anybody do the things he does.”
I thought about the old man for most of Sunday’s game against the Titans. I kept saying to myself, “You know, Dad wasn’t even a Royals, Chiefs or Mizzou fan until I started following them in the 1980s.” I felt bad about introducing him to a lifetime of heartbreak.
As the game began and the Chiefs fell behind yet again, I thought how he did what dad’s do: Fully embrace what his sons love. Countless times while my brother and I were growing up, he’d take an hour break from his 12- to 15-hour days to play catch or shoot hoops with us.
He couldn’t attend every game we played, but he was there when he could be. One of my proudest moments of a fairly decent Little League career was looking over to see my dad, who we didn’t expect to be at the game, beaming after I’d smoked a three-run double into the corner during a close game.
The old man didn’t talk much about sports with me until the mid-1980s, when I went all-in with the Royals. When he saw how much I loved baseball, we started playing catch every day. He took me to my first game during that magical 1985 season. He got a subscription to The Sporting News so I could read all the box scores.
A few years later, he built a basketball goal on the side of our garage. As I started high school, he starting buying me Missouri gear. We watched thousands of basketball and football games together over the next 30 years.
It was during high school that I fell in love with the Chiefs. Somehow, through a connection with a friend from his wild and crazy days, the old man was a Dallas Cowboys fan. My brother followed suit. Man did that annoy the hell out of me.
Dad, however, always rooted for the Chiefs, too. He was there to console me after that awful loss to the Bills in 1994. A few years later on our annual shopping trip before the start of school, he didn’t hesitate to pay for several Kansas City jerseys. I had Marcus Allen, Derrick Thomas and Joe Montana.
“You’re the one wearing this stuff to class,” he said. “You should get some nice clothes, too, but I know you love the Chiefs.”
A ton of heartache followed. We sat in stunned silence as the Chiefs lost to the Colts in 1995 and the Broncos in 1997. By the time they lost again to the Colts in the infamous no-punt game in 2003, my emotional investment had decreased significantly.
Not caring as much made it easier to accept another ridiculous loss to Indianapolis in 2014, losing the field goal game to the Steelers in 2017 and choking against Tennessee in 2018.
“Son, there’s more to life than sports,” Dad said after that gut-wrenching loss to New England last year. “But I wish just once the Chiefs would win one for you. I know it still breaks your heart.”
I thought about that quite a bit in the first half Sunday as Tennessee bullied its way to a 17-7 lead. Then Mahomes through a laser to Tyreek Hill for a touchdown. Moments later, he broke off a ridiculous run to give Kansas City a lead it’d never relinquish.
Mahomes faked, tip-toed, shook and rambled through the Titans on that magical play. He broke their spirit, just like he erased years of heartbreak on one play. To put it mildly, I was fully invested again.
The old man wasn’t here, but I could see him smiling, and I could hear him saying, “I told you Mahomes would get it done.”
