(Part 2)
Past Disconsolations and Future Deconstructions of a Kansas City Chiefs Fan

I must confess I am one of the worst losers I know. You’d know because of how gracious I appear when losing. That may not seem to make sense, but ever since I was shredded by some personal events as a child and I put all my emotional eggs in my sports teams basket, I realized I’d alienate just about everyone if I didn’t learn to manage those feelings.

It may have been best then that the 1970’s were a terrible dry spell for the Chiefs, and that I’d pretty much resigned myself to Chiefs ineptitude. But surprise! In the fall of 1981 I was paying little attention to the NFL when I discovered my team was actually winning games! And they were winning enough to be in real contention. This splendid feeling dissolved as the season waned and they couldn’t hold it, but they ended up 9-7 and captured our hearts.

I followed the Bill Kenney years with eager hope, fondly remembering a Thursday night nationally televised game in which he took apart the Raiders. Joy! And when we drafted Todd Blackledge I was sure he would be the guy to lead us to the promised land, after all, he was the second quarterback picked after John Elway in that 1983 superstar quarterback draft.

1986 would see us genuinely contend again and three spectacular special teams touchdowns against Pittsburgh in the last game of the season would usher us in the playoffs for the first time since that 1971 Christmas day game. The problem was Blackledge had been playing far less spectacularly than we’d all hoped he would. All those years we were hoping against hope he'd get it, but he just never ever could read defenses. The playoff game against the Jets would finally show that he was just not the guy, and our special teams excellence would prove our undoing as it would encourage the hiring of the special teams coach Frank Gansz to run the whole team. I’d always thought Jack Steadman couldn’t run a football team, and this ridiculous move was the topper of them all, yet another symptom of the front office bungling that had doomed the Chiefs to mediocrity for nearly twenty years.

As bad as it was, one of the most extraordinary experiences I’d ever been blessed to enjoy occurred during the awful strike-marred season to follow. After spending time visiting family in Topeka, my uncle in Kansas City offered me the opportunity to use one of his season tickets to come to Arrowhead the day before I was scheduled to fly out. The Chiefs were at home to play the Jets and I wasn’t going to miss this chance. It was the only time I’d ever been to Arrowhead.

It was a rainy drizzly day and the Chiefs were starting third-string quarterback Frank Seurer, and bless him, the little guy played his heart out. Jets back Freeman McNeil ran all over us gaining 184 yards, but we still made it competitive losing by only a touchdown. Just soaking it all in, beholding my team in the very distinctive temple of all things Chiefs, getting to see the magnificent Christian Okoye rumble up and down the field, sitting right there close to the action at around the fifty yard-line with my fellow impassioned Chiefs-rooting uncle and cousin—it was nothing but a transcendent experience.

Still, the discouragement continued until 1988 when the bright light of day streamed in. The Chiefs seemed to get it in gear and brought on board Carl Peterson and Marty Schottenheimer to run things. No Chiefs fan was capable of restraining their glee at this uncharacteristically radical move by Chiefs ownership, handing the team to two proven winners to really, actually, truly get the Chiefs into the upper echelon of NFL contention. Their efforts culminated in 1993 when the Joe Montana-led team played in the AFC Championship Game for a chance to get into the Super Bowl.

Even though we lost that game to the Bills, every Chiefs fan had every reason to believe that the rest of the 1990’s would be ours. Hope not only sprang eternal but was bursting out of all of our red and gold pores.

Thing is, the playoff game to get us to Buffalo, the win against Houston, would be to this point 15 years later the last playoff game we’d ever win.

What followed through the rest of the 1990’s was a series of some of the worst, most horrific clutch losses any team can sustain, much more a phenomenally talented team like the one the Chiefs put on the field. There is no question Marty Schottenheimer had a lifelong playoff curse against him, really. He was a rotten postseason coach, but even that cannot explain the abysmally bad luck his teams have had in the playoffs—just witness what happened with his Browns and Chargers teams.

1998 was the year that the Chiefs simply put me out of my misery, precisely because it was so miserable. It started with extraordinarily high hopes that we’d finally get deep into the playoffs. A 13-3 record assured us home-field advantage throughout and we had an impenetrable defense, yet sure enough we had Marty calling the shots. We weren’t helped by a number of other silly things that gave Denver the critical edge they needed to eek out a win in the divisional playoff game. I spent the entire time shaking my head, and I think my head would’ve fallen off my neck if the game had gone on any longer.

In the summer my hopes were sky-high as we picked up some key defensive players. I remember one of them was Chester McGlockton, and I thought we are definitely going to the Super Bowl that year. I was even more stoked when we took care of the Raiders with ease to open the season on a Sunday night and continue to win 4 of our first 5. Finally! Smooth sailing to dominance in the NFL.

Then the losing began. First it was to New England, and I remember being abjectly bewildered as to how we could be getting so thoroughly pasted. Then we dropped another game, then another, then yet another. It reached a head on Monday night against Denver when I was going bananas wondering how the bleeding was going to stop. This had to be it—we weren’t this bad a team and the game was at Arrowhead.

I was driving home from work, flying down the freeway so I could catch the game on television, but it didn’t matter. I was in a state of catatonic numbness listening on the radio as Bubby Brister—little second-string quarterback Bubby Stinkin’ Brister—run for a 38-yard touchdown. I was completely flummoxed as to how on earth that could be allowed to happen, of course not watching it I just couldn’t imagine, and to this day I don’t know and don’t want to know.

Yeah, it didn’t matter. We ended up getting clobbered, and I knew at that moment that I just had to do it. I just had to. My insides were just completely chewed up. There was nothing left there.

I had to give it up, let it go.

(Part 3 next time will address what precisely this meant. Stay tuned.)
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