Copyright 2019 Kansas City Star
Copyright © 2019
by Ralph F. Couey
Text only
And then, it was over. The season which had been so spectacular, so full of hope and promise ended as the Patriots running back tumbled into the end zone. The atmosphere inside Arrowhead Stadium which had been painfully loud was suddenly vented into silence with the finality of a burst balloon.
We stood there, some 70,000 red-clad fans, shocked into disbelief. In the sudden quiet we could clearly hear the Patriots players celebrating on the field, and their retinue of traveling fans whooping it up in the stands. The realization sunk home. Our team had lost yet another winnable playoff game. The persistent cold, which our passion and excitement had held at bay for those many hours at last made itself felt. Once again, the hearts of Chiefs fans lay in shattered pieces.
It had been an exciting contest. After an aimless and confused first half, the Chiefs offense stormed back to tie and eventually take the lead. The two teams traded punches, aided by some execrable referee work, and with the clock running down in regulation, Harrison Butker tied the score yet again. As the game passed into overtime, we all felt that despite the Chiefs dismal playoff history, that this time it might just happen. But it was not to be. Our offense, so dynamic in the second half, never regained the field. Tom Brady did a Tom Brady and marched down the field through a porous Chiefs defense with all the effortlessness of a stroll in the park.
My son and I shared this debacle together, commiserating as only a father and son can. We both have a lifelong passion for this team and we shared the optimism that the first Super Bowl in 49 years would happen. It was a bucket list experience, one that all fathers and sons should share at least once. It is how great memories are created, and bonds deepened.
We drove into the parking lot about three hours before game time. After donning the rest of our armor against the 20-degree cold, we strolled the parking lot, absorbing the sights, sounds, and yes, smells of the greatest tailgate experience in the world, the stuff of legends. It goes way beyond the simple grill and burgers. It is an elaborate repast, including roasting pigs, silver candelabras, and all the trappings of elegance. The delicious smells of the barbecuing meat hung in the air, causing a salivary Pavlovian response. Music, mostly country and rock, blared from speakers pulsing with bass and drums. It is a communal event, the mutual sharing of neighbors, however temporary.
We meandered up to our assigned gate, trading some good-natured trash talk with Patriot fans. The stadium opened a few minutes early, and we streamed in.
Arrowhead Stadium was designed to do one thing: trap sound. The high, arcing structure, narrow passageways, even the angle of the tiers of seats collect and focus aural energy onto the green rectangle of the field. It is the loudest stadium in the world, clocked at 142.2 db. That's louder than chain saws and jackhammers, more intense than a fighter jet at full afterburner. At full throat, that roar makes the very air quiver, accompanied by a basso thrumming, fans beating their hands against the plastic seats (nobody sits here except at halftime). It transmits through the structure of the stadium itself, the vibrations coming up through the soles of your feet. Television and radio don't do it justice. You have to be there.
Players talk about being face to face and still are unable to hear each other. But its not just at critical junctures, although on every opponents third down, it really ratchets up. That sound, that...roar is ever-present. It is literally a whole-body experience, one that made the long trip from Hawai'i and the insanely expensive tickets worth every penny.
I was 14 the year the Chiefs won the Big One, and while the Super Bowl wasn't the Hollywood Glitz n' Glam show that it is today, it was still a big deal, a chance for the Chiefs to wipe away the stain of the loss to Lombardi's Packers three years before. I remember the joy and pride of a Midwestern city celebrating a world's championship, something that wouldn't happen again in Kansas City until 2015, and that with a different team and different sport.
If anything, as the Super Bowl has morphed into the grand spectacle of all sports championships, such a victory now means even more. And we wanted our team to take us there. On that cold night in Arrowhead, we fans did all we could. We yelled ourselves hoarse, giving us all a bad case of Arrowhead Throat. We never sat down. We stomped, we beat on the chairs, made all the noise we could possibly make. But in the end, even that avalanche of sound couldn't change the outcome.
In the last nine minutes, both teams scored 37 points, and traded the lead four times. Yes, there were some questionable calls, and the Pats brought a great scheme to the game. But in the final analysis it was neither the officials nor the Patriots who inflicted this defeat. The Chiefs, once again, beat themselves. Two days later, in the ultimate rebuke, Bob Sutton, the Chiefs Defensive Coordinator, became unemployed.
It took several hours to clear the parking lot that night, although we did get a little entertainment in watching a full-on pier 6 brawl near Parking Lot L which spilled into the main road, blocking the exit. It took nearly 20 minutes for Stadium Security and KCPD to respond to the scene. Sadly, it was very nearly the biggest highlight of the night. We got back to my sister's house after midnight and silently packed our bags and took short catnaps until our 4:00 AM departure for the airport. It was largely a silent ride, some discussion about our family's plans for next Christmas. We listened to the radio because it hurt too much to talk about it.
My son's plane went out first, headed for Baltimore. My flight to Denver, the first leg back to Hawai'i, was several hours later. I sat there at the departure gate staring into the frigid pre-dawn darkness, trying to marshal my thoughts. It was hard to articulate how I felt. I was disappointed to be sure, but there was still the sense of an expectation met. I remembered that at the beginning of the season nobody expected the Chiefs to go this far, or that Patrick Mahomes would be this good, although we fully anticipated that the defense would be this bad. Next year will be different. A new defense, a young quarterback who will have learned a bitter lesson on a cold night. The 2014 Royals also came close, and using that as motivation, roared back the next year to win the World Series. Maybe, we think...maybe it'll happen again. As the song goes, "That's our story, and we're sticking to it."
It's easy to ameliorate sorrow with such optimism. But despite the tremendous season, and the manic rally in the second half, for me there was a kind of creeping sense of inevitability about this game. The dark side of me reasoned, "Hey, these are still the Chiefs. It there's a way to lose in the most excruciating fashion, they will surely find it." It is the kind of expectant insulation for fans whose hearts have been broken so many times before.
Copyright © 2019
by Robert T. Couey
("Kalanakila" is the Hawai'ian word for Victory.)
Yes, my team lost. The collective dream of a half-century of frustrated waiting for Super Bowl glory has turned to ashes. But it feels different this time. Now there's hope, real hope embodied in the form of a 23-year-old quarterback with a rocket arm and absolutely no fear. The business side of the NFL is complex and unpredictable, but for the next few years, perhaps as much as a decade or so, he will be leading this team to rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of the past. Tom Brady is, admittedly, the greatest quarterback of all time. For now. But we have seen the future.
And it wears red.
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