At Last!

"Victory belongs to the most persevering."

--Napoleon Bonaparte

Copyright © 2019
by Ralph F. Couey

There is an incipient sense of unreality permeating those abused souls who call themselves fans of the Kansas City Chiefs.  The game is over, the score is official.  Arrowhead Stadium has been drained of fans.  Yet, in years past, such a situation was fraught with sadness and frustration after watching yet another playoff collapse.

But not tonight.

The Chiefs won a home playoff game.  And won it decisively for only the second time in a quarter-century.  Fans of other teams, particularly the Patriots, will find the resulting joy puzzling.  But no fans in the NFL have been put through the emotional ringer like we have.  I won't recount all the previous disasters since the networks spent a lot of time today dissecting that mournful trend.  But all week Reid, Mahomes, and Company were telling us the same thing:  The past doesn't matter.  We weren't here for that, but we're here now and this is going to end differently.  And they were right.

The Chiefs dominated in every aspect of the game, as the stats so graphically illustrate.  After those first three three-and-outs, the Colts were never really in this one.  But there were moments when Chiefs fans felt the brush of the wings of death flapping around our shoulders.  A blocked punt that became a touchdown.  A fumble deep in Chiefs territory that gave Indy the ball inside the 20.  A late drive capped off by a long bomb to the end zone.  The Chiefs offense shut out in the second half until a garbage time TD.  All those things had happened before.  Insurmountable leads were surrendered, with the opponents scoring on horribly unusual plays that could only have been dreamed up by Rod Serling.  But that scenario, that Shakespearean drama did not suddenly appear.  The time ticked down to zero, catching the Colts unable to run a last play, again something that happened to us in the past.  

Suddenly, without warning it almost seemed, the game was over.  The Chiefs... had WON!!!

Like the sun coming out after a day full of gloomy rain, all the doubt, all the despair, all the heartache of the past was gone.  I can't speak for anybody else, but frankly for a few moments, I didn't quite know how to feel.  It was like someone who had struggled with poverty their whole lives was suddenly holding a seven-figure lottery check in their hands.

Hours later, it still feels weird.  I think I was so prepared for another ghastly loss, so convinced that the football gods, if any exist, had inflicted the mother of all spells on Kansas City.  Now I have a new feeling to process:  Victory.  And hope.

This thing ain't over yet.  Next weekend, the Chiefs will welcome to Arrowhead either the Patriots who have a culture of winning that spans an entire generation, or the Chargers who are to the Chiefs  a bad case of gout.  Either team will be a supreme test for the Chiefs.  But after next Sunday, if the stars align and Mahomes doesn't break his leg, the Kansas City Chiefs for the first time in a half-century will be on their way to Atlanta for the Biggest Tamale of all football tamales, the Super Bowl.

Next Sunday, I will be in Kansas City, joining my son who is flying from Maryland.  We will file into the stadium and find our way to a pair of ungodly expensive seats to witness, win or lose, the AFC Championship game.

The forecast is for temperatures in the upper 40's to mid-30's during the game, and no snow, unlike today's blizzard bowl.  And all things considered, that's a pretty nice day for the midwest in mid-winter.  But after five months living in and becoming adapted to the heat and humidity of the tropics, it will be for me a trip to Siberia.  When it became apparent that this trip was in the offing, I went to my closet to discover two things:  (1) I only have one pair of long pants, and (2) no jacket.  All my winter clothes were left in a storage unit in Colorado, for obvious reasons.  So I will fly from Honolulu to Denver, spending a day pulling thick, heavy attire out of storage, along with a couple more pairs of long pants, and then fly to KC for the game.  Since there is no point in taking winter clothes back to Hawai'i, I will have to stop in Denver again on the way back to put them back into their assigned containers before returning to Honolulu.  The good news is that I'll have a day to spend with two of our beloved grandkids going in both directions, which by itself makes the trip worthwhile.

I had assumed that we would not return to the mainland for at least two more years, as this work contract wound down.  So I was in a way unprepared for this brief trip back into the deep freeze.  But this is one of those singular moments in one's lifetime when the opportunity presents itself to go somewhere and experience something fantastic and other-worldly.  If I looked closely enough, this might actually be a line item somewhere on my extensive bucket list.  The pilgrimage to that Midwestern cathedral of football is one that for a Chief's fan, must be made, even at the risk of pneumonia and hypothermia.  

Intellectually, I know I fly out late Thursday on the red-eye.  I also know that on Sunday, I will be in Arrowhead for what possibly may be the most exciting three hours of my life.  But I also know that this sense of unreality won't harden into UHD-quality reality until I am standing there with 70,000 of my closest friends in the loudest stadium in the world watching our team as they strive to reach the pinnacle of their profession.  

That moment when reality asserts itself, I already know will be the greatest moment ever.

And I'll be sharing it with my son.

Update:  The forecast has changed, and not for the better.  Game time temp:  6.  Degrees.  Farenheit.

I'm going to die.