What Made us KC Chief Fans?

[KCMASS]

Guys...It's early here in Istanbul. I've been to Arrowhead 6 times in my life. Never lived in the Mid-West. Always the Northeast (Delaware, New Jersey & Massachusetts) Kept climbing North! Anyway..I had a male babysitter in Delaware that gave me the option to pick from 5 different boxes of NFL paraphernalia. There was the Eagles, Colts (Baltimore), Redskins, Cowboys & the Chiefs. I picked the Chiefs! I LOVED the logo & Red is my favorite color.I think I was like 5 or 6 @ the time. So here I am like 40+ years later & I have the same addiction to this team! That's why I'm here! I don't even remember his name.

I'm sure many of us have a crazy story about of love for the Chiefs. Please share.

[ctchiefsfan]

I became a Chiefs fan when I was I guess 10 or 11 years years old (pretty sure it was '68 but I can't be positive). I was short and skinny as a rail. Played soccer not football in school. My Step-Dad didn't like that one bit. Thought I might have "early-onset limp-wristedness" because he knew for sure that every red-blooded American male LOVED football. So he had to go on a business trip to KC during the season, brought me with him and he got tickets to a Chiefs game. Against the Raiders. Chiefs won and I WAS HOOKED! Been a Chiefs fan ever since. By my calculations this is either my 49th or 50th year as a Chiefs fan. Since I never lived anywhere near KC it was not easy being a Chiefs fan. Their games were seldom on TV in Giants, Jets and Patriots country. And no easier when I was older and lived in Washington, DC. But for the last half of the '80s and into the mid-'90s I paid a guy in KC to VHS the games for me and overnight the tape so that on Tuesday night I could watch the game even though I already knew what the score had been. By the mid-'90s there were "sports bars" and NFL Sunday ticket so I became a regular at the local sports bar and they knew to always have 1 TV on the Chiefs game! That was in Fredericksburg, Va. Got to be a group of about 6 or 7 Chiefs fans that would watch the game together.The Chiefs have devoted fans all over America. Since I moved back to Ct in '99 I went the sports bar route in the small town area I currently live in. Since I found ChiefsCrowd I've mostly watched streams (Thanks to TopekaRoy) so that I could watch the game while participating in the game day thread.

And that is the saga of a guy whose been a Chiefs fan for a pretty fair while.

[brdempsey69]

I became a Chiefs fan when I was I guess 10 or 11 years years old (pretty sure it was '68 but I can't be positive). I was short and skinny as a rail. Played soccer not football in school. My Step-Dad didn't like that one bit. Thought I might have "early-onset limp-wristedness" because he knew for sure that every red-blooded American male LOVED football. So he had to go on a business trip to KC during the season, brought me with him and he got tickets to a Chiefs game. Against the Raiders. Chiefs won and I WAS HOOKED! Been a Chiefs fan ever since. By my calculations this is either my 49th or 50th year as a Chiefs fan. Since I never lived anywhere near KC it was not easy being a Chiefs fan. Their games were seldom on TV in Giants, Jets and Patriots country. And no easier when I was older and lived in Washington, DC. But for the last half of the '80s and into the mid-'90s I paid a guy in KC to VHS the games for me and overnight the tape so that on Tuesday night I could watch the game even though I already knew what the score had been. By the mid-'90s there were "sports bars" and NFL Sunday ticket so I became a regular at the local sports bar and they knew to always have 1 TV on the Chiefs game! That was in Fredericksburg, Va. Got to be a group of about 6 or 7 Chiefs fans that would watch the game together.The Chiefs have devoted fans all over America. Since I moved back to Ct in '99 I went the sports bar route in the small town area I currently live in. Since I found ChiefsCrowd I've mostly watched streams (Thanks to TopekaRoy) so that I could watch the game while participating in the game day thread.

And that is the saga of a guy whose been a Chiefs fan for a pretty fair while.

I can confirm that. In '68, the Chiefs beat Oakland 24-10 in that contest at KC (and proceeded to get blown out by the Raiders in the rematch at Oakland two weeks later & even worse in the AFL Western Division playoff after the season ended and both teams had finished 12-2). The Chiefs did NOT win their home meetings with Oakland in '66, '67, '69, nor '70.

[ctchiefsfan]

I can confirm that. In '68, the Chiefs beat Oakland 24-10 in that contest at KC (and proceeded to get blown out by the Raiders in the rematch at Oakland two weeks later & even worse in the AFL Western Division playoff after the season ended and both teams had finished 12-2). The Chiefs did NOT win their home meetings with Oakland in '66, '67, '69, nor '70.

Thanks Demps! My memories of dates from my childhood are not what they once were. The events I remember, but the dates tend to be more foggy.

[jap1]

Joe Montana. I was a huge fan of his as a kid. Was a huge 9ers fan as a result. They were my NFC team. Being in SoCal, I was naturally a Raiders fan. I liked a few Chiefs players at the time as I was too young to realize you couldn't like rival teams. When Joe was traded, I burned my 9ers gear (literally) and started rooting for the Chiefs more. When the Raiders moved to Oakland, they became the Traitors in my mind, and it sealed my loyalty to the Chiefs. Been a fan since then.

[brdempsey69]

Thanks Demps! My memories of dates from my childhood are not what they once were. The events I remember, but the dates tend to be more foggy.

Tell you what, I'm quite envious of you getting to see the Chiefs play at old Municipal Stadium back in the days of the AFL. You see, it wasn't the National Football League that made me a fan of pro football -- it was the American Football League, and hence becoming a KC Chiefs fan. Didn't like the realignment of the two leagues in 1970 & still don't like it to this very day.

[ctchiefsfan]

Joe Montana. I was a huge fan of his as a kid. Was a huge 9ers fan as a result. They were my NFC team. Being in SoCal, I was naturally a Raiders fan. I liked a few Chiefs players at the time as I was too young to realize you couldn't like rival teams. When Joe was traded, I burned my 9ers gear (literally) and started rooting for the Chiefs more. When the Raiders moved to Oakland, they became the Traitors in my mind, and it sealed my loyalty to the Chiefs. Been a fan since then.

jap1.....where have you been? We haven't seen you in a long while (or anyway that's how it seems to me). Please don't be a stranger.

[ctchiefsfan]

Tell you what, I'm quite envious of you getting to see the Chiefs play at old Municipal Stadium back in the days of the AFL. You see, it wasn't the National Football League that made me a fan of pro football -- it was the American Football League, and hence becoming a KC Chiefs fan. Didn't like the realignment of the two leagues in 1970 & still don't like it to this very day.

Demps.....I hear you loud and clear. The AFL vs NFL days were more fun. But then I just love the underdog. I just plain naturally want to see the guy that "can't win" win anyway. And the AFL "sort of won". They forced the NFL to accept the AFL as equals and hence the merger. But there is no doubt for me that the combination of AFL vs NFL and on top of that division rivalries made football more fun back then. The stories of how the Chiefs landed Otis Taylor (practically stealing him from a hotel room) are what rivalries are all about. IMO the Super Bowl Trophy should be called the Lamar Hunt Trophy. Because it was Lamar that made football the most important sport in the U.S.

[KCMASS]

In the early 70's I would be jumping for joy when the Chiefs were on TV in Delaware. It didn't happen that often. Maybe when they played the Baltimore Colts or the Eagles. Our antenna would pick-up the Philly & Baltimore feeds. Remember that old wooden console TV that had to have to be 350 lbs.. The "good old days"

[Eydugstr]

I've lived off and on in the KC area; Started liking and watching football when I was about six or seven in the late seventies. We lived in KC at that time, and although I really, really wanted the Chiefs to be a good team, but it didn't happen. By that time the Stram era Chiefs were long gone, Len Dawson was a sportsperson on the local news. We moved from Wyoming then to Denver by the mid eighties, so for a short time I cheered for the Bears, then later the Denver Broncos when it was obvious that Reeves was building a serious team.

We moved back to KC in the late eighties, about the same time King Carl and Schottenheimer started to prove that KC had a football team, too. For the longest time I didn't warm back up to the Chiefs, after how dismal they were in the late seventies/early eighties, but I respected Schottenheimer for all the great Broncos/Browns games and Carl Peterson seemed for real as a GM. When the '92 season rolled around and Carl Peterson took Dave Krieg as a free agent away from the Seahawks, figured they were for real and trying to build a team that was going to keep coming back to the playoffs. While the '92 season was more memorable for it's defense than offense, it paved the way for what happened in '93 and I was hooked on being Chiefs fan from there on out.

While a lot of years have passed since then but it always amazes me when from how far out the Chiefs "Kingdom" has spread (Istanbul ? Really ?!? Glad you're onboard...)

GO CHIEFS DESTROY THE STEELERS....