WHEN A GUNMAN KILLS, AMERICA NO LONGER CARES ABOUT A SPORTS DYNASTY
Terror struck Kansas City during an NFL championship parade, with one dead and 21 wounded by gunfire, and America’s mass shootings should end a team’s wish to celebrate publicly with one million fans
On Valentine’s Day, in a city of red, gun violence left one person dead and eight children injured in another episode of our national disease. What precisely is a football dynasty when wretches prefer to shoot and kill, leaving 21 for hospital care? Even in Kansas City, where Taylor Swift visits Travis Kelce and the old coach eats cheeseburgers, the people couldn’t celebrate a third Super Bowl title in five years without chaos at the end of a parade.
When we can’t stage a fun event without police finding armed shooters, it begs a question about the implications between sports glory and civic involvement. What exactly is the point of having downtown bashes when kooks can ruin it all, when Patrick Mahomes is left to post online, “Praying for Kansas City,” while adding emojis of hands in prayer? Everyone in that midsized fantasyland should be in love with the Chiefs, with the all-time greatness of Mahomes and the romance of Kelce and Swift.
Instead, we ask why? We do it again, recalling the shootings in Denver after the Nuggets won an NBA championship last summer and gunfire in a Texas parking lot after the Rangers won the World Series last fall. If mass shootdowns have become a regular part of life, why risk fright by staging a huge party? Let players and coaches celebrate at the stadium and send them home for the offseason. When more than one million fans are invited, it’s impossible to search for firearms.
We live in 2024. Violence should be expected and feared. One dead and eight kids wounded? Senselessness wrecks the joy. Misery becomes a tortured memory. Radio disc jockey Lisa Lopez, a Chiefs superfan who hosted a “Taste of Tejano” show, died with a gunshot wound, according to the Associated Press.
“This is absolutely a tragedy, the likes of which we never would have expected in Kansas City, the likes of which we'll remember for some time," Mayor Quinton Lucas said. “I think that’s something that all of us who are parents, who are just regular people living each day, have to decide what we wish to do about. Parades, rallies, schools, movies. It seems like almost nothing is safe.”
Said Police Chief Stacey Graves: “I’m angry at what happened today. The people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment, and because of two bad actors or more, it’s why we are standing here today.”
The Chiefs had left the ceremony and heard the ghastly news when returning to Arrowhead Stadium. They didn’t see the first responders who tackled a suspected gunman near Union Station. Turns out officials were right in suggesting Swift not show up for the parade, allowing her to begin an Australia journey on her Eras Tour. Who knows what might have happened if she’d arrived with Kelce? “We might have already told that to her team, just to keep everybody safe and make things a little bit easier for us,” city manager Brian Platt said.
As it was, without Swift, a wobbly Kelce wowed the crowd when he had to be supported by teammates on stage. He lost his balance while singing, “Friends in Low Places,” while needing Mahomes to hold a microphone to his face. When a fan thrust a cardboard drawing of his brother Jason’s shirtless romp, Kelce stood behind it and chugged another drink in his WWE championship belt.
“Be smart,” coach Andy Reid said beforehand.
Looking back, Kelce might want to apologize for his behavior in general. He already told Jason on a podcast that he regrets shoving Reid during the Super Bowl, saying, “It’s definitely unacceptable and I immediately wished I could take it back.” Swift may start to wonder about Kelce’s hijinks and his role in Kansas City. We didn’t hear from him as of Wednesday night.
Said linebacker Drue Tranquill: "Please join me in prayer for all the victims in this heinous act. Pray that doctors & first responders would have steady hands & that all would experience full healing.”
Said offensive lineman Trey Smith: “My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by today's incidents — a huge thank you to the first responders who ran towards the sound of danger. You're the ones who should be celebrated today.”
Said Brittany Mahomes, the quarterback’s wife: “Shooting people is never the answer. Praying for Kansas City & America in general. Highly embarrassed and disappointed in this. Super Bowl wins will never be the same because of this. It’s devastating. Lives lost and people injured during something that was suppose(d) to be a celebration. Horrible and traumatizing.”
She’s right. What did the Super Bowl mean, suddenly?
I’ve lived in cities where championships have happened with peril in the air. In Detroit, we were forced to remain in a press box while cars were on fire. The same happened in Los Angeles, where police cars were lit outside Staples Center after a Lakers championship. And Chicago? When the Bulls were one victory from beating Phoenix in 1993, Charles Barkley shared his best words in rallying his Suns team.
“They’ve got the national guard out. They’ve got the police in force. They’ve got every bar in town boarding up their windows,” he said. “That’s rude. It’s like selling the estate before the person’s dead.”
The Suns won Game 5, then lost the title at home. Back in Chicago, three people died from random gunfire and 682 were arrested. I thought then about sports and fraught joy. In this age of artificial intelligence, we can have pleasure on our own.
“When you have people who decide to bring guns to events … all of us start to become members of this club that none of us want to be a part of,” Lucas said. “I don’t want us in our country, for every big event, to worry about being shot.”
His concern comes much too late.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.