Wesley Hagar
Student Sports Media
After a long and agonizing 50- year drought for the Chiefs, they finally found a way to bring the Lombardi Trophy back home to Kansas City, Missouri. With that in mind, one of the most memorable parts about winning the Super Bowl is the parade back home with all the players just as excited as every Chiefs fan waiting for this moment for 50 years.
I had the chance to go up the night before and be a part of all the hype that comes with the parade.
The parade started at 11:30 a.m., but the party had been going on since 6 a.m., having people show up at the barricades at 5:30 a.m. to be able to see the players and of course get a chance to see the league MVP Patrick Mahomes.
Before the parade had even started, there was a car that was able to get through the barricades and start driving up the parade route at around 9 a.m. The car was able to get up to speeds of 40 mph before running over spike strips that police had put out. The police were able to pop two of the driver’s tires and made him come to a complete stop and arrested two intoxicated subjects in the process.
Another incident occurred when a person was riding a horse around the parade route. He was later arrested while he was standing on top of the horse, but he was later released with no charges. But, overall, that day there were only five arrests, which might be a record for Kansas City.
Getting up at 8 a.m., I thought it wouldn’t be that packed until later when the parade started, since it was 29 degrees outside and snowing but I was wrong.
By the time I arrived at Sprint Center, it was already packed, and the parade didn’t even start until two hours later. I didn’t know that Chiefs fans were this dedicated to the team until the parade. Most of them stood outside waiting for multiple hours in the cold.
By the time the parade started, it was said that as many as 700,000 people were there to see the champions since this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be a part of the parade, according to the “Washington Post.” Everything was shut down that day while everyone was at the parade taking part in the festivities.
Once the buses came by, so many people started to scream, yell and of course chant “MVP” to Mahomes as he rode by with tight end Travis Kelce right next to him.
There was one player that used to play for the Butler Grizzlies in the 2015 season, Bryon Pringle, who played in the Super Bowl for the Chiefs. He had two big tackles from the kickoff where he stopped the 49ers kick returner inside the 20-yard line twice during the game.
“It was an amazing experience to be a part of the atmosphere during the parade,” Brady Archer, a Chiefs’ fan, said. “I waited my whole life to witness something like this, I wasn’t able to go and see the Royals parade when they won in 2015, but I was finally able to see and be part of a parade like this with the Chiefs.”
