Fifty years ago, he ran 8 miles to Chiefs Super Bowl parade. This time he walked
Fifty years ago, Monte Short went to the nurse at Van Horn High School in Independence and told her he was sick and needed to go home.
In reality, he was dying to go to the victory parade for the Kansas City Chiefs, who had just won Super Bowl IV.
The nurse wasn’t buying it.
“She said, ‘You’re not sick. You just want to go to the parade,’” Short said. “I said, ‘Well, yeah.’ Back then, they didn’t let the kids out of school. She goes, ‘Well, you’re not gonna go to the parade.’
“I said, ‘Well, then you’re gonna have to catch me.’”
And the sophomore track standout took off.
“And I thought that they were after me, so instead of running down the streets, I was running through the neighborhood, and I would run through people’s back yards and jump their fences,” Short said. “I made it down to the parade, and it was fantastic.”
Fast forward five decades to Wednesday morning.
“I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to go back to Van Horn High School and I’m going to walk to the parade,’” said Short, now 65.
So he got up at 3:30 a.m. and his friend, April Gerlt, drove him to Van Horn. And Short walked the eight-plus miles to 20th Street and Grand Boulevard.
“It took me a couple hours,” he said, “and most of it was in the dark.”
He stood out in the sea of red, with many along the parade route recognizing him. That’s because Short is known to Chiefs fans as Arrowman, attending home games dressed in the opponent’s jersey with red and gold arrows sticking out of his torso. He’s been doing it at every home game since 1990.
“This year was extra special,” he said. “It was such a great year, and being the 50th anniversary of winning the last Super Bowl, it was perfect timing to win again.”
Short said his escapade back in 1970 got him expelled from school. At the time, his mom told school officials that the next time there was a Super Bowl parade, she just wouldn’t send him to school.
“But she had no idea,” he said, “that it would be 50 more years.”
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 3:44 PM.