’We thought we were dead.’ Super Bowl champs give life to Kansas City youth football
Four miles from where raucous Chiefs fans gathered at the Power & Light District, about 70 boys and their parents watched the most important game of most of their lives in a football training facility in the East Bottoms.
Well, the adults watched every down. The kids mostly joined in for the very last nail-biting minutes of the game.
The kids — from the tiniest to the tallest wearing Mahomes jerseys — made the most of Miami-warm weather and bright sunshine to play a sweaty game of touch football before the coin toss.
By the time the Chiefs returned the ball on the first play of the game, the kids were perched on folding chairs set up in rows on the 6,000-square-feet of indoor turf yelling, screaming and roaring — for the moment at least.
The watch party was a little unbelievable to the man who has been teaching Kansas City’s children how to play football for two decades, who has watched anxious parents in recent years pull away from football because they feared concussions.
But the kids are coming back, thanks to the winners of Super Bowl LIV.
The Chiefs and their success are helping to breathe life into the Missouri Wolverines youth football club. And the man whose own dream of playing in the NFL never came to pass, who is now trying to help these boys realize theirs, could not be more grateful.
In a club that draws players from a racially diverse neighborhood, many of the boys see themselves in the team’s young-gun quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, far and away their favorite Chief.
“How monumental for Patrick Mahomes to give life back into youth football,” said Jim Tuso, the club’s athletic director. “We thought we were dead.”
Yes, girls play football, too
Tuso’s daughter, Gia, was in the crowd. The 13-year-old seventh-grader is the only girl in the football club, a kicker who enjoys the reaction she gets when opponents realize she’s a girl.
“When I take my helmet off and my hair falls down, the boys go ‘Dang, we played against you? We did not expect that,’” Gia said with a big smile.
She said she would encourage more girls to try the sport because they are better than boys in this respect: “I think they would be good because they listen and pay attention.”
Of course this crowd rooted for the Chiefs. But over the summer many of the boys learned football from someone on the other team: San Francisco linebacker Elijah Lee, who played football for Blue Springs and Kansas State.
In July he came back to Kansas City to coach at the 17th Kansas City Youth Football Camp, held at the Wolverines’ building. Tuso is counting on Lee to return this summer, with more NFL players.
The club has been Tuso’s life for 21 years.
He grew up in Northeast Kansas City and played for Rockhurst High School for the school’s legendary coach, Tony Severino, who retired in the fall.
Then he played for Iowa State, on a football scholarship, and earned a degree in computer science at the same time. He makes his living now building websites. All the club’s coaches volunteer their time.
“Football was a way out for me,” said Tuso, a former offensive lineman.
After college he came home to Kansas City and the man running the Wolverines asked him to coach. Tuso wound up taking over the club.
He was only 24 and socked his own money into what is now a nonprofit club whose existence depends largely on the kindness of friends in the community.
For instance, the turf inside and outside the club’s building was donated and installed by Clarkson Construction of Kansas City and is the same quality kids in the ‘burbs play on — bragging rights for the club.
Twelve of the club’s members have played Division I football. One former member, who recently finished at the University of Iowa, is making a run at the NFL.
The hopefuls train year-round, but it’s not all football drills. Tuso is tackling bullying, too.
He offers classes in the martial art of jiu-jitsu and requires his players to uphold a “gentlemen with courage” code. “We do not tolerate bullies or players that have to cause trouble off the field,” it says.
People recognize the Wolverines when they take the field because they wear the iconic maize-and-blue of the University of Michigan. “If I had started a program I would have never picked the Michigan colors,” Tuso said.
Tuso inherited the colors and is admittedly proud that his club is the only one for miles around that wears maize, a Michigan-distinctive yellow just this side of orange.
But understand — that’s not allegiance to that Ann Arbor team.
“I don’t do the yellow pants because we can’t keep them clean,” he said.
A comeback to remember
On Sunday, the unusually warm weather and the outdoor turf kept the kids outside for most of the game. The young Wolverines couldn’t stay put, even after the sun went down and the temperature chilled.
Super Bowl or not, they wanted to play football.
They were running plays outside and missed all the gyrating during the halftime show. They were outside when Mahomes threw interceptions.
When the kids did come inside, they watched closely. The coaches yelled coach stuff at the screen.
“Step up, step up, step up,” club coach Keusi Pannell yelled at Mahomes as one play unfolded in the first half. Pannell was head coach of the 7th- and 8th-graders last season.
“We actually teach the game … tell (the kids) this is why you run here, why you run there,” and encourage them to watch their favorite players on YouTube, Pannell said. “So when they watch a game … it’s kind of a light bulb thing.”
Not every kid will want, or be able, to play football, said Eric Pearson, a coach at the club whose son, Matthew, plays there. But the Chiefs “have sparked more interest among the kids.”
Football is still something Matthew, a 12-year-old sixth-grader and his only child, doesn’t mind sharing with his dad.
A club that six years ago boasted more than 200 members currently has 120 kids between the ages of 5 and 14. Tuso watched as parents walked away from football for the arguably safer sport of soccer.
“Jim Tuso is phenomenal,” said coach Kim Staley, whose son, Hunter, started with the club in third grade and is now a freshman lineman at Staley High School. “He teaches heads-up football … he has stopped plays, practices, if someone is tackling improperly.”
“Football has taken such a hit with concussion stuff,” said Tuso. “The (concussion) scare stopped a lot of kids from playing, and the Chiefs doing so good has brought kids back into the game.”
But Tuso feels a tide turning. More boys from the Hispanic community, where soccer is the more popular go-to sport to play, are signing up.
And well, that Super Bowl win.
With the Chiefs behind deep in the third quarter Tuso put on a Mahomes headband for luck.
At 8:07 p.m., the kids were getting restless and the adults listless.
The crowd had thinned out mightily by then. But oh the ending those folks missed!
“I have been waiting for this my whole life,” Pearson said as the last seconds ticked off the clock and kids ran screaming through the building.
And the Chiefs weren’t the only winners.
Three new players signed up on the Missouri Wolverines website before the game.
This story was originally published February 2, 2020 at 11:02 PM.
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