Family, friends of Chiefs staff get ‘royal’ treatment at team hotel before Super Bowl
Lyndah and David Glover Sr. were even more anxious than most sports fans during the AFC Championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tennessee Titans.
Not only was the Chiefs’ shot at attending a Super Bowl on the line — so was theirs.
Shortly before the game, the parents of Chiefs Assistant Coach David Glover Jr. learned that if their son’s team won, they would be among the 2,000 staff, family and loved ones hosted at the Super Bowl by the Hunt family.
“I haven’t slept in two weeks,” David Glover Sr. said. “I have been wishing and wanting to go to a Super Bowl since our son got in the NFL for the last 14 years. I know he has, also.”
“I don’t have $10,000 sitting around for a weekend, so this is a true blessing.”
Treated like royalty
Speaking outside the JW Marriott Turnberry in Aventura, just north of Miami, the couple expressed awe for the Hunt family’s generosity and their treatment as family members of a Chiefs employee.
Countless others in Chiefs gear meandered in front of the hotel’s entrance, stopping in a pop-up NFL shop to buy gear, grabbing coffee at the Starbucks in the hotel or snapping photos in front of a Chiefs Super Bowl sign.
“The Kansas City Chiefs have gone above and beyond,” Daniel Glover Sr. said. “They’ve treated us like royalty.”
The 2,000 guests were flown from Kansas City to Miami on chartered planes and put up in three hotels around the area, the Glovers said.
The Glovers were provided rooms in the same hotel as the Chiefs team members.
The luxury hotel includes a golf course and a spa on its property. Information on its website showed rooms cost between $1,099 and $2,750 per night.
For Super Bowl weekend, the hotel is crawling with security.
Bomb-sniffing dogs inspect each car that drives onto the hotel’s property, as well as the people who walk nearby. Anyone can enter the lobby of the hotel, but only guests with a card identifying them as having arrived with the Chiefs can continue past that area.
“Security is rather tight,” Lyndah Glover said.
“That security has been top-notch,” her husband added.
In addition to the flight and lodging, family and friends of the Chiefs were given tickets to the Super Bowl and to a pregame tailgate and post-game party.
Check this off the list
The Glovers are among many friends and family in the team hotel who are enjoying Miami while hoping for a Chiefs win.
Before they knew they’d be staying with the team, Klane and Amber Hales knew they’d at least be coming to Miami for the Super Bowl.
The longtime friends of Andy Reid told the Chiefs’ head coach before the AFC Championship Game that if the team went to the Super Bowl, they wanted to be there.
Since the California couple arrived in Miami, Amber said, it’s felt like a big family reunion.
“For us it’s less about the Super Bowl and more about the Reids,” Amber said. “I feel like Andy needs to check that box, really wants to check that box, so we just really want that for him.”
This story was originally published February 1, 2020 at 3:42 PM.
