‘Like it’s a dream’: Kansas City goes wild as Chiefs close out Super Bowl victory
With less than two minutes left in the game, the crowd erupted in the Power & Light District in downtown Kansas City as the referee said over the large television: “The goal on the field stands.”
The touchdown, confirmed by the official at Super Bowl LIV in Miami Gardens, Florida, put the Kansas City Chiefs ahead. Fans screamed. There was jumping, hugging and crying. Red and white fireworks lit downtown.
“It feels like it’s a dream,” Seth Runyan, 25, said after he cried. “This is unbelievable.”
Thousands of fans cheered as the Chiefs closed in on a 31-20 victory over the San Francisco 49ers at Hard Rock Stadium. Returning to the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years, the Chiefs had won it.
“Kansas City is together as one,” said Madison Rae, 25, one of the hundreds of people gathered along Grand Boulevard who couldn’t get into Power & Light, minutes before the game ended. “Ready to prove the naysayers wrong.”
Confetti flew into the crowd. “We Are The Champions” blasted over speakers.
Many fans said they waited their entire lives for this moment.
“It feels like we’re in shock,” said Sam Fink of Amsterdam, Missouri. “Like, is it real?”
The three stages of a Super Bowl comeback were grief, bargaining and then, exuberance.
“Always bet on red, baby,” Adrienne Lewis said as she slapped the table after the Chiefs recaptured the lead late and looked to seal victory. “Always bet on red.”
The celebration stood in marked contrast to moments on edge early in the fourth quarter. Things had been looking grim.
After quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw his second interception during a Kansas City drive in the fourth quarter, the foreheads of fans had sunk into their hands throughout Kelly’s Westport Inn.
“We are giving the 49ers too much respect,” Tanisha Wesley said then. “We aren’t playing our game.”
A nervous feeling took over after the 49ers got the ball back early in the fourth quarter ahead by 10, nullifying the excitement building as Mahomes made a few key plays. Chiefs devotees were scared, afraid to see another year of getting so close, but not finishing.
At Johnny’s Tavern in Shawnee, fan Dave Shockey, 62, said he was feeling the pressure after the 49ers took the lead. Regardless, he believed Sunday’s game wouldn’t be the last time fans will see the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
“Win or lose, it’s just a game,” he said.
That kind of talk evaporated as the Chiefs took the lead again and won.
“My heart is beating so fast right now,” said Mohamed Elsaid, 36, a fan who drove from Springfield, Missouri, to Kansas City to watch the game.
He screamed as the clock ran down with the Chiefs ahead.
It was, he said, a “life-changing event.”
The parade for the Kansas City Chiefs’ victory is set for 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Building anticipation
Hours before kickoff Sunday morning, fans had lined up along nearby businesses to get into the Power & Light District.
Many said they believed the Chiefs would win.
“Woah, we’re half way there,” fans sang, shouting the lyrics to the Bon Jovi tune. “Woah, livin’ on a prayer.”
Near the front of the stage was Ania Bernacik, who waved her hands in the air while sitting on the shoulders of another Chiefs devotee. The city’s Marching Cobras drill team pumped up the crowd. A beach ball was passed around.
Before the game in Westport, Kyle Kelly, co-owner of Kelly’s Westport Inn, said it would be “bedlam” there if the Chiefs beat the 49ers.
“We are hoping it will be,” he said.
Kelly would know. He worked in Westport when the Kansas City Royals won the World Series in 1985 and again in 2015.
“It’s such a unifying factor,” Kelly said of Kansas City’s sports teams. “You meet a stranger, you start talking about football. It just breaks down barriers.”
In front of Harpo’s, the Heatley family gathered ahead of the big game. Devoted Chiefs fans in their own right — the family dog, a German Shepherd, was named Chief.
Grace Heatley, who said she wasn’t a huge football fan, was swept up enough by the Chiefs postseason run that she boarded a train from St. Louis, where she lives, to take in the Super Bowl with her family.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be this weekend than Kansas City,” she said, “even if it means a five-hour train ride.”
Her brother, Matt Heatley, perhaps the biggest Chiefs fan in his family, gave his favorite team a 50-50 chance of winning. But his father Mark Heatley put the chances of a Chiefs victory at 70%.
The difference? Mahomes.
“We have the best football player in the NFL,” Heatley said. “Hands down.”
For Jeff Dayton and Carol Nielsen, a couple who have been together since 1984, the Super Bowl took on a greater meaning, and not just because the Chiefs were in it. A friend, a devoted Chiefs fan for 45 years, died about a month ago.
Their friend seemed healthy, but a cancer diagnosis advanced quickly, they said. They’ve taken in the Chiefs postseason run with their friend in mind.
“We are so thrilled,” Nielsen said. “If anyone would have gone to heaven, it would have been him.”
Dayton and Nielsen were gathered in a corner at Kelly’s, where most tables were occupied half an hour before kickoff. Both were counting on a Chiefs victory. And Dayton thought a close game was in the offing.
“(The Chiefs) have the ability to blow it wide open,” he said. “But I don’t know that will happen.”
Nielsen hoped the Chiefs would take the Vince Lombardi Trophy decisively.
“I’m too old to go through a close game,” she said.
‘The electricity, the energy’
Kansas City City Council members representing the third, fourth and fifth districts organized a watch party for residents to enjoy the game at the Southeast Community Center in Swope Park, projecting the game onto a wall in a gymnasium.
Among those who came: Faye Jacobs, who was attending her first Super Bowl watch party since she was released from prison in Arkansas. Jacobs, 44, spent 26 years in prison for a murder she did not commit, according to the Midwest Innocence Project.
Jacobs made Kansas City her home for a fresh start, she said. She volunteers with the Innocence Project and works at a car dealership in Johnson County. She attended Sunday’s watch party with her friend Tracy Bentley, a middle school teacher from Kansas City.
Both were confident in seeing a Chiefs win Sunday night.
“You cannot be in Kansas City and not feel the heartbeat of the Kansas City Chiefs,” Bentley said, predicting a 34–28 Chiefs win. “The electricity, the energy … if you can’t beat them, join them, and so we’re happy to join them.”
The game packed plenty of thrills throughout the night.
As Mahomes ran for Kansas City’s first touchdown of the game, the hundreds of Chiefs fans under red light at Power & Light erupted in cheers. They threw their hands into the air, bouncing up and down.
A large Chiefs flag was waved from the KC Live! stage in front of the sea of red jerseys.
Across town, fans at Kelly’s Westport Inn screamed and exchanged high-fives as Mahomes put the Chiefs on the board. Before San Francisco tied up the game, Chiefs devotees boasted of their confidence about their team’s first trip to the Super Bowl in 50 years.
“That drive, that Kansas City drive took a lot off the clock,” Rob Mayer said of the Chiefs’ scoring drive, which kept the 49ers defense on their heels for more than seven minutes. “Going for it on fourth down? You have to.”
By halftime, excitement ran high.
“(I’m) nervous but confident,” 31-year-old Chance Batts said in Shawnee at the end of the second quarter that had some people out of their seat. “We’re going to win.”
Terry Knopke, who remembered watching the Chiefs play in their last Super Bowl decades ago, said a first half in which the typically high-scoring Chiefs tallied only 10 points gave her some cause for concern.
“I thought we would be ahead at halftime, so I’m disappointed,” Knopke said of the 10-10 halftime score. “But I think they will step it up in the second half and win.”
Knopke issued a warning before her companion, California ex-pat and 49ers supporter Terry Cunningham, chimed in.
“If you say anything negative, I’m going to cut you off,” Knopke said.
Cunningham proceeded anyway.
“I like the score,” Cunningham said. “I think the 49ers win by three.”
As the third quarter ended 20-10 with the 49ers up, Chiefs fans grew uneasy. Some said they felt sick.
But late in the fourth quarter as the Chiefs surged and took a 24-20 lead over the 49ers with less than two minutes to go, spirits across the city rose.
Fans at Johnny’s Tavern believed again. They chanted: “Defense! Defense! Defense!”
It seemed that it truly was Kansas City’s year, after all.
Star reporters Laura Bauer and Robert A. Cronkleton contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 2, 2020 at 4:30 PM.
