What would Terez Paylor think about all this hype and hoopla? I have a pretty good idea
The seat where the big laugh always came from will be empty and quiet. That seat used to be my favorite spot in the press box, even better than where they keep the chips.
The Mayor has declared this Terez A. Paylor Day. The Chiefs will present a check to the Terez A. Paylor Scholarship fund at Howard — which is now fully endowed, and how cool is that? His seat in the press box will be retired. Nobody will ever sit there again. The Chiefs have decided none of us can hold Terez’s notebook.
They are undeniably correct.
One hundred and ninety nine days have passed since Terez died. On most of those days, it still doesn’t seem real. On all of those days, a lot of us are thinking about him. Even without being able to see him, Terez has made me laugh. He still makes me think. Still makes me smarter, and better at my job.
There are a bunch of us, and you’ve probably heard from several. We’re loud about our love for Terez. We’re proud of our friendship. We’ll tell these stories forever, like the time Patrick Mahomes made that sideline throw to Demarcus Robinson in his first start and the two of us literally fell out of seats laughing. It was the most unprofessional moment of both our careers.
Neither of us apologized.
“Hey,” he said, that big belly laugh starting up. “I am but a man.”
But more than anything else, one thought keeps banging around my head:
What would Terez think about all this?
The scholarship would knock him straight to the floor with pride. There is no doubt on that one. Terez had a deep passion for helping young writers, particularly young Black writers. He also loved Howard. The idea that his legacy will now be highlighted by providing these opportunities is the sort of lifetime accomplishment we’d all be lucky to have.
But what about the rest? The stories we all tell about him, from coach Andy Reid (“He worked hard, and he did it with heart”) to Mahomes (“He asked questions that made me think, and so I’d give him good answers back”) and readers who never met him but bought All-Juice T-shirts anyway and wrote in to say how much he meant to them.
Terez had an ego. It’s OK to say that. When people we love die, we have a tendency to exaggerate their best qualities and forget everything else. That comes from a good place, and we should all grieve how we want, but the truest picture gets lost that way.
To fully understand Terez as a journalist, you need to understand his ego. In a lot of ways, it was similar to the egos of many of the football players he wrote about — part personal pride, part to cover up insecurities, part the fuel that kept his work so insightful.
That ego would inform how he’d digest all of this.
He’d be proud that people heard the story of how he pushed for Terrell Owens to be in the Hall of Fame, and why. He’d like that the story came from others, not him.
Terez was constantly aware that his perspective and background are underrepresented in sports media. One of his superpowers was the ability to win the respect of people who could not relate to him personally while not compromising who he was.
We tend not to hand out flowers when people are around, so when I have that thought — What would Terez think about all this? — I’m usually smiling because I know he’d be proud.
Terez didn’t get into this crazy business to be famous, but he was completely at peace with every bit of recognition. This happened a lot at the airport. The flights we take for Chiefs games are usually packed with Chiefs fans.
Every so often someone would approach Terez, say something nice, and within a few seconds Terez would have that prideful smile and crack a joke and then here came that laugh — deep, vulnerable, unapologetic and contagious.
Terez had many gifts. His most powerful may have been his ability to make strangers feel like they were sitting next to him on this journey, right there with him laughing and grinding through game-tape.
More than anything else, that’s why we’ve seen this outpouring. That’s why you’ve heard so many stories about him.
So, what would Terez think about all of this?
I have a pretty good idea, actually. I could see us talking about it, right there at that press box seat that nobody will ever sit in again. He’d open his eyes wide like he did when something hit him, he’d look away with a slice of shy humility, and then he’d look back up with the pride that drove him.
Then he’d deliberately deploy that laugh, put his hands up in mock defense, and say, It’s like, OK guys, I get it, you made your point.
Then he’d change the subject. He’d probably ask me about my “tall wife” and our kids. He’d smile to hear how closely our older son follows football. He cared. He wouldn’t let it be about him. He’d bring others in.
That was another one of his superpowers.
This story was originally published August 27, 2021 at 7:39 AM.