More money, more fame. But Mahomes’ hunger means complacency never will be an issue
Since the end of Super Bowl LIV, you’ve seen Patrick Mahomes proclaim, “I’m going to Disney World” and head off to that and various other outposts of a never-never land few will ever experience.
Here he was, a normally restrained model of decorum, uninhibited at the parade in downtown Kansas City. There he was on a long golf trip to Pebble Beach in California and Bandon Dunes in Oregon.
Here he was, the face of the NFL and even Kansas City itself, on the cover of GQ touted as “THE NEW LEADER OF THE NFL.” There he was, signing a 10-year, $500 million contract extension and soon finalizing his investment in John Sherman’s Royals’ ownership group.
Mahomes also was engaged in more serious endeavors:
The announcement his foundation, 15 & the Mahomies, would donate $100,000 to Kansas City public school lunch programs and local organizations that provide household goods and meals to families in need; the notable role in a post-George Floyd Black Lives Matter video (along with teammate Tyrann Mathieu) that helped sway NFL thinking and perhaps some public sentiment; and, also with Mathieu and the backing of the Chiefs and later in partnership with NBA superstar LeBron James, he committed to getting out the vote.
“Enough is enough,” Mahomes said in June during a Zoom call with local media. “We’ve got to do something about this. I’m blessed to have this platform. Why not use it?”
Why not, indeed? The celebration and reaping of his transformative value to the franchise and city was easy to appreciate. So, too, were and are his admirable expressions of social consciousness.
If you didn’t know better, though, you might wonder if he was preoccupied by all this. Or even if, at age 24, if he might be spoiled by the success and the near-hysteria that comes with it and left complacent or distracted.
But anyone who’s tracked or studied Mahomes does know better.
Because this is about character, first and foremost. And the beginning of a legacy, if not a legend.
And because even making good on the foreshadowing teenaged Tweet he had written (“I bet it feels amazing to be the quarterback who says “I’m going to Disney World” after winning the Super Bowl,” he wrote in 2013) didn’t make that the culmination of his dreams.
Mostly, it was just a validation of them … and the commencement of more in this force of nature driven to make the most of what he knows are rare talents.
Mahomes embraces the notion that with great power comes great responsibility, as the saying goes in Spider-Man.
He has not only a remarkable, seemingly sixth-sense of where he is and what’s around him on the field but also of who he is regardless of what’s swirling around him off it.
And you can trace that through virtually every vestige of his life.
From his childhood in Tyler, Texas, through his days at Texas Tech to how he rededicated himself after being named NFL MVP in his first season as a starter.
To right now as the Chiefs prepare for their Sept. 10 opener against Houston at Arrowhead Stadium.
That’s why, pardon the language, offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy recently called him “a competitive prick.”
“He wants to improve at everything he can possibly improve upon. He wants to be the best at whatever he can do,” Bieniemy said. “And along the way, he wants to make sure that he’s leading the guys. He wants to be held accountable by his peers.
“But also, he just wants to work hard. And that’s what you love about being around him every single day.”
‘Doesn’t let the world influence him’
When I traveled last summer to Tyler and Whitehouse, where Mahomes went to high school, for a story on Mahomes “beyond the arm,” I was struck not merely by the tales of his athletic exploits but by the elements of his persona that are the rudder for all that.
He was aware and empathetic, humble and driven, traits woven inseparably together to provide him a baseline for handling in stride so much that would overwhelm most mortals.
From all accounts, that stems from the upbringing of his mother, Randi, and the exposure at an early age to Major League Baseball clubhouses through his father, Pat, an MLB pitcher for 11 seasons.
But what resonated most were his seemingly innate characteristics, including the ones that belied the ease with which he seems to do everything. Part of that is an acute sense of his own parameters and ability to ward off potential distractions … much like you might see on the field when defenders are closing in and he’s seemingly ad-libbing only to thread a pass through a thicket only he could navigate.
“He doesn’t let the world influence him; he decides his circle of influence, and that’s kind of it,” Bobby Stroupe, the personal trainer who has worked with him since fourth grade, said as he sat in his back yard last July. “And I think that’s something special, too.”
So Mahomes doesn’t get involved in what longtime family friend Chad Parker called “peripheral actions that are not substantive” because he’s constantly trying to figure out how to get better.
Then and now.
“It isn’t, ‘Hey, I won this game,’ or, ‘Hey, man, did you see that great left-handed pass?’ ” Adam Cook, the current Whitehouse athletic director and former coach of Mahomes, said during that trip. “He’s thinking about that fish that got away.”
After that MVP season, Mahomes soon entered into 72 grueling personalized workouts with Stroupe at his APEC training center in Ft. Worth between the end of the season and the Chiefs’ offseason program.
“The MVP thing had no effect on his approach to the offseason,” Stroupe said. “Which can’t be common.”
And the Super Bowl MVP thing had no effect on his zeal this offseason. Nevermind that the COVID-19 coronavirus necessitated some adjustments — including running around his Dallas neighborhood with a mask on or with Stroupe asking Mahomes to prop up the phone to watch workouts through FaceTime or Zoom.
“Once I got into quarantine,” Mahomes said, “there was nothing better to do than just work out.”
Seizing every opportunity
That’s been no different since the start of camp, with his work ethic and drive and competitiveness flourishing, as Bieniemy noted and teammates and Reid affirm.
“We get to see it every day. We get to see how competitive he is,” Reid said. “It’s something that the fans only get to see on game days, but we get to see it every day.
“He keeps practice alive, challenges the defense, and really makes everyone around him better just by his attitude and how he goes about it. I think if you talked to people, he probably competes at everything he does.”
He’s always wanted to learn and work and be fed more, Reid said. And his quest for more also has been apparent in that way, too: through the ongoing use of his imagination to experiment and create more and anew.
Picking up where he left off last year, which included a recently unveiled behind-the-back pass that he didn’t use in a game, Mahomes has been flexing his mind and repertoire from different release points that included a pitch-pass of sorts.
“I don’t want to give away all of my secrets,” he said, smiling. “There is stuff that I work on and stuff that we do. I try to find ways to get the ball to the receivers, tight ends, running backs, whoever it is, in the quickest way possible.”
All while continuing to work on the more conventional throws that tight end Nick Keizer playfully said leave his hand with “those little sparks and little rainbows around it every time.”
All because he knows there’s plenty more at the end of the rainbow even after that trip to Disney Land, with none of it to be taken for granted.
Instead, it’s all about the grind and the process and challenging himself to reach greater heights yet.
“That’s just the love of the game,” he said. “I think when you play this sport, the best thing about it is you get to start over every single year. Every single year, no matter if you won the Super Bowl the last year, no matter if you lost in the AFC Championship Game, no matter if you didn’t make the playoffs.
“You get a clean slate and you get to go out there and compete every single year. You have to have the passion and the mindset that you’re going to go out there every single day and execute every single rep so you can go out there and be on top again and be able to have those parades, be able to enjoy it with your teammates and your family and your friends.
“Once you enjoy it, you come back and do it again the next year.”