KC Current naming press box for Grant Wahl is apt, fitting honor for late journalist

From atop CPKC Stadium, the soon-to-open, first purpose-built venue for a women’s professional team, you could gaze at the downtown Kansas City skyline and watch the Missouri River flow by.

You could see the traffic going across the Christopher Bond Bridge and hear passing trains over the shrill sounds of construction, and view the covering protecting the grass being grown here over the last months in preparation for the KC Current to begin play here in the spring.

At the very heart of the scene melding Kansas City’s past and future was the reason for a small gathering on Thursday: the dedication of the Grant Wahl Press Box in honor of the journalist extraordinaire, citizen of the world and Kansas City native whose diligence helped popularize soccer in the United States.

“His life’s work was growing this game in this country, and I don’t think there’s any more physical manifestation of it than this,” said Current co-owner Angie Long, who became friends with Wahl when they attended Shawnee Mission East High School. “And for a woman’s team, as well, which he was equally as passionate about.”

No wonder the moment felt “otherwordly” to Wahl’s brother, Eric, who still feels the enormous void of losing Grant but was uplifted by the tribute that both embodies his life’s work and keeps him present in its own way.

Indeed, it seems a particularly fitting and apt way to celebrate Wahl, who died of an aneurysm in his heart at age 49 while covering the World Cup in Qatar last December.

Because as Angie and Chris Long will tell you, the counsel of their longtime friend and confidante was crucial in the formation of the Current and the decision to build their own stadium.

None of us would have been standing there, in other words, without what Chris Long reiterated Thursday was Wahl’s “guidance and support.”

That included telling the Longs what they didn’t want to hear and making introductions and suggestions, including some of the touches in the press box in which we hope his legacy not only will be commemorated but perpetuated.

“We hope this also inspires others to be as unselfish and as honest and to have as much foresight as he did,” said Angie Long, who along with her husband became close with Wahl at Princeton. “Because I think when this country didn’t know very much about soccer, Grant did. And when it wasn’t a thing to support female athletes and to really believe in and push for equality in the game, Grant did. He was a leader in so many ways.”

Part of that was the courage to take on the harder truths about human rights, equality or corruption. No doubt that his brother and Grant’s wife, Dr. Dr. Céline Gounder, hope that’s the most resounding aspect of his work to be continued.

It’s Eric’s hope that Grant’s name on the press box will help compel journalists passing through to dig deeper, challenge assumptions and appreciate nuance.

In a statement read by Eric, Gounder spoke of her own similar wish:

“That future generations of sports journalists sitting in this press box will be inspired to carry on Grant’s legacy: holding those in power to account, advocating for human rights and equity and understanding that a ‘stick to sports’ statement is a false mantra. As the character Danny Rojas says in Ted Lasso, ‘Soccer is life’.

“When sports are divorced from everything else in life, they are gutted of their essence and meaning.”

Meanwhile, this beautiful action helps underscore the essence and meaning of Wahl’s life.

It’s a lasting reminder of how he honored his craft with the conviction and character and grace to inspire so many of us. And how he cast light onto darkness and enlightened so many about the game.

How he became “a champion for our city,” as Kansas City Sports Commission president Kathy Nelson put it on Twitter at the time of his death.

You could feel all of that at one spot on Thursday, looking out at the Kansas City of past, present and a future of a budding FIFA 2026 World Cup host with a trailblazing NWSL franchise.

Appreciating the view and context of the moment, Eric Wahl looked around and said, “There used to be nothing here.”

Now there’s this monument to a Kansas City on the move — and, within that, to a pivotal force who did us all proud.

“It’s almost impossible for me to believe that we’re standing here having done this,” Angie Long said, “and he’s not here with us.”

Not physically, anyway. But the sense of his presence still felt like something that had come “full circle,” as Chris Long put it.

And something that connected it all in a lasting and meaningful way.

“It fills up my heart,” Eric Wahl said. “It feels like planets aligning somehow.”

This story was originally published November 30, 2023 at 3:33 PM.

Vahe Gregorian

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4868

Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree at Mizzou.