Love for the Chiefs, running a business, and lessons learned from my father

This won’t be a normal newsletter

20 years ago today my father passed away from cancer. 

I was a junior at K-State when it happened. He had gone through treatments for a sarcoma that did not take and slipped into a coma. The baseball operations director at K-State at the time, Scott Thomason, who I had known for a few years as we had transferred from UCM to Kansas State together, came to my house early in the morning. 

I knew as soon as I saw him that it wasn’t a good sign. He was there to take me to Kansas City. 

(our last family photo, 2004. It’s funny because they ALL went to KU, but wore purple to support me)

Just two years earlier, Thomason had shown my family what he was about. I had a lung collapse while doing team conditioning for baseball at UCM. It put me in the hospital for nearly two weeks early in December at the start of finals week. Multiple failed attempts to fix the problem kept me in the hospital longer than initially expected. 

I’ll never forget the first time I ever saw my dad emotional - when he put his hand on me while I was laying in the hospital bed and said, ”I’d trade places with you if I could.”

I never knew that kind of love until my kids were born. Now I understand it, among a lot of other things that have become much more clear since he’s been gone. More on those later. 

Thomason came to the hospital almost every day to hang with me for a few hours so I wasn’t laying there by myself at the Western Missouri Medical Center. My parents were both working and commuting to and from Kansas City, and my sister was in college at KU. He was there for me then, so he was the right person to come to my door that morning. 

My dad was read his last rites in the hospital not long after Thomason and I got there.

A few hours later, he woke up and said he was hungry! It was literally a miracle. 

We thought he was gone and then he was back. The cancer had metastasized and the prognosis hadn’t changed. He didn’t have much time left, but for the following couple of weeks in home hospice care - I was able to sit and talk with my dad - a blessing many don’t get and something I’ve never taken for granted. 

Nearly ½ of my life has now been lived without the man that I’ve come to respect as much since he’s been gone as when he was still with us. I’ve learned so much about him from the stories I’ve heard from those who knew him best. 

If you can’t tell already, this won’t be a normal post, but I’m willing to bet that a few of you might understand or can relate, and those whose fathers are still with us - let this be another reminder to call them and tell him how you feel. 

Never leave things unsaid. 

As a kid, my father got us season tickets to the Chiefs’ games. It was our thing. 

Every Sunday - we’d take the same route, stop at the same McDonald’s - listen to 101 the Fox on the way, then high five the high school football players doing the parking at Arrowhead. 

When we were lucky, it was the Blue Valley HS players in our lot. My dad was the volunteer PA announcer for Blue Valley football for nearly 30 years. As a kid, I was the spotter and food runner for the workers in the press box. When I got to middle school, the head coach - Steve Rampy - let me work as the ball boy on the sidelines. 

We’d sit in Section 338 with the same families that also had season tickets. 

My Friday’s and Sunday’s were all about football with my dad, and everything else was about baseball. 

My father was also a small business owner - starting his own electronics company in Riverside, called DuraComm, with a couple of partners. He had a degree in journalism from KU. He had spent time as a reporter for WIBW in Topeka. It’s fair to say I’ve followed in many of the same footsteps. 

Every Christmas, my dad - unbeknownst to my mother and anyone else until years later, would buy a bunch of presents and donate them to the Della Lamb toy drive. He didn’t tell anyone. He just did it. I only found out he did this a few years ago. 

This is a big reason we do the “Soul of KC” raffle, which in a very eerie coincidence, began today. It’s also the same day that my son and I leave for Buffalo so we can watch the Chiefs and Bills on Sunday.

Last year we started a tradition of going to one road Chiefs game each year. Fact that we leave today was not intentionally planned as my son got to pick the game. But it feels a little too “on the nose” to not mean something and planned by someone, though, in some way. 

As I mentioned earlier, I rarely saw my dad show much emotion, which is far different than the sensitive person that I am, but he cared about his people in a way that I understand. He was fiercely loyal to his circle. 

When his business was struggling, he did not pay himself so his employees wouldn't feel the impact of something that was largely out of their control. When the stress got too much - he found someone to talk to that specialized in talking with small business owners. It was about everyone else with him. When his people needed him, he was there. 

I learned these things more than a decade after he passed. It doesn’t surprise me, but it makes me even more proud to carry his name. Each year I’m told a story from someone who knew him that I hadn’t known, and each time, I feel closer to him.

Love for the Chiefs and memories of time spent with family …building and running a small business … giving back to the community. My father gave me the blueprint and my mom saw it through. She’s been the rock for my sister and I for the past two decades. 

Luckily I’ve surrounded myself with some phenomenal people to help build our little corner of the Kansas City sports media space. 

I know my dad would be proud of the work we’ve done in building our little business so far, but more than that - I hope he’d realize the impact he has made on so many people even decades later who have found joy or benefitted at all from all the things we’ve done with KCSN and how we’ve given back to our community. 

After all, I learned it from him.

Now go call your dad and tell him you love him.