Kansas City Chiefs Fans: A Love-Hate Relationship

On one level, I can understand Kansas City Chiefs fans having such high expectations of the team that they become incensed when they don’t win it all. In other words, it’s not enough to merely get to the Super Bowl, but they must win it, or else. However, isn’t that different than actually hating the team to begin with. While I’ve often thought that Chiefs fans have had a kind of religious relationship with the team, and it’s players… perhaps a better take is that Chiefs fans have a psychological relationship with the team: a Love-Hate relationship.

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Now, when I say, “Psychological” I don’t mean they are psycho about the Chiefs, although that might best describe a few fanatics… and maybe some would slot me in that category. 😉 😉 No, when I say that Chiefs fans have a psychological relationship with the team, I mean it’s more like they are either:

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1. Married to them or

2. Parenting them or

3. Idealizing them or

4. Birds of a feather with them or

5. Wrapped up in their lives

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So, let’s take a second to see if any of these describes our own relationship to the team.

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Married to the Team

A person who is Married to the mob… er… I mean, team… may feel that the team members must be honest and trustworthy and worthy of respect. While those are the foundation of any good relationship, it may be impossible for a team, or it’s members, to give that kind of “ personal performance” off the field.

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These days, there are so few members of any team who start and end their careers in the same place. For example, many may be thrilled that the Chiefs have secured the services of DT Jarran Reed this offseason, but the reality is, he’s played for the Seahawks for his first 5 seasons so it raises issues of loyalty. On the flip side of that coin, “Loyalty” — or lack of honesty — may be the reason why Kareem Hunt is no longer with the Chiefs. Are fans still faithful to Kareem Hunt now that he’s in Cleveland? I’m guessing… not.

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Parenting the Team

Issues of parenting include: role modeling, showing support, teaching responsibility and much like in a marriage, showing respect. When a fan where’s a Chiefs shirt proudly, they’re doing more than wearing team colors, they’re showing support and unbeknownst to the many who don their team logo during those time that they do, their behavior includes role modeling.

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When does a parent feel most proud of their own child? Often that comes when they’re doing something that shows they’re taking responsibility especially for their community, like cheerleading, or acting in a play, or the countless many other activities our children pursue. Is it any different when fans see Travis Kelce helping our youth? Or we they see Patrick Mahomes takes “part in a celebrity golf tournament to help raise money for COVID-19 and social justice causes“… is there any difference at all? Most of us feel proud as punch! Have you ever felt that way for your own child?

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Idealizing the Team

Idealizing Chiefs players is problematic at best. Some have wondered how we can cheer for a guy who has been involved in a domestic dispute? From PsychologyToday, Dr. Saul Levine says this about the idealization process:

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“As young children, our first role models are usually our parents, and it takes years for us to see them as people with frailties, despite their impressive qualities…. Children and adolescents are also drawn to other kinds of role heroes or idols: They might revere athletes in professional sports, or religiously pursue the lives of movie stars, action figures, television or pop music personalities on social media…. Extreme fandom can inspire them to post pictures on websites or paste posters on their bedroom walls or school lockers. Sometimes the adulation borders on intense worship or even fantasied romantic love.”

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So many of us see our parents flaws early in the child-rearing process, but never come to see the athletes we put on a pedestal as flawed individuals. Since, there are no perfect people, many of us never figure it out.

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Birds of a Feather with the Team

Many of us identify with our team on a geographical level. It’s bizarre when you think about it. Mid-western values projected onto a group of people who were drafted and signed from all over the country. Here’s a look at where those who play offense for the Chiefs grew up:

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We know that personality is shaped by both genetics and environment, and that the culture in which you live (or grew up) is one of the most important environmental factors which shapes that personality. The “culture” each person has ingrained in them comes from both the way language is used around us and from what we learn is acceptable or unacceptable behavior.

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Why even bring up any of that? Because when a team “gets along” as well as the Chiefs do, it’s a bit of a miracle when you consider how different each player is, based on where they were raised and the norms they had imposed upon them. What’s even more amazing — and in my mind almost comical — is how fans from a region, who hold certain values so dear, identify so readily with players from very divergent backgrounds and who don’t share common values with those fans.

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Summary: Love-Hate Relationships

Our need to be able to cheer and root for a local team, no matter how different we are from those we’re cheering for, appears to be our primary motivation. Otherwise, we might just change the channel.

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Laddie Morse –ArrowheadOne

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