There’s a chance you haven’t heard of Joe Delaney. That’s why we do this, every June 29.
On this day in 1983, Joe Delaney tried to save three drowning boys in a man-made pond. Delaney didn’t think twice about trying to help.
“I can’t swim good, but I’ve got to save those kids,” Joe Delaney said. “If I don’t come up, get somebody.”
One survived. Two died. Delaney drowned, too. He was 24, and he left behind a wife and three daughters.
Here’s the original AP story about the incident.
Four years ago, the diver who retrieved Joe Delaney from the pond successfully lobbied for a permanent memorial to Delaney at Chennault Park in Monroe, Louisiana, Joe’s hometown.
“It’s never left my mind,” Marvin Dearman said at the time. “Basically, he died in my arms, and it’s something I’ve never forgotten.”
I’ll never forget reading about it in the newspaper, 41 years ago. For longer than I can remember, we’ve written something about Joe’s sacrifice, every June 29.
Every year, we hear from people who didn’t know about Joe Delaney.
He’s a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, for his achievements at Northwestern State. He was a second-round pick of the Chiefs in 1981. He rushed for 1,121 yards as a rookie, winning the AFC rookie of the year award. Injuries limited him to eight games in 1982, but his career was still promising. And in many ways his life was still beginning.
After rushing for 193 yards against Houston as a rookie, Oilers defensive end Elvin Bethea said this of Delaney: “I’ve played against the best — O.J. Simpson, Gale Sayers, Walter Payton and [Delaney] ranks right up there with them. He is great with a capital G.”
Joe Delaney is also great with a capital G because he was selfless with a capital S. He saw that three boys needed help, and he acted.
Joe Delaney is a member of the Chiefs’ Ring of Honor. The NFL should have something that honors Joe Delaney for what he did, so that more people will know about him. Even if it’s something as simple as an award given to the top rookie running back every year.
While few ever make the extreme sacrifice, Joe Delaney’s story hopefully inspires others to make smaller sacrifices in the name of doing the right thing, whenever there’s a choice to be made between doing the right thing and doing the safe thing.
The Chiefs failed in their effort to get voters to support taxpayer financing of Arrowhead Stadium renovations, but competition between Missouri and Kansas may help the team get the money it wants.
After the governor of Kansas signed legislation that would finance most of the costs for stadiums for both the Chiefs and Royals to move out of Missouri and into Kansas, Missouri Governor Mike Parson said today that his state is committed to keeping the teams.
“We’re going to make sure that we put the best business deal we can on the line,” Parson said, via the Associated Press. “Look, I can’t blame Kansas for trying. You know, if I was probably sitting there, I’d be doing the same thing. But at the end of the day, we’re going to be competitive.”
Voters have been largely unpersuaded by teams’ efforts to get tax money for stadiums, but Parson said, “the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals are big business,” and that public aid to keep them could be beneficial. He also said a stadium deal “has to work out on paper, where it’s going to be beneficial to the taxpayers of Missouri.”
When I spoke to Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes after last December’s win over the Patriots, he had to ask himself whether he’s 27 or 28.
He’s 28. He’ll be 29 on September 17. And as he gets closer to 30, the questions about how long he’ll play are inevitable.
They’re inevitable for two other reasons. First, the latest Mahomes ad for Coors Light, which has a recent habit of cheekily tiptoeing around the prohibition on active players doing beer commercials, says that the commercial will be put in a time capsule until Mahomes retires.
So when will that be? Will he pull a Tom Brady and play until he’s 45?
That leads to the second reason. Via Marca.com, Mahomes’s mother recently suggested in a podcast appearance that Patrick might not stick around until he’s halfway to 90.
“I hear him, you know, make comments like, ‘If the game takes away from my kids, I might not play as long as Tom Brady,’ and I’m like — I’m so proud of him for that,” Randi Mahomes said on The Mom Game podcast.
Much of it might depend on whether he catches Brady’s seven Super Bowl wins before Mahomes gets to 40. In six years as a starter, he has three rings; his floor is losing in overtime of the AFC Championship. Maybe Mahomes will be content to get to seven (or eight) and walk away.
Another factor will be whether Mahomes can manage to strike the right balance between football and family. It eventually got out of whack for Brady. Mahomes might be able to figure out how to prioritize family without undermining football.
Regardless, expect Mahomes to get plenty of questions about his long-term plans.
Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones isn’t pushing for a new contract this offseason, so there’s no reason to think that he’ll be missing when the team reports to training camp this summer.
Jones would like to borrow something from last year’s experience, however. Jones did not take part in training camp last summer and said he’s had conversations with head coach Andy Reid about dialing back his training camp participation in order to limit wear and tear on his body as he heads into his ninth NFL season.
“Listen man, I’ve already been talking to Andy about, ‘Let me skip out on training camp. I’m a little older, right?’” Jones said, via Jesse Newell of the Kansas City Star. “I can feel it. I can feel when we have a day on training camp. Give me like two days off and one day on then, and we maybe can work something out, you know?”
Jones remained out of action through the first game of the regular season before returning on a revised deal for the 2023 campaign. Jones recorded 10.5 sacks on his way to an All-Pro nod and a second straight Super Bowl title, so the time off didn’t seem to hurt his readiness for action and it didn’t stop the Chiefs from signing him to a long-term deal earlier this year.
While that history might suggest the Chiefs would be open to limiting Jones’s on-field time, Jones said Reid “just looked at me” in response so we’ll have to wait a while to see how the team decides to handle things.
The Chiefs will play on Christmas this season, and they’ll also be featured in a Christmas movie.
The team announced that it has reached an agreement with Hallmark Channel for a movie titled, Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story.
“We are honored to partner with Hallmark on a project as unique as this,” Chiefs President Mark Donovan said. “As a club, we pride ourselves on exploring new ways to grow our brand, as well as connect with new audiences. This partnership unites two passionate fanbases and gives us an opportunity to show Chiefs Kingdom’s energy and tradition on one of the most-watched channels during the holiday season.”
The movie has a typically saccharine Hallmark plot: A woman whose Chiefs superfan family is in line for the team’s “Fan of the Year” contest falls in love with the Chiefs’ Director of Fan Engagement. And then something goes wrong, and then it gets resolved and everyone lives happily ever after. (We’re assuming about that last part.)
Hallmark is based in Kansas City. The movie will be filmed in and around Kansas City, including at Arrowhead Stadium.