Hi. My name is Patrick and I’m an Arrowhead Addict.
Exactly one year ago today, on December 16th, 2009, those were the first words I ever wrote for this web site.
In the year that has followed I have had an absolute blast covering the Kansas City Chiefs for FanSided.com. I have been fortunate enough to work with a number of awesome staff members who have helped make Arrowhead Addict the success it is today.
In the last year, our traffic is up 97.99% and we’ve had over 1 million visitors. Last December, this website was averaging somewhere around 750 hits a day. Today it averages thousands.
I just wanted to drop a post to say thank you to my staff, in particular Randy, Merlin, Double D and Jeremy who were here before me and have been incredibly supportive and helpful from day one. Those guys are the heart and soul of AA and I know they love this place just as much as I do. I’d also like to thank Andrew “The Crock Pot” Crocker, who helped get this whole operation off the ground.
Lastly, thanks to Adam and Zach Best who created this awesome website and gave me the opportunity to take over their baby.
In celebration of a great year here at AA (and for the Chiefs), I decided to re-post my first ever Arrowhead Addict column. I feel like it is just as relevant today as it was back then. 1,995 posts later, I’d like to share it with you again.
Hi. My name is Patrick and I’m an Arrowhead Addict.
I have been fortunate enough to be brought on as AA’s new Lead Blogger. I would like to thank Adam and Zach for this incredible opportunity and I look forward to blogging Chiefs with you all through many successful seasons!
The immediate goal is to bring more content to you, our readers, by increasing the activity on the front page. Quality will always be our #1 priority. We want you to be up to date on all the happenings inside Chiefs Nation with news updates and commentary throughout your day. Be sure to check AA throughout the day to stay up to date on all things Chiefs! I am so excited to be a part of the AA community and I would like to further introduce myself to you all by sharing with you an article I wrote about what it means to be a sports fan, to be an Addict.
If The Pass Never Comes Down
December brings with it many things. The holidays are fast approaching and we are all looking forward to taking some time off work, getting together with family, getting some presents and, of course, watching some holiday football. For some December brings gathering excitement as their team prepares for a playoff run and others, the disappointment of another lost season. Again this year for all of us Addicts, the disappointment will soon be be replaced with anticipation for the draft, for off-season moves where anything can happen.
To the invested, watching their favorite team can cause them to feel the whole spectrum of human emotion. It can cause incredible fits of anger, depression and happiness. I was not alive when the Chiefs won Super Bowl 4 but I think the closest I ever came to experiencing what it might feel like to see it happen was during a play from last season. It is surely one of my favorite Chiefs plays of all time. I am talking about the touchdown pass that Mark Bradley threw to Tyler Thigpen.
I live in New York City and congregate at a bar called the Village Pour House to watch the Chiefs games with a great group of folks I’ve met here in the city. When that play happened, right in the middle of our dismal season we went absolutely crazy. Everyone in the bar was staring at us. You would have thought we had won the Super Bowl. We were jumping around like maniacs and this was just due to one play…in a game we lost. Powerful stuff.
Arrowhead Addicts know that sport gives us something we need, something ingrained in our very DNA; competition. Competition is a very natural urge for a human to have. We are after all, part of nature and nature is a competition first, ask questions later kind of set up. You win, you eat. You lose, you starve. Thankfully, we have built ourselves a society that allows even those of us who are physically weaker to survive. Imagine if you had to fight over food with someone like Willie Roaf or Brian Waters. Forget it. You’re toast. Luckily, you don’t have to compete for food with Willie Roaf. Instead you compete in line for your turn at the deli counter or, God forbid, for the last rib on an appetizer plate you are sharing with Jason Whitlock.
Another way to feed your competitive desire is sports. You might play intramural softball, darts down at the pub or, like me, a rousing game of Madden NFL 10. The lucky ones get to compete at the very highest level against the best athletes in their field. As spectators we are transported back to the Coliseum in Rome, rabidly watching a gladiator slay a lion. Take a look at a modern day football stadium and a picture of the Coliseum and you will see that not much has changed in the way we view our sport. Whether you are cheering for the lion or the gladiator or today, the Lions or the Saints, you want your side to win.
These feelings, these emotions that make us human are what make sports such a wonderful thing to behold. When have you ever seen two dogs fighting over a bone while three other dogs sat watching them, seemingly rooting for one or the other to win? Life is hard. We all know that. Sports are just another way for us to all get by, another opportunity for us to feel, to escape and to be human.
My favorite moment in all of football is the long pass play. Precisely, it is the exact moment when the ball is at its highest point and is about to start falling back down to earth. Usually by this moment I have realized what is happening. A play with a low percentage for success but with the potential for high impact and high reward is happening. I’m half out of my chair, half standing up with my knees bent in anticipation of leaping with triumph. My shoulders are raised and my fists are clenched. Everything goes quiet. My eyes are fixed on the ball in the air. For an instant there is nothing else around me. I am in a vacuum. I am not happy. I am not sad. I am not afraid. I am something else entirely. I am feeling something there is no word for.
Einstein said that time is relative. There is no future and there is no past. There are theories that somewhere, in some other dimension, we are living all the moments of our lives, each instant, for eternity. If this is true then somewhere you are taking your first breath and somewhere you are attending your first day of school. If this is all true then somewhere, I’m in the Village Pour House in New York City and I’m with my friends and Mark Bradley has just thrown a pass to Tyler Thigpen. I am half out of my chair, half standing up with my knees bent in anticipation of leaping with triumph. My shoulders are raised and my fists are clenched. Everything goes quiet. My eyes are fixed on the ball in the air. If this is true, in that moment, the pass will never come down.
And I’m okay with that.