Will The Chiefs Return To the Northwoods?
From River Falls, Wisconsin
For the last three weeks this website has been based in this Norman Rockwell little town here in western Wisconsin where people park their cars on the street in front of their homes at night, leave the driver’s window down and the keys in the ignition.
And when they come out in the morning, the car is still there.
As small towns go, it doesn’t get much better than River Falls. It’s nice: nice people, nice weather, nice scenery.
But is it the best place for the Kansas City Chiefs to hold training camp?
For the last 18 years, the Chiefs have felt this was the spot. They first came here in 1991 and since then have made the trip north without fail. Through Marty Schottenheimer, Gunther Cunningham, Dick Vermeil and now Herm Edwards, the team has made UW-River Falls their summer home. One time it was for five weeks under Schottenheimer. Recently, the Chiefs have been spending three weeks on campus, enjoying the pleasant temperatures, the cheese curds and Spotted Cow beer.
There are a lot of people who will tell you that River Falls has seen the Chiefs for the final time. Those that say so are only guessing.
Both Carl Peterson and Denny Thum said Thursday that no decision has been made on returning to Wisconsin for camp. Those discussions and the final decision are always made in October. This year will be no different. As the team went through its final camp practice on Thursday, school officials clustered in one end zone and spoke with Peterson, Thum and head coach Herm Edwards about the camp, providing a subtle and maybe not so subtle reminder that UW-River Falls loves having the team here.
Edwards has made it plain he would prefer to be closer to Kansas City. He would rather run training camp out of the team’s headquarters at the Truman Sports Complex. The head coach doesn’t have a problem with Wisconsin; he just wants to be closer to home.
Until now, that would have been problematic, because the Chiefs didn’t really have the facilities to pull off a training camp. But with the Chiefs new offices and training facility coming together and getting ready to open, they now have a 100-yard field available indoors and an artificial turf field outdoors.
What’s not available in Kansas City in late July and early August is mild weather. Generally, River Falls is anywhere from 75 to 80 degrees with low levels of humidity. As with anywhere in the Midwest, there are days when violent thunderstorms blow through, but they don’t last long. In a sport where body recovery from physical practices is key, the weather puts no extra stress on the players.
The negatives to River Falls are its distance from Kansas City and the lack of bad weather facilities for practice. There’s an indoor arena to hold a walk-thru, but no artificial turf field to use in wet conditions and no indoor field. About once a camp, the team loses a practice to bad weather.
The old school view, which is held by Peterson, is that going away to training camp is good for building team unity. It draws together all the players and makes them equal, no matter their experience, name power or pay check.
Of the league’s 32 teams, just more than half (17) hold their training camp away from the regular season facilities. This year the Chiefs are one of three teams that has left their home area for training camp. The St. Louis Rams also held their camp in Wisconsin and the Dallas Cowboys went to Oxnard, California.
Among the rest of the league’s teams, it’s almost evenly split between teams that go away for camp, and teams that stay in their own facility. Some 15 teams stay in their building, while 14 move to a college setting not far from their own stadium.
But Peterson likes to point out that the last three Super Bowl winners (Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and the New York Giants) all go away for training camp.
There’s been a lot of talk over the years about moving camp to a college closer to Kansas City, but none of those schools has all the facilities the Chiefs need or have at their disposal here in River Falls. The school and state of Wisconsin spent millions on building a bigger locker room and training room for the team. Similar commitments would have to be made by schools and states in Kansas and Missouri if they were to become the new training camp home of the Chiefs.
Plus, the Chiefs have the Minnesota Vikings just over two hours away to practice against. They would not have that in the Kansas City area.
The decision will come in October, but I can assure you of this, it would be a mistake to count out UW-River Falls as the Chiefs training camp home in 2009.
I could ask Frank, but when Frank Gansz was head coach where did Kansas City have camp? AKA the year prior to Peterson coming in and cleaning house.(which I agree with, he made one heck of a special teams coach and motivator, just not quite the head coach type)
I think the chiefs owe the Jackson County tax payers for voting to reconstruct the facility and have the camp at aarowhead. I would try and make a practice at least once a day and believe the rest of KC would love it as well. So come on Chiefs reward your beloved fans and come back home!
P.S. Great website Bob, keep up the great work!
Northwest State University!!!! Maryville/MO
Small town full of football fans with a great facility.
Leave it in River Falls. Makes a great get away from the crowds. Beautiful town.
I think that since the good ol’ fans of Jackson County have voted for the upgrades to the Truman Complex, the 2009 Chiefs should take advantage to the 100 yard, indoor and air conditioned practice facility. It would bring in more of the fans, increase revenue and just be an all around more enjoyable experience. And, just to be clear, I don’t live in Jackson County, MO….I live in Topeka, KS.
[...] Should they stay or should they go? [...]
Sure, sure…all of us Chiefs fans in the Kansas City area would love to be able to easily catch a summer camp practice or two every year in August. On a personal level I for one would love it. But this is not about what I would love or what other fans think the Chiefs owe them. Carl Peterson was right on the money when he said, “going away to training camp is good for building team unity”. I couldn’t agree more, especially now, during the youth movement that is going on with the team. There is no better way to keep these players focused on what they have to learn than being forced to live together and practice without all of the many distractions that they would have if the camp was held at Arrowhead.
It’s why the military uses boot camps, the Boy Scouts use summer camps and organizations use retreats. I’ve been part of all those things and I know that the bonds and unity that is formed during these times is invaluable. I also know from experience that even though the coaches and players say that they miss being close to home and complain about living in cramped dorm rooms made for people half their size, that they secretly enjoy what happens in the 3 weeks that they do nothing but eat, sleep and breathe football, they become one, they become a TEAM and that’s what it’s all about. And from what I’ve seen from the team this summer it looks like it worked like a charm. It doesn’t need fixin’, it ain’t broke. All you have to do is compare the teams performance of 18 years before to the 18 years after they started practicing in River Falls and it’s a no brainer. I know what Lamar would say if he were still here.