My dad Bill Grigsby would be mad at the Chiefs’ billionaire owner asking for a handout | Opinion

My father Bill Grigsby was with Lamar Hunt, Hank Stram and the Kansas City Chiefs from the beginning. We kids went to every game, and were honored and privileged to get to know most of the team — from Jan Stenerud to Lenny Dawson to Willie Lanier and Otis Taylor. I watched the team’s 1970 Super Bowl motorcade from my backyard as it drove along Interstate 29. My parents introduced us to the joy of sitting on the 50-yard line to watch a game. We even got to sit in Lamar and Norma’s box once or twice. How lucky we were.

That team, that stadium and that ethos were my dad’s life, and certainly a big part of ours. The great guys from the beginning are gone, for the most part. Family friends Norma and Lamar passed on. Lamar Jr. took the team over. They’ve really gotten some great players and I’m still proud of the Chiefs and the legacy my father helped build. But now, the team is threatening the fans in Kansas City with an $800 million fist, saying they’ll leave if voters don’t approve the sales tax on April 2.

There’s so much that could be done in Kansas City with that money. And there are some big, loving hearts on that team who could help with their charitable foundation work, too. Many of the underserved, who will never get to see a game and can’t afford a ticket and scrape by, are within earshot of all the cheers coming from Arrowhead Stadium. How dare these entitled billionaires be so arrogant and presumptuous?

Kansas Citians aren’t idiots. It’s time the team pays it forward for the support that has been ongoing since the early days of Tony DiPardo, Warpaint, the Wolf Pack and all the rest of the team’s history. These great sports giants and their support team — like my father, Merle Harmon and their colleagues, to name a few — plus the likes of Norma, Lamar, Lenny and Hank are all rolling over in their graves because of this management’s greed.

Lamar had his shoes resoled as opposed to buying new ones. Can’t you man up like your dad, Clark? Fork out some dough and treat the city for the decades they’ve spent making you a billionaire.

Jane Grigsby is one of five Grigsby kids who grew up in Chiefs Kingdom. She is a geriatric nurse consultant and writer living in New Jersey, but her heart will always be in Kansas City.