You shared more than 100 memories of Chiefs icon Len Dawson. Here are some favorites

During his nearly six decades playing and broadcasting for the Chiefs, Len Dawson left his mark on generations of Kansas Citians.

The Star asked our readers for some favorite memories of “Lenny The Cool,” and you delivered big time.

After entering hospice care this month, Dawson has died at age 87, his family announced Wednesday morning.

We heard from more than 100 people detailing everything from Dawson’s calmness and composure on the field, his kindness and humility when meeting fans and one time when he read the questions to a driver’s exam aloud and had to be shushed and instructed that he wasn’t in the broadcast booth.

We learned that Super Bowl IV was a formative memory for a lot of you. One reader’s father purchased the family’s first color TV just to watch the game. Even a few Minnesota Vikings fans wrote in about still feeling the sting of losing that championship to Dawson and the Chiefs.

You told us that Dawson was the kind of guy who would introduce himself to the young man in the elevator after just leaving a doctor’s appointment. He’d call back the kid who wrote an essay about him for a school assignment and write back to the child who sent him a get well card when he was injured. He even picked one of you up when you were hitchhiking a ride home from school.

While we couldn’t include everyone’s stories, here are some highlights of your memories of and moments with Kansas City icon Len Dawson.

TRICK OR TREAT

Halloween was slightly different for trick-or-treaters who stopped by Len Dawson’s house.

Reader Amy Foley wrote in that she grew up near where Dawson lived, and that on Halloween, all the kids in the neighborhood would knock on his door. Dawson would answer himself, chat with the kids and give them candy bars and football trading cards with his photo on them.

“The kids always said how genuine he was and that he was a ‘real person,’” Foley wrote.

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

Reader Ron Locklar has been a Chiefs fan since 1970 because of Dawson and his Super Bowl victory.

But it wasn’t until 2016, after being a fan for 46 years, when he finally went to Arrowhead Stadium for the first time.

Luck was in Locklar’s favor when he picked that game. Len Dawson just so happened to be there signing autographs.

“As I took a knee closely next to him, I quietly told him — as though it were a secret between old friends — that this was my first time to Arrowhead ever, after being a fan for 46 years,” Locklar said. “He acted quite surprised and said, ‘No way, really?’ He was genuinely happy for me.”

The selfie they took together remains Locklar’s background on his phone.

A MULTI-SPORT ATHLETE?

Reader Terry Payne wrote in that he played against, and allegedly beat, Dawson in a 1980s softball league. But even though Dawson’s team lost, the star quarterback’s arm still stole the show.

“(Dawson) made a throw, flatfooted, from deep center field — on the line — which went clear over the backstop,” Payne said. “It was jaw-dropping to watch.”

Dawson made it a point to shake the hands of everyone on Payne’s team after they won.

“He couldn’t have been nicer — or cooler,” Payne wrote.

IN THE AIR

A few readers who wrote to us had the pleasure of sitting next to Dawson on an airplane, but Janet Decke traded places with him.

Back in 2013, Decke was flying to Chicago from Kansas City. She was seated in row 16 when an older man approached her and told her that she was sitting in his seat.

Decke knew she was in the right spot, but she recognized the man as Len Dawson and recalled that 16 was his jersey number. She happily swapped seats with him.

During the flight, she overheard conversations between Dawson and two foreign exchange students who loved football and had no idea they were talking to a Super Bowl MVP.

Once someone told the students who they were talking to, they asked for an autograph on a $1 bill. Dawson traded the $1 for a $100 bill and signed it for them.

“Those boys will never forget how ‘cool’ Len was, and neither will I,” Decke wrote.

MEMORIES AT THE ITALIAN GARDENS

After the 6 p.m. news on KMBC, where he was a sportscaster, Dawson would frequent Italian Gardens downtown for dinner. Multiple readers wrote to us about memories at the restaurant.

Reader Jerry Plantz, who was the executive producer at KMBC at the time, recalled one time during the 1970s when a fan asked for an autograph right as Dawson was about to shove a fork full of spaghetti into his mouth.

Plantz was shocked that Dawson instinctively and graciously put his fork down and signed the paper mid-bite.

Another reader, John Dicapo, said he has heard family memories of Dawson at the restaurant for years, because his family owns it. He connected us with his father, Carl.

Carl Dicapo, owner of Italian Gardens, told The Star that fans were often awestruck being in the same restaurant as Dawson. He said one time a child almost fainted when he realized that Len Dawson decided to sit down next to him.

“(The child) called his mother and said, ‘You won’t believe this, you will never believe this. Len Dawson came in and sat next to me. I’m having dinner with Len Dawson!’” Carl Dicapo remembered.

MY FIRST HERO

One reader, Jim Ramirez, called Len Dawson his “first hero,” a common refrain. Carlos Pacheco got to meet him in person.

Growing up in Mexico City in the 1960s, the first time Pacheco ever watched a game of football was the 1970 Super Bowl IV—when Len Dawson was named MVP.

The moment was “love for the game at first sight,” he said, and he instantly admired Dawson. Feeling inspired, Pacheco went on to play football for 13 years.

By way of what he described as his “destiny,” Pacheco now lives in Kansas City, Kansas. His wife — whom he met while she was vacationing in Mexico — is from KCK. He has been a Chiefs season ticket holder for more than 36 years.

Decades after that Super Bowl victory, Pacheco had the opportunity to meet Dawson after a game and tell him his story: how watching that first game led to him playing football, and how meeting his wife brought him to the home of his favorite team and player.

He recalled Dawson saying, “It humbles me that I have had so much influence on someone.”

“Here was a Hall of Famer, my football hero, telling me he was humbled,” Pacheco wrote.

John Dunham met Dawson at a high school football game in Lawrence.

Dawson talked to Dunham and his friend for 20 minutes about a variety of things, including memories of Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt and other Chiefs. Dunham later asked Dawson if he could send his copy of a Sports Illustrated featuring the Super Bowl champion Chiefs on the cover to KMBC for him to sign.

Dawson told him sure but to call the station first. Dunham left KMBC a message and heard back from none other than Dawson himself. The two talked for another little while, and Dawson sent Dunham the autographed magazine a few days later.

“Sometimes when you meet your heroes in person, they let you down,” Dunham said. “And once in a while, your hero turns out to be even more wonderful than you ever imagined. That’s Len Dawson.”