Paul Sableman via Flickr
Not in St. Louis anymore...
During his quarter of a century working at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a sports reporter and columnist, Vahe Gregorian earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination and covered nine Olympic Games, eighteen Final Fours, and more than 25 bowl games. He left St. Louis to become a sports columnist at the Kansas City Star in 2013, but he still has thoughts on St. Louis.
Last week while walking his dogs, he and his wife came upon a woman gardening while wearing a St. Louis Blues jersey.
“My wife, Cindy, asked her if she was from St. Louis, and the woman shrugged and said, ‘Closest team.’ Got me thinking: Do many people share that thinking when it comes to a team in a league (NHL) we don’t have here?” he wrote for the Star.
“I’d been wondering about that some already as I’ve tried to picture how much interest in the Chiefs might increase in St. Louis over the next few years as the Rams’ departure and improbability of another NFL team coming sets in.”
While Gregorian ponders the question, the Chiefs acknowledge it isn’t the right time to market themselves heavily in the St. Louis market just yet.
Chiefs president Mark Donovan said earlier this year the Rams departure “expands our reach.”
“It’s a big market that’s nearby, so you want to active there if it makes sense to be there. We’re going to be very cautious, we’re going to be very respectful,” Donovan said. “They’ve been through a process, and their fans, they’ve been through a lot.”
One player does not a fan base make, but many St. Louis area NFL fans will certainly follow the career of running back Ezekiel Elliott, now with the Dallas Cowboys. Drafted fourth overall in the NFL Draft out of Ohio State, Elliott is a former star and graduate of John Burroughs High School.
An Alton, Ill., native, he spent two years in elementary school there before enrolling in a St. Louis area private school. He would later lead the Bombers to the Missouri state championship game three times.
His father Stacy Elliott played football at the University of Missouri and his mother, Dawn, ran track for the Tigers. His grandfather Leon Huff, Dawn’s father, was a blue-chip basketball player at Alton High in the late 1960s.
Elliott hasn’t been a Cowboy for long, but he enraged some Dallas fans by tweeting his support for the St. Louis Blues while the hockey team was playing the Dallas Stars in the playoffs.
