KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The love for our beloved Chiefs extends way beyond just Kansas City.
To showcase how far the kingdom reaches, KSHB 41 created an interactive map where fans from all over the world can submit photos of them showing off Chiefs pride.
KSHB 41 reached out to a few of those fan submissions on Wednesday and was connected to the Salguero family in Guatemala and Kristine Ennis in Gimli-Manitoba, Canada.
“I grew up a huge, huge, huge, huge Chiefs fan,” said Sara Drake Salguero. “My parents lived just like five minutes from the stadium, so Chiefs was life growing up.”
Drake Salguero has been a die-hard fan since day one, so it was hard to move away from the Kingdom and start a new life in Guatemala 20 years ago.
There was not a lot of access to watch the games in her new city.
Despite being far from Kansas City, Salguero says over time, her crazy fandom rubbed off on her husband and children, especially their youngest who calls himself “Santi Mahomes.”
He asked the local barber for a “Mahomes style” haircut and explained to him that “Mahomes is the Messi version of your sport.”
Now the family hosts watch parties for every game and even started coaching football to the Guatemalan kids in the ministry.
“She watches every game with a lot of intensity, so I’m becoming one of those now. And now I understand that — that I couldn’t understand in the beginning. Why was she that crazy about the Chiefs if they would always lose and lose and lose,” said Edgar Salguero, Sara's husband. “We watch every single game and now. We’re a part of that family — that crazy family from Kansas City.”
Meanwhile on the other side of the northern border, Kristine Ennis is working to convert those Canadians from hockey to football fans.
She moved to Gimli-Manitoba, Canada, just over a year ago to be closer to family and did not forget to take her Chiefs with her.
“Even while I’m ice fishing up here, trying to learn how to ice fish, I’m still watching my Chiefs,” Ennis said. “There are some Chiefs fans up here, I run into them occasionally. But theres gonna be a lot more now that I’m here.”
Regardless of where they are in the world, both fans say one thing is clear: Chiefs Kingdom has the best fanbase in the NFL and the talent to bring home the gold.
“I think that we always believed deep down that the day would come. I don’t know if we knew that it would be Mahomes, but the day would come that all of this hanging on through the tears and the losses would pay off and we would get to enjoy what it feels like to win also,” Salguero said.
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