KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ The little Chiefs fan is all grown up now, so what used to be the biggest playground in the Midwest is now his place of work.
Xavier Williams stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 309 pounds. He plays defensive tackle for the team he worshiped as a kid. But when he drives his blue Ford F-150 through Gate 5 at Arrowhead Stadium and past the hot grills and footballs tossed from sisters to brothers early on game days, he feels a little like that 6-year-old boy again.
That was him. That was his family.
Dad packed a grill and burgers and footballs and set it all up with his friends. They brought a big radio for music and a small TV for football. Sometimes they didn't even go inside. They stayed in the parking lot, listened to the noise from the crowd, and after a few hours the people started coming back out and the party would start again.
"The environment," Williams said. "It's not really matched, anywhere."
Williams has done the full circle of life for a Chiefs fan at Arrowhead Stadium, which will host _ by far _ the biggest game in its 47-year history with the AFC Championship Game against the New England Patriots on Sunday.
This is Arrowhead's grandest moment. Lifelong friendships and even marriages have begun there between strangers. Visitors from coast to coast have called it their favorite stadium, speaking with pride about the grill smoke and deference about certain moments so loud it felt like eardrums and lungs were bursting.
But the block of cement with the corkscrew ramps and broad swooping lines has always specialized in emotional connection and been short on tangible success.
No stadium or arena in major American professional sports has existed longer without hosting a conference or league championship. Gillette Stadium, which opened 30 years after Arrowhead and is home to the Patriots, has hosted seven.
That changes now with Arrowhead's turn on the national stage _ a Super Bowl is on the line, finally. Williams said he choked up a little bit the first time he drove through that lot as a player for the team he used to root for. He figures that'll happen again on Sunday.
"It catches me," he said. "Just reminiscing. You see the people just partying. That's when you realize, 'Damn, I play for the Kansas City Chiefs.' "
This is the story of an old building, of loud fans who've given more than they've received, and the connection between them all that transcends even the city's biggest football moment in nearly half a century.
