KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Early in Chiefs training camp at Arrowhead Stadium, coach Andy Reid turned over a meeting to Patrick Mahomes and Tyrann Mathieu, the charismatic leaders on either side of the ball.
Even as the Chiefs were beginning their "#RunItBack" campaign in earnest after the first Super Bowl triumph in 50 years, even as they were masked and distanced contending with the ever-present COVID-19 coronavirus, Reid recognized other urgent priorities.
"Always keep an open mind," Reid said. "We're all here to learn and to get ourselves better. And, inevitably, make everybody around us better, including this country. So that's what they're going to address with you."
The date was Aug. 6, not coincidentally the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act being signed by President Lyndon Johnson to ban discriminatory voting practices.
With the blessing of Reid, owner Clark Hunt and team president Mark Donovan (who also was in the room), Mahomes and Mathieu embraced the moment to follow up on their announcement in June that they would work to head up voter-registration efforts.
Soon after that initial statement, Mahomes became further immersed in the cause by joining with LeBron James' "More Than A Vote" campaign against Black voter suppression and ultimately being among those signing a letter decrying "the abuse of political power to make voting more difficult and the misinformation intended to intimidate and deceive our community."
Good thing he was so involved: As it happened, Mahomes was among the direct beneficiaries of preaching awareness.
Believing he had done all the paperwork the right way and was properly registered, Mahomes said during that meeting, he nonetheless followed up and discovered something had gone awry.
If not for preparing for the meeting and the announcement of a partnership with non-partisan RISE to Vote, he said, he may not have known he wasn't registered until it was too late.
The confusion, he said Thursday, was related to living near a county line in his home state of Texas and an issue with the paperwork somehow going to the wrong county.
Thanks to his vigilance, he's able to participate in this monumental election culminating Nov. 3 but well underway around the country.
So as we enter the fourth quarter of the race, with registration opportunities largely in the past, the focus is on getting out the vote itself.
That particularly includes Election Day at Arrowhead Stadium, where with the help of a donation for Mahomes' foundation (15 And The Mahomies) any registered voters who live in the Kansas City, Missouri, part of Jackson County will be allowed to vote even as no voters will be assigned there.
Mahomes is grateful to the Chiefs and teammates for helping that gathering place "come to life" on "neutral ground" as he seeks to extend the campaign to its finish.
"I'll do what I can," Mahomes said. "I think the biggest thing, like you said, is just using your voice. No matter what that voice is."
It's a compelling twist, when you think about it, that a person virtually on a tier of his own on the field is advocating with such passion for this great equalizer of individuals.
In this way, he is sort of just another person, reflecting the everyman profile that he retains despite his ascension to international stardom.
But with a gravelly twang that Reid has called "froggish," Mahomes also has a distinctive voice in more ways than one.
The fact that he's willing to use it as he has, including a notable role in a Black Lives Matter video, reflects a keen social consciousness that the NFL is welcoming after a halting history.
"He couldn't have come along at a better time ...," said Tony Richardson, the Chiefs Hall of Famer who is lending his own voice to the "NFL Votes" campaign. "He's doing everything the right way and also standing up for things he knows are right. ...
"To have the face of our National Football League out front and leading the charge, you couldn't ask for a better situation."
Some will disagree, of course, figuring athletes should be muted like they were in a more innocent time when sports and politics weren't connected.
A time that never was.
Sports and politics have been entwined in various ways for centuries, enough to write a book on ... or at least a column in itself sometime.
For starters, nearly all of the modern Olympics have radiated political implications, from Berlin 1936 to John Carlos and Tommie Smith in Mexico City 1968 to the horror of Munich 1972 or the 1980 Moscow Olympics we boycotted. And plenty more.
To say nothing of individual voices of athletes engaging the political fray, from Muhammad Ali to the more recent likes of civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick (effectively banned by the NFL), NBA coaches Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich and women's soccer star Megan Rapinoe.
And that was all before the seismic societal shifts of 2020 _ catalyzed by a nation gridlocked by the pandemic, grappling anew with the ongoing virus of bigotry in the wake of the callous killing of George Floyd beneath the knee of a Minneapolis policeman and convulsed by political divisions.
All of which permeates every facet of our lives, including locker rooms and stadiums ... and athletes such as Mahomes.
Maybe it's not quite a duty to use that voice from that platform.
But it sure is an opportunity and a privilege to be considered.
"I'm going to do ... what I believe is right, and I'm going to do whatever I can to fight for equality for all people ..., " he said recently. "I'm going to continue that fight, and I'm not worried about people and how they're going to do negative stuff back to me.
"I'm worried about doing what's right for humanity and making sure that all people feel equal."
In this case, unless for some reason you have an ulterior motive of not wanting people to vote, this should be an easy one to seize on and appreciate Mahomes (and Mathieu) addressing both publicly and with teammates.
"(It's a) very important year to go out there and do what you can to be a part of this country," he said, "and be a part of trying to make us better every single day."
