For the Chiefs, Road to Victory in L.A. Ran Through Palm Springs

Kansas City’s locker room was still locked, but hardly for another silent minute of prayer. The Chiefs were chanting, chortling and cheering in there. Their ruckus, in fact, came right through the door--but, since the sound was muffled, it was difficult to make out exactly what they were chanting.

“Box springs! Box springs!” it sounded like.

Hmmm. Were they crediting Sunday’s 20-17 burial of the black-and-booed Raiders on a good night’s sleep? Maybe they were informing their wives, girlfriends and groupies of a superstitious preference for mattresses over water beds.

No. Hold on. They were chanting something else entirely.

“Rod Springs! Rod Springs!” it sounded like.

Ah. Maybe the Chiefs had just been told that they had signed running back Springs to beef up their backfield for their AFC playoff push. Maybe he would be joining them in time for next Sunday’s do-or-die game at Pittsburgh. Golly, that Rod Springs sure must be popular.

No. Hold on. That wasn’t it at all.

“Palm Springs! Palm Springs!” was what it was.

Say what?

“ Palm Springs? “

“Beat LA! Beat LA!” we could understand. “Go Chiefs! Go Chiefs!” would make perfect sense. “Al Davis Wears a Dress! Al Davis Wears a Dress!” would not have been all that surprising.

But after years and years of hearing jocks let loose with war cries, team mottoes, profanities, inanities and indescribable belches, this was the first time in memory that a football club had chosen to celebrate a big victory by chanting the name of a town where Bob Hope plays golf.

It seems that when the Chiefs realized that their season-ending games against the Raiders and Steelers would determine whether they qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 1971, they decided to get serious. “Some of the players came up to me last Monday and said they had an idea,” Coach John Mackovic explained after Sunday’s game at the Coliseum.

The idea was to get the hell out of Kansas City.

It was not a revolt, exactly. Kansas City is a nice enough town, best known for George Brett, good ribs and crazy little women. But in December, it is cold. As one Chief so poetically put it Sunday, “Ain’t no desert in Missouri.” It is difficult to get work done when your arms and legs have icicles dangling from them.

Deron Cherry, the All-Pro free safety who intercepted two of Jim Plunkett’s passes Sunday, pointed out that the Chiefs had to be adjusting both to climate and time-zone differences when all their attentions should be focusing on the Raiders. Personally, he was thrilled when the coaches agreed to transport the team to Palm Springs several days before the game.

“They took a chance, and you think it didn’t pay off? The excitement in this locker room speaks for itself,” Cherry said.

The K.C. sunshine gang wanted to make it clear it was not deserting Kansas City. It was not going to become the Sacramento Chiefs next season, or anything like that. “I don’t think the stands there could hold enough people,” Mackovic joked.

What the Chiefs were attempting to do was reward their fans for patience and atone for past sins. By winning Sunday, they assured themselves of only their second winning season since 1973--a nasty state of affairs if ever there was one. The Chiefs (9-6) can make the playoffs if they beat Pittsburgh.

The poor dears have been so helpless of late. Poor Lamar Hunt--now there’s an expression you don’t hear every day--has owned this team since the Dallas Texans days. The guy personally came up with the name “Super Bowl” but hasn’t been to one since Super Bowl IV. He had the AFC championship trophy named for him but never gets to take it home.

Nothing much has happened at Kansas City’s football stadium since Michael Jackson opened his Victory Tour there.

The losses piled up, in more ways than one. A good Chief running back died and a good Chief lineman got thrown in prison. The franchise that put 11 men in the 1972 Pro Bowl put exactly one--Cherry--in last season’s game. It’s a wonder Hunt didn’t sell the whole team and toss in a couple of silver mines for about $10,000 hard cash.

“I think the guys on this football team deserve a little success,” Cherry said. “The thing we’re trying to do is make a name for ourselves. You go to Kansas City and mention football and people think Buck Buchanan, Lenny Dawson, Willie Lanier. Well, those guys are long gone. Lenny tries to tell us that all the time. Whenever he sees us, he says: ‘You guys are the Chiefs, not us old guys. Make ‘em forget us.’ So, it’s like we’ve got an identity crisis. We’ve got to give the people somebody else to cheer about. Make ‘em respect us.”

Quarterback Bill Kenney was pragmatic about it. “I don’t worry about respect. I’m not looking for respect. We’re the last-rated offense in the league. It’s not respect we need. It’s wins.”

Kenney, impressed by the way his teammates manhandled the Broncos and Raiders back-to-back, and by the seven turnovers they forced Sunday, sounded convinced that this could be the start of something big. “The influx of new talent on this team is obvious,” he said. “All the while we were in Palm Springs, I felt this was going to be our week. We felt we were a better club talent-wise than the Raiders, and we wanted to prove it.”

And now, one more win, at Pittsburgh, would give the losers of Super Bowl I a shot at reaching Super Bowl XXI.

“I’ve played in Pittsburgh before, in snowstorms and that stuff,” Kenney said. “I don’t think practicing in Palm Springs will get us ready for that game.”

Nah. Ain’t no desert in Pennsylvania.