Once upon a time, he was a hellraiser…
Former Channel 5 political operative Dave Helling made his bones busting local pols for bogus ad claims. WDAF and later KCTV called Helling’s segments, “Truth Watch.”
So edgy was Helling that The Pitch gave him a column at one point, and after he flunked out of news anchoring and was touching up his television news resume, I hooked him with Kansas City Star editor Mark Zieman, who did the print journalism unthinkable; brought Helling aboard as a serious, print reporter (as opposed to tv talking head), and he’s been there since.
Unfortunately, full time news coverage and column writing at a newspaper is a far cry from tv news, and Helling failed to distinguish himself – nothing close to his TV successes.
Give him credit though for surviving a decade-plus of Star layoffs that saw the newspaper shrink from more than 2,000 employees to maybe 200 or fewer today.
Now with guardian angel Zieman leaving McClatchy, Helling is desperate to make a mark.
Bringsing us to his hail Mary column…
“Chiefs should rename Arrowhead Stadium for Lamar Hunt”
Lamar Hunt’s apartment at Arrowhead
Okay sure, who would argue with memorializing the beloved Chiefs founder and owner.
Then again, having spent considerable time with Hunt – both personally and professionally – my sense is that dropping the name Arrowhead Stadium, would be the last thing Hunt want.
The Chiefs might have to dump the chop, lose the big tom-tom, ditch the arrowhead on the team’s logo – or good forbid, maybe pick a new mascot or marketing scheme.
Cuz Native American schtick aside, what image does the team really have?
For the uninitiated maybe it makes sense to give Hunt the naming nod.
After all, the Royals’ decision to rename their stadium (sorry, ballpark) after team founder and owner Ewing Kauffman has been a success.
There’s a difference…
The K, as former KC Confidential columnist Greg Hall christened it, was almost a no-brainer, given its unimaginative former name “Royals Stadium.”
Which was about as vanilla as it gets.
Anything would have been an improvement – even a naming deal with Sprint or Hallmark…
Oh wait, the Sprint name is on death row and Hallmark is a shadow of what it once was.
Ande Hunt and his family were extremely proud of Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Chiefs. He even built an apartment there for his family to stay in on the club level. Doubtless Hunt could have picked up some naming rights dough had he wanted to.
So while his son and widow may be open to commemorating Hunt’s name, swapping it out for Arrowhead seems a stretch.
Dave Helling….former Hell Raiser
And long as we’re struggling with naming rights for Martin Luther King, how about naming the new airport terminal after Hunt?
Remember how when he always flew commercial, as kind of an everyman.
Do I hear a second?
Seeing he already has a larger than life statue of himself outside… Lamar Hunt Field?
No real downside, other than said being an admission sobering reality, i.e., his team will likely never earn a Hunt Trophy call its own, inside; they’ve been trying to win it since its inauguration 1985 as another Trophy since ’70 same named after Lombardi, consideration winning a Superbowl.
Pros: no $elling out of stadium naming rights, nod other NFL/sports teams (selling advertising on NBA jerseys already a reality, NFL no different/just a matter of time)
Cons: everything is for sale, sooner or later (even college basketball teams are selling floor naming rights the hardwood venues, and coming now pay for amateur players)
😎
Lamar was notoriously niggardly. He bought his clothes and shoes at estate sales, never had a new car and didn’t carry cash.
The Hunts are NOT changing the name Mr. Helling, but Hearne is right, it they did, they would pull down some serious jack for the effort.
It would probably end up, “Carlos Slim Stadium”. We could all do the “Aztec” chop.
https://www.history.com/news/aztec-human-sacrifice-religion
I’m in.
Chuck, interesting point you raised about Lamar. I was leaving DFW years ago, headed for MCI. Across from me, sharing an aisle seat, was none other than Lamar Hunt, who immediately struck up a conversation with me and seemed truly interested in what I was doing.
Somewhere in the flight and conversation, I told him I was shocked that he was “back here in coach.” He replied, “I have a theory about that. The front of the plane lands at the same time as the back of the plane, so what have you gained in paying three times the ticket price?”
Solid answer.
Yeah, he was notorious for being either a) an everyman when it came to flying or b) notoriously cheap.
My take is both
I knew people who saw him in the 80’s at estate sales buying clothes.
I am totally cool with that, but…, he was famous for not spending a penny he didn’t have to.
I should mention that the people I knew, who saw him at estate sales, were in banking and the estate sales were in Mission Hills, so…, there is that.
Well, people who went thru the depression had some very frugal peculiarities…
That was not the case with Clark Hunt. I remember interviewing Tavia Hunt – his wife – and she breathlessly told me about how Clark wanted to build a helicopter pad behind their house so he could dodge driving in rush hour traffic.
Well, guess what?
She got in trouble with the fam and warned me if I kept quoting what she actually said, she wouldn’t be able to continue talking to me.
“Clark wanted to build a helicopter pad behind their house”
– problems of the rich and the famous and the…
landlocked. From lifestyles the billionaire to the millions more not, another strange if true story:
Once upon a time in a land not so very far away (but just as long, long ago), Kerouac considered building a real lighthouse in his backyard, place where the only Tide rolled in was inscribed ‘Dirt Can’t Hide’.
As it happened…
Cost? No problem.
Zoning? No problem.
Ship, shore or deep sea?
Houston (Missouri), we have a problem.
______
Clark’s his as Kerouac’s theirs, fable to moral:
Parsimony not precluding a helipad, build it (as a highway of your own) or hire a chauffeur, and they will come.
Landlubbers short an ocean, do as Sam Kinison implored those starving desert – ‘move to where it is’ (unless you can’t get there from here: swiss chiefs a Superbowl, dim dems impeachment, pi solution… abandon all hope ye who enter here.)
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Didn’t clark redo his fathers apartment and update it. This picture seems like it’s
outdated in the furnishings and decor. When they made renovations to arrowhead
clark included money to rebuild the apartment.
As far as renaming anything Hunt in this town many people would disagree.
The hunts have taken the money from KC and put it into Dallas where
they reside.
Good points
Why build statues and name streets after people? In the future, they will be torn down and changed. The monument most important is the person’s legacy of what they did to better themselves and their fellow human beings.
I know of no one who calls Royals Stadium ‘the K’ except people on TV and radio. Leave things alone.
Reasonable points, JS…
Some people want that kinda stuff though. Take Emanuel Cleaver and the street hen got named for him.
I dunno, maybe it’s a way form people of means who can buy almost anything or anyone to attain imortality
Emanuel Cleaver is worth less than all those little acorns falling on my front lawn and driveway. He’s been an absolute failure for the area and only gets elected because the district was gerrymandered to be majority black so he would continue to be elected. The sad part is that republicans in Jeff City did the gerrymandering. Meanwhile, many people in the area have no Congressional representation because of the gerrymandering.
I used to be a religious KC Star and Pitch Reader. Watched Ruckus and Nick Haines every week. Can’t stand it now. The quality of our local media has nearly dissolved.
Seems like it’s ripe for some sort of shot in the arm…
Noy sure where that’s going to come from on a local level. The so-called journalists of today appear more interested in practicing the fine art of political punditry and policing stuff like political correctness…boring