Work ethic creates opportunity for Chiefs staff with Missouri Western ties

By Chris Fortune

Chiefs Training Camp is an exciting summer event for the St. Joseph community, but it can also help propel the careers of the workers who facilitate the practices.

A couple of Missouri Western State University athletic alumni are examples of how opportunity and work ethic create results. Greg Carbin, Kansas City Chiefs assistant strength and conditioning coach, and Jay White, assistant equipment manager, are in Las Vegas helping the team prepare for its Super Bowl LVIII clash with the San Francisco 49ers.

Carbin and White graduated from Missouri Western in 2007 and 2005, respectively, and their friendship began when they first played on the Missouri Western football team together.

“I was a gunner, and I took pride in keeping Jay’s (punting) average up,” Carbin said. “So he’d kinda communicate to me where we were going to place the ball, and I’d just do my best to make that guy fair catch. So Jay has always been a good teammate, and we were part of some really good football teams.”

After graduating, Carbin had a stint at North Kansas City High School, where he got into strength and conditioning. It helped him get a job in that position at Missouri Western, allowing him to reunite with White at the athletic department in 2013.

“My title was assistant facilities director, but I did equipment for a lot of programs at the university,” White said. “I took care of the fields and did a lot of other maintenance around the athletic facilities.”

When training camp came around, it was their work ethic that made an impression on the Chiefs’ staff.

“I was that in-between person for the Chiefs’ equipment staff and then, you know, the college side, so whatever those guys needed, I was there for them,” White said.

For Carbin, it was also a chance to meet and chat with then-Chiefs head strength and conditioning coach Barry Rubin. What Carbin expected to be a brief introduction turned out to be a two-hour conversation.

“I got on his dry erase board, I’m writing up my winter program, what I’m doing at the college sector,” he said. “And at the end of that conversation, Barry told me, ‘If I ever get an opening on my staff, you’re my guy.’”

Both have been with the Chiefs for all four recent Super Bowl runs. White joined the Chiefs in 2015, and Carbin joined in 2019.

“It’s definitely been a blessing so far, it’s been quite an experience,” White said.

They gave credit to their family and the people in their lives who gave them chances.

“It was the preparation from that time at Missouri Western to the people in my life that really got me to this point,” Carbin said. “I truly believe if you’re a good person, you work hard, good things will happen to you. So I think I’m a testament to that.”

Sunday’s game will be a rematch of Super Bowl LIV. Carbin and White are not in the business of giving the 49ers bulletin board material ahead of the Super Bowl, but they said the Chiefs’ preparation will have them ready for the big game.

“This team travels very well, this is just another week for us,” White said. “It’s saying it lightly, you know, but everybody’s mood is the same, nobody’s on edge as of now, everyone is loose, and I always look to see that. That’s always a positive in my eye.”