Path to bringing training camp to St. Joseph took teamwork

By Kyle Schmidt

The Chiefs are spending their 14th training camp in St. Joseph, but the idea to bring the event to Missouri Western State University goes back more than two decades. 

A St. Joseph News-Press article in 2002 started the conversation to bring training camp to St. Joseph. Mark Sheehan, then the newspaper’s editorial editor, wrote, “Opportunity knocks again. Time is right to go after the Chiefs’ training camp.”

Bringing the idea to light was one of the big moments to kickstart the discussion. That same year, Charlie Shields was elected as senator for the 34th District in Missouri, representing the St. Joseph area. 

Shields had a good relationship with Clark Hunt and the Chiefs and eventually became the Senate’s president pro tem. An invitation to a pre-season game in 2008 against the then-St. Louis Rams started a conversation.

“Chiefs wanted contribution tax credits from the Missouri Development Finance Board to really complete the renovations (at Arrowhead),” Shields said. “We got talking and I was happy to support that effort but part of the deal is training camp really needs to come back to Missouri and more importantly it needs to come back to St. Joe.”

The specific location for the camp would be Missouri Western State University. The big upgrade needed to host the camp would be an indoor facility on the campus. Dirck Clark, chair of the board at the university then, worked to make this happen.

“The situation at the time was the board of Missouri Western had just hired Bob Vartabedian to be the university’s president and he was willing to make a play for the training camp,” Clark said. “Which was a gutsy call for a brand new university president.”

Clark would lead negotiations on behalf of the board with the Chiefs and Shields would work on the tax credit.  

But the cost estimates for the project were said to be off and it was not looking like the move would happen. 

“So the Chiefs started to make plans to move back to River Falls (Wisconsin, where the team had been holding training camp) because they assumed this deal wasn’t going to make it if the cost estimates were off like that,” Clark said. “And in the end, cost estimates came in and the bids were right on target. So that was a big relief for everyone and it kept the project alive.”

The second hurdle came at an unexpected time. Clark and Shields were set to take off from Kansas City for Jefferson City to make the December Missouri Development Finance Board meeting to propose a $25 million tax credit for the Chiefs project. It had to get done that year because the right people were in the right places, the men said. 

The flight was snowed in that morning and it looked like they were not going to make the meeting. 

“By fate, there was a private jet coming in from Wichita, Kansas, that had a heart for a heart transplant that was going to take place in Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City,” Shields said. “We commandeered another jet, it took off and got us to Jeff City for the development finance board meeting.”

Shields was the one pitching the tax credit that eventually passed. 

“He got up and talked about being a kid going with his dad to William Jewel College to see training camp and getting to meet Bobby Bell and how great of an experience that was,” Clark said. “He said wouldn’t it be great if another generation of kids get to have that same experience I have but got to do that here in St. Joe.”

The indoor sports complex was built and Missouri Western hosted its first training camp in 2010. Now in year 14, Mike Halloran, Western’s associate director of athletic facilities and operations, has been there since the indoor facility was built. Outside of refinements each year, he notices one big difference. 

“Absolutely the biggest difference in training camp is the people, the amount of people that come,” Halloran said. “All the fans, you know the notoriety our university on our community get.”

Tune in to News-Press NOW’s Chiefs special “Date with Destiny: Road to New Orleans” at 9:30 p.m. Saturday, June 20, and 10:30 a.m. Sunday, July 21, on FOX KNPN, and at 10:30 p.m. Sunday on CBS KCJO and NBC KNPG.