KSHB 41 News anchor Taylor Hemness reports on stories across Kansas, including a focus on consumer issues. You can contact Taylor by email.
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With the start of the preseason just over two weeks away, the Kansas City Chiefs completed their first day of full training camp in St. Joseph on Wednesday.
KSHB 41's Taylor Hemness spoke with Chiefs President Mark Donovan about the club's future headquarters across the state line in Olathe and how the team is preparing for Patrick Mahomes' return.
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Taylor: Mark, thank you for your time. Obviously, some questions in this press conference you just had about the future of this team with the announcement of the stadium coming up and the training facility. Two local cities, both St. Joe and Olathe, are watching your answers very closely on that. What can you tell us about the future home of training camp in the next few years?
Mark: Yeah, we're really excited to be here. Our plan is to be here for the foreseeable future, we have a multi-year agreement with them. We are designing a facility and a real estate development — a sports-anchored development in Olathe — and part of that design would be to create the option that we could move training camp there if we wanted to. If you look at the National Football League and you look at the team, the majority of them train at home, but we're going to have both options open.
St. Joe's amazing. Missouri Western has been unbelievable supporting us as a university and also the town. And look, I think we've gotten some great feedback from them on how much it means to them that we come up. So, this has been a special partnership, and we hope to continue.
Taylor: The team will tell you that they are not just one player, obviously, but any team that has a future Hall of Fame quarterback who is currently playing operates differently than every other team that doesn't have that. What has this season been like preparing when you're unsure about Patrick (Mahomes') health and that kind of thing from a team perspective, getting ready for not knowing what his need is going to be when training camp kicks off?
Mark: I think Andy (Reid) and Brett (Veach) and Clark (Hunt) have done an amazing job of looking at the whole picture and making sure that we have options, bringing in some competition in the second level at the quarterback position, somebody who's played before and done it well. Andy always gets excited with really talented athletes in that position, but Patrick's Patrick.
I'm not involved in the day-to-day. Rick Burkholder and our team, Julie and Fremeyer and the team there really do the rehab with him, but I got to see a lot of it behind the scenes and especially early on. I was trying to slow him down because this guy is just a beast, and he works so hard, and it means so much to him, and that's one of the things that makes him special. So, we're excited to get him back. We're excited to be ready for it. I think that the moves Brett made in the draft and the moves that he made in free agency, especially with K9 (Kenneth Walker), I think it sets us up for a bright future.
Taylor: Obviously, this team has been very, very good at handling distractions over the last few years, but you had a lot going into this year, whether it's the stadium conversation or Patrick (Mahomes), who we just mentioned. There was a big wedding this summer with a very popular player on the team's roster. There's lots of things being talked about going into this team, coming off an unsuccessful season, which is new for this team as well. What does handling distractions look like in 2026?
Mark: Yeah, we talk a lot about eliminating distractions. One of the distractions about last year is last year's last year. The coaches said that from day one. It's like, that's gone — we learned from it. We're going to get better from it, but this is about going forward, and I think that's the mindset of this team right now.
From day one, Andy has just instilled that as we are going forward, we have a standard, and my expectation is that we're going to meet that standard, and that's consistent across the building. I've seen it in the players. I've seen it in their attitude. I've seen it in their work, and I'm excited. Our fans should be really excited about what this season has to hold.
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