The Chiefs Priest Holmes is finally earning the respect he deserves
Michael Silver
Publication: Sports Illustrated
Date: September 29, 2003
He picked up the pen and moved it across the heavy white paper, dotting his I and crossing his t with a calligrapher’s flourish. Then, and only then, did Priest Holmes flash his $35 million smile. In addition to the joy inspired by signing such a deal, Holmes, the Kansas City Chiefs’ relentlessly driven running back, felt relief, vindication and even humility. Mostly, though, as he sat at the round oak table in the office of team president Carl Peterson on Sept. 3, Holmes was overcome by hunger. “Hadn’t eaten all day,” Holmes recalls, grimacing at the memory. “At that point all I could think about was getting some food.”
First, however, Holmes had to go to practice, after which he showered and got some treatment in the training room. Finally, his 12-hour workday complete, it was time for Priest to feast.
A first-class celebration certainly was warranted, not just because Holmes, a month shy of his 30th birthday, had finally been able to get paid (the term he uttered on national TV in a calculated effort to accelerate the negotiating process), but also because of how much adversity he’d had to conquer along the road to riches. As Holmes says, “If you want to tell my story, it’s all about overcoming obstacles and not giving up.”
On that special night Holmes made a point of continuing two of his most cherished customs–the deft avoidance of both pretense and dinner checks. After stopping at a grocery store to pick up some Epsom salts for a restorative bath later that night, the NFL’s most dangerous running back pulled into a shopping center off I-70 in Independence, Mo., and hightailed it to the Macaroni Grill. There, at a table near the back, Holmes met his suburban Kansas City neighbor and former high school teammate, Michael Gann, and Gann’s wife, Misty, for a typically low-key meal.
