ChiefsPlanet - Chiefs Gretz - Peterson

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The Carl Peterson Era ended quietly last week with the flip of the calendar to 2009.

For the last 20 years, Peterson has been the biggest name on the Kansas City sports radar screen. He began as the new guy from the East Coast, brought in to lead the Chiefs out of the NFL cellar. He became a hero when he and Marty Schottenheimer turned around the floundering franchise. He eventually became a lightning rod for the media and fans as the Chiefs struggled to stay a contender.

Over two decades there were a lot of victories for the Chiefs, but Peterson would admit there were not enough. He was in the business of trying to win a championship and thus he leaves Arrowhead Stadium proud of a job well done, but ultimately disappointed in the fact the team never reached the ultimate goal.

As the major decision-maker for the franchise, Peterson made a lot of good ones. He also made bad ones. Responsibility for all of them landed on his plate. He always knew that and never ran from the fact.

As it is with anyone who has been in a visible position of power for 20 years there is fact and there is fiction surrounding Peterson and his time in charge of the Chiefs. There are those who will tell you he’s pompous, arrogant and fueled by an out of control ego. There are those that will tell you he’s one of the most caring and compassionate people they’ve ever met, who if he has a fault it’s his extreme loyalty. Imagine that: the worst trait of a man is that he’s loyal? We should all be so lucky as to have that fault.

Many of the myths that surround Peterson have been fueled by the Kansas City media, members of which admitted that they celebrated when his resignation was announced. They should be careful what they wish for because as Peterson rides off into the sunset, they have lost their No. 1 foil. That’s going to force them to work harder, something they hate to do.

They helped create and nurture these myths, with the truths buried under decades of misinformation and lies.

Here are the top five myths surrounding Peterson and his time with the Chiefs.

MYTH #1 – PETERSON’S EGO WAS SO BIG HE DEMANDED THAT HE HAVE ALL THE TITLES – PRESIDENT/GENERAL MANAGER/CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER – OR HE WOULDN’T TAKE THE JOB.

It’s true that Peterson wanted the titles. There was a reason, a very obvious reason and his name was Jack Steadman.

From the time that he helped engineer the firing of Hank Stram as head coach following the 1974 season, Steadman was the acknowledged leader of the organization. With Lamar Hunt living in Dallas and Stram out of the way, Steadman became the face of the franchise among the civic and business leaders of the city and among the rest of the NFL teams. First with the title of general manager and then president (1977), Steadman was the lightning rod of the 1970-80s. Coaches came and coaches were dispatched, but always there was Steadman.

When he fired GM Jim Schaaf during the 1988 season, Steadman announced he was going to step away from the football team. There were many in Kansas City and the league that did not believe that would happen. Steadman’s new title of Chairman of the Board still signaled that he was in control.

That’s why Peterson demanded the titles and the power when he was interviewing with Hunt near the end of 1988. He was counseled by many that his toughest job going into the franchise would be to wrestle full control away from a man who had been part of the operation since 1960 and also directed the Hunt family enterprises in Kansas City away from football.

Those warnings proved correct, as Steadman did not go quietly. There were turf battles over business operations, parking spots and a host of other things. With his titles and the power given him by Hunt, Peterson won those battles and Steadman was eventually dispatched to a downtown Kansas City office, away from the stadium, away from the team and away from having any control of the club.

Eventually, the city and the league learned and accepted that there very definitely was a new man in charge.

MYTH #2 – THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN.

After 20 years, this is the most repeated urban sports legend in Kansas City history. Supposedly, when he was hired Peterson said the team would win a championship in five years. It’s now accepted as fact, repeated by people who weren’t even in the city when Peterson was hired. It’s become the punch line for jokes and rants of all sorts of people.

Just one problem: Peterson never said he had a five-year plan. At his introductory press conference, he never said anything close to that. I was there. I have a tape. I’ve listened to the tape several times. I’ve played the tape backwards and at no time is there a mention of a five-year plan.

Research through the area newspaper reporting at the time also does not turn up a mention of a five-year plan. No one has ever produced tape of any kind mentioning a five-year plan.

It’s fiction that has become fact in the minds of many people, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you say something enough, people will believe it to be true.

MYTH #3 – PETERSON DEMANDED THAT HE MAKE EVERY DECISION IN THE FRANCHISE.

Probably tied to the titles and perception of power, there are those who believe that over 20 years, Peterson made every decision at Arrowhead. Understand this: Peterson took responsibility for every decision made by the franchise.

But that’s not how Peterson manages his people or his business. First of all, the biggest decisions over 20 years were done with discussion involving Lamar and Clark Hunt. Peterson always knew he had a boss. Many people mistakenly thought he considered himself the team owner, but that’s not how Peterson felt. The Hunts were part of every major decision. Sometimes, the Hunts made decisions that he did not agree with. But he implemented and supported them once they were made.

Peterson did not live or make decisions in a vacuum. When the Chiefs made decided to trade Jared Allen a year ago, rather than try to sign him, the decision was not made by one man. Not hardly. The decision on Allen involved everyone from Clark Hunt, to Herm Edwards, to Gunther Cunningham. In the end, it landed at the feet of Peterson and he’s never shirked that responsibility.

The Peterson management style has always been this: hire good people and allow them to do their job. That works when talented people are hired and Peterson’s track record in those areas was better than most. There are former Chiefs employees sprinkled through the NFL these days; most got their start with the Peterson-led Chiefs.

In the football operation, Peterson acquiesed to his head coach far more than he battled with him. He allowed his coach to appoint and keep his coaching staff; that was something he granted the coach. He could have kept that power, but having been a coach, Peterson knew how important it was to the team leader to have “his” men around him.

Peterson always worked under this philosophy: as general manager, his job was to give the head coach the tools necessary to win. If the coach thought something was necessary, 99 percent of the time he got it.

When a coach wanted a player, more often than not that player was signed or drafted. For anyone to think Peterson agreed with all those decisions is fantasy. Here’s just one example: after the 2001 season, Dick Vermeil’s defensive coordinator Greg Robinson made it known he didn’t want LB Donnie Edwards, who was going to be a free agent.

Had Peterson been the domineering ruler that he’s been painted, he would have done then what he wanted to do: sign Edwards and fire Robinson. Instead, Vermeil supported his coordinator, so Peterson supported his coach, even though he thought the decision was wrong. Edwards went on to five very productive seasons in San Diego and Robinson left two years later, the defense in a shambles.

The biggest part of being a leader is making decisions. Peterson made plenty of them over 20 years. Many were good decisions; some were bad. Although he took responsibility, he did not make all of them.

MYTH #4 – PETERSON DIDN’T CARE ABOUT WINNING. HE ONLY CARED ABOUT MAKING MONEY.

Peterson cared about winning and making money. That’s what comes with the multiple jobs that he held: football leader and business leader. If the Chiefs didn’t win, they would not make money. If they did not win and make money, he would not keep his jobs very long on either end.

The Chiefs had always made money, but when Peterson took over and turned around the team’s fortunes on the field - leading to more people in the stands - revenues and profits hit levels that had never before been seen by the franchise. Once a business sees those levels go up, it never wants to see them go down. They never did with the Chiefs, or at least they did not until the 2008 season.

Anybody who has ever seen Peterson in the moments after a tough loss would know how much winning means to him. He cared deeply about the outcome of games and seasons. Years ago, Marty Schottenheimer instituted what he called the “Midnight Rule.” It was simply this: enjoy or mourn the outcome of a game until midnight, and then move on. Peterson always violated that rule after a loss, sometimes carrying his unhappiness into Wednesday or Thursday.

First and foremost in Peterson’s soul, he’s a football coach. For a football coach, there’s nothing more important than winning and nothing more disappointing than losing.

MYTH #5 – PETERSON TRIED TO GET PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA WHO CRITICIZED HIM.

There’s no question that Peterson and the Kansas City media never developed much of a relationship. There are reasons for that.

The biggest came on December 23, 1990, when the Kansas City Star reported on page one of the Sunday newspaper that Peterson’s weekly radio show was held in a restaurant owned and operated by a man who admitted to betting on pro football games.

The basics of the story were true. The Carl Peterson Show was held that year at Costello’s Greenhouse Restaurant on Ward Parkway in south Kansas City and broadcast on KCFX-FM. The owner Vince Costello, a former NFL player and assistant coach, had been granted immunity in a Kansas City trial and he testified that he bet on NFL games.

The inference of the story was clear: Peterson was consorting with a known gambler and one that wagered on NFL games. There’s nothing in the world of sports that creates questions of credibility more than association with gambling.

Lost in the Star’s story was the fact that Peterson did not pick the restaurant to host the show. The radio station made that decision. Lost in the story was that Peterson’s relationship with Costello was a “Hi, how are you?” type deal; they were not friends or acquaintances in any way. If Peterson had known about Costello’s testimony, he would have moved the show immediately.

Peterson may have said those things, but the story appeared without any comment from him. The newspaper said he was unavailable. In fact, the night before the story appeared, the Star had three reporters staying in the same hotel as the Chiefs before a road game in San Diego. Peterson was available; the Star chose not to take the luster off its story. Saying Peterson was unavailable made the story seem more sinister than the reality of the facts he would have presented.

When the story appeared, Peterson was irate. He became livid when the Associated Press in Kansas City picked up the story and distributed it nationwide, again without comments from him. A Monday phone call from his mother in Long Beach about the story was the final straw.

It’s safe to say from that point on, Peterson did not trust the Kansas City Star in any fashion and that relationship was never repaired.

There’s something else that Peterson and his organization did that caused anger within the media: they called them on their mistakes and expressed their displeasure with the tone of stories. When misinformation appeared, they called the reporters and news operations. If they didn’t like a story, they made their displeasure known.

In the eyes of the media, this type of attitude was an attempt to censor, stifle and control. How dare they question our attitudes and comments? There were delusionary types who actually brought the First Amendment into the discussion.

In general the media has always had a problem - sports talk radio is the worst offender – in that they believe they are allowed to have an opinion about administrators, coaches and athletes, but those people are not allowed to have an opinion about the abilities, veracity and work ethic of those in the media.

Turns out that Peterson and the Chiefs were well ahead of the curve when it came to questioning the media. The public has followed and thus we have newspapers like the Kansas City Star bleeding money and slicing employees left and right. Thus, we have radio and televisions stations slashing payrolls and coverage. Thanks to the availability and diversity of the Internet, the public has learned their local outlets are frequently out of step, biased and mistake-prone. They’ve found other avenues of finding informed opinion, rather than columns and commentary based on personal agendas.

Had Peterson kissed more media behinds, would it have made a difference? Probably not, but then that would not have been Carl Peterson. From the day he took over until the day he left, there were certain things that did not change with him. Those foundations of the man were and remain unshaken.

Carl Peterson remained loyal to himself, and that’s no myth.