The Kansas City Chiefs Monday Night Football game against the San Diego Chargers tonight at Arrowhead Stadium will give KC an opportunity to highlight the rebuild in Joplin after a tornado devastated the town and the community last May.
The Chiefs have played a role in the rebuild heading down to Joplin as an organization during the lockout this summer and bringing attention to the city whenever possible, including a Joplin high school football game at Arrowhead a few weeks ago.
Tonight, the Chiefs have the opportunity to bring a larger audience up to speed on what's going on down in Joplin. ESPN profiled the efforts to rebuild Joplin interviewing Matt Cassel and Scott Pioli for a special, which aired on SportsCenter this morning and will be shown again before tonight's game.
The KC Star this morning wrote a story about Quinton Anderson, a Joplin high school football player who lost his parents in the tornado, and was seriously injured himself, and he's one of the central figures in the ESPN special. Anderson, out for the season, is an honorary captain for the team and the ESPN special includes his emotional story, along with the Chiefs' involvement in his life.
The ESPN special includes video of Cassel speaking to the Joplin football team at halftime of the game at Arrowhead and Pioli nearly tearing up as he talked about finding a stuffed animal in the wreckage in Joplin this summer, wondering where the kids were. It's heartbreaking and inspiring all at the same time.
Check it out on ESPN tonight before the game or one of the endless SportsCenter loops today.