Today is the first Red Friday of the year. For those that aren't KC area people, every Friday before a Chiefs home game is called Red Friday. There is a huge pep rally thrown in an area of the town called Westport (was founded as a trading post in the mid 1800s and is now populated by lots of bars and restaurants). Several thousand people cram into Westport for Red Friday. They have several of the Chiefs players show up along with the Chiefs Cheerleaders (obviously the focus of most of the crowd) and basically throw a huge party to get everyone fired up for the game.
Also, on the Red Friday before each season opening game, they have people all over the city selling special edition newspapers. Everyone that is selling the papers on street corners, in front of businesses, at bus stops, etc. is a volunteer. When I worked at Sprint, they had the CEO, CFO and CIO of the company out selling papers to everyone. All revenues from the special edition sales go directly to KC-based charities. They always end up making over $100,000 for various charities each year.
Also, most everyone in the city wears red-colored clothes to work. It's kind of like wearing green on St. Patrick's Day, except we do it every Friday before a Chiefs game. Tons of red all over the workplace today. I actually am lucky enough to work in a place that has casual as a dress code, so I just threw on the Chiefs Jersey today and headed into work. It's awfully nice to not have to think about heading to an east coast bar on Sundays to watch the Chiefs game. While I liked the bar atmosphere in general with all the games going on, the Eagles, Ravens, Giants, Redskins, Jets and Pittsburgh fans can really get on your nerves after awhile. There was one Raiders fan who was a regular at the bar I watched games at in Baltimore. That at least made me feel a bit at home, especially when we were playing the Raiders.
Tomorrow's a big day for Mizzou as well. They are playing Old Miss (University of Mississippi). If Mizzou can win tomorrow, they will most likely start the season 5-0, which would be great for the University. Mizzou received votes in the most recent top 25 poll. A convincing win this weekend would probably make them ranked after this week.
Two big victories by the Chiefs and Tigers would make Lime a very happy man.
