John Kempf

[Adam Ryan 🤝 @AdamRy_n]

Aldon Smith passed away this weekend. Most people are talking about his incredible ability, potential, and performance as a football player.

Even though that is all true. He was so much more than that. He was a great friend and his kindness changed my life forever.

I met Aldon our freshman year at Mizzou. He was redshirted and relatively unknown as an athlete. His giveaway was the biggest hands you'll ever see and his ability to dunk at 250lbs, but his size in many ways didn't match his personality. He was relatively quiet and in most scenarios would try to shrink into the room vs stand out in it.

Over the course of the next year, we became close. We were very different people, from different places, but we both connected on the feeling of being a bit lost in the beginnings of adulthood. That year, I never really thought about him as a football player. He was just this gentle giant who loved to play video games and talk about life.

His sophmore year he broke the single season sack record at Mizzou, became an All American, and his life changed forever.

He became a celebrity on campus. He became a household name in Missouri. He became a top NFL draft prospect.

I remember how crazy his life became, and how quickly. ESPN doing interviews. Fancy cars being "loaned" to him. And people everywhere inserting themselves into his life.

Despite the craziness, my friend was always a text away.

My junior of college, I decided to take my first stab at entrepreneurship. I wanted to launch a chapter of Camp Kesem.

Kesem is a summer camp for children whose parents have been affected by cancer. The camp would be totally free and be a chance for a kid to experience the magic of being a kid again. As a son of a breast cancer survivor the idea of being able to create this camp in Missouri meant the world to me.

The Livestrong Foundation was hosting a nation wide contest to win $10,000 as seed capital to get started. To win, you had to have the most votes.

I tried really freaking hard to win that competition. I was going up against some really influential people at huge schools. As a somewhat awkward kid in Columbia, MO I had no chance.

So I asked my friend Aldon for a favor. I asked him if he would help me out and promote the link to vote.

He did more than just posting about Kesem on Facebook, skyrocketing us into the top place in the country. He kept supporting me the next 3 years while I was working on building Kesem.

He showed up to have fun with the kids. He helped me fundraise. He helped me get Kesem to become an official organization sponsored by the NFLPA so he could publicly endorse us as as a player.

Since then Torry Holt, Larry Fitzegerald, and many others have supported Kesem. But Aldon was the first.

Kesem led me to move to Austin to work for the Livestrong Foundation. Kesem is how I met my wife. Kesem gave me the confidence to start Workweek and continue the path of building something from scratch.

But in reality, Aldon enabled all those things.

Throughout the years we had many amazing memories together. Having my wife and I vacation to his house in San Jose. Going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl and seeing his entire family make the trip. Meeting his son and watching him be a dad. The hilarious night we met Derek Jeter. Having the most intellectual conversations about life while playing Call of Duty.

I also saw him struggle. There's no doubt he was a complicated person. Truthfully, I don't know if he ever really figured out who he wanted to be. I know just because your'e 6'4, 250lbs, and get 5.5 sacks in a single NFL game doesn't necessarily mean you want to be a football player. No matter the reasons, he made many bad decisions in his life. Some of those mistakes made it hard for me to stay as close as we'd once been.

One day, not too long ago, I just decided to text him. It had been years since we really chatted. I just wanted to say thank you for all that he had done for me and that I was sorry I wasn't there for him more through his struggles. We FaceTimed after that, and it was like the old days all over again.

Aldon was more than the headlines, the mistakes. He was a generous, gentle soul, a kid at heart, someone who was endlessly curious about life... all in the body of a world class NFL player, bearing the weight of professional pressure and personal circumstances that most of us can't even imagine.

People are complex. People who make bad decisions can also do great things. A person can be hated by almost everyone and, yet, there are people in that person's life who still love them deeply.

I learned many of these lesson due to Aldon, and I'll carry them with me forever.

Rest in peace, Aldon. You won't be forgotten.

[ProPublica @propublica]

New: Trump pardoned nursing home owner Joseph Schwartz just 3 months into his sentence for a $39 million fraud scheme. Meanwhile, families who won multimillion-dollar wrongful death suits against Schwartz haven’t collected a cent. https://t.co/IspakEQUHg

[Dan Wetzel @DanWetzel]

Student Radio Cam is one of the great developments of March Madness.

Here is High Point’s Jimmy Rosselli and Griffin Wright (@JimmyandGriff)

[Count Dankula @CountDankulaTV]

The Afroman Trial.

-Cops raid Afromans house for bullshit reasons.
-Steal money, break his door, fuck his house up.
-No criminality found whatsoever, no charges at all pressed on Afroman.
-Afroman spends the next 3 years making songs that make fun of all the officers involved by name, even using footage of the raid from his own CCTV cameras.
-Songs had titles like "Randy Walters is a son of a bitch" and "Lick Em Low Lisa" accusing one of the officers of being a lesbian and sleeping with the other officers wives.
-During the raid one officer looked like he was about to eat some lemon pound cake sitting on Afromans counter, Afroman made a whole album calling the officer fat.
-The cops get mad and file a lawsuit for defamation.
-Afroman turns up to court in a whole American flag suit.
-Officers performatively mald and cry while listening to the songs really trying to oversell how badly the songs upset them.
-One officer was suing because Afroman made a whole song about him saying he was fucking the officers wife. When the officer was asked if Afroman was really fucking his wife, he said "I don't know". Nuking his own case and establishing that there is a non-zero chance that Afroman might actually be fucking his wife.
-As his only witness for the trial, Afroman brought a deputies EX FUCKING WIFE.
-The jury ruled completely in favour of Afroman.

This entire thing has been a great win for free speech and absolutely fucking hilarious.

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Jack White just earned a new degree of respect from me.

An exceptional response to Trump's little people!
The White House melts down and attacks music legend Jack White after he insults Donald Trump's "disgusting" and "vulgar" redecoration of the White House
“Jack White is a washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career,” claimed White House spokesman Steven Cheung.
“It’s apparent [White]’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House,'” Cheung added.
this is Jack’s response…
"Listen, I’m an artist and not a politician so I’m in no need to give my answer or opinion on anything if I’m not inspired or compelled, but how funny that it wasn’t me calling out trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of government, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc. his ridiculous 'wall' construction, his attacks on the disabled, his attempted coup and mob insurrection and destruction of the sacred halls of congress, his disparaging sexist and pedophilic remarks about women, his obvious attempts at distraction about being a close personal friend of Jeffrey Epstein and his inclusion in the Epstein files, his ignorance of the dying children in Sudan, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his lack of empathy for military veterans and those struggling with poverty, his attempts to dismantle healthcare, his obvious wimpy and pathetic kowtowing to the dictators Putin and Kim Jong Un, his nazi like rallies, his attempts to sell merchandise and products like Goya beans through the office of the President, his fake 'gunshot to the ear' that he showed no medical records or photographs of, his constant, constant, constant lying to the American people, etc. etc. etc."
"No, it wasn’t me calling out any of that, it was the f*cking DECOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE remarks I made that got them to respond with insults," he continued. "How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this administration get? 'Masquerading as a real artist'? Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving! Well here’s my opinion, trump is masquerading as a human being."
"He’s masquerading as a christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy," he wrote. "He’s been masquerading as a businessman for decades as nothing he’s involved in has prospered except by using other people’s money to find loophole
after loophole and grift after grift."
"His staff of professional liar toadies like Steven Cheung and Karoline Leavitt have been covering up and masking his fascism as patriotism and fomenting hatred and division in this country on a daily basis," White went on. "And I have 'ample time on (my) hands'? That orange grifter has spent more tax payer money cheating at golf than helping ANYONE in the country. Improve. Anything. There is no progress with him, only smoke and mirrors and tax breaks for the ultra wealthy."
"So maga folk, enjoy your concrete paving over of the rose garden, your 200 million dollar ballroom in the White House, and your gaudy ass gold spray painted trinkets from Home Depot, cause he ain’t spending any money on helping YOU unless you fit into his white supremacist country club rich idiot agenda,"
"Wow, he hates who you hate....good for you, be proud of yourselves, how christian of you all,"
"The only way you can support this conman is because you are a victim of the 2 party system and you 'defend your guy no matter what he does.'" he wrote. "No intelligent person can defend this low life fascist. This bankruptor of casinos. This failed seller of trump steaks, trump vodka, trump water, etc."
"This man and his goon squad have failed upwards for decades and have fleeced the American people over and over," wrote White. "This professional golf cheat, this grifter who has hundreds of thousands of deaths from his inaction of the pandemic on his hands, this man that the majority of the country somehow were fooled into supporting and voting into office (through the flawed electoral college) and their love of reality
television stars."
"Being insulted by the actual White House that this particular conman leads is a badge of honor to me, because anyone who trump supports and likes is a villain who gives nothing to their fellow man, only takes what can benefit themselves,"
"And no I’m not a Democrat either, I’m a human being raised in Detroit, I’m an artist who’s owned his own businesses like his own upholstery shop and recording label since he was 21 years old who has enough street sense to know when a 3 card monte dealer is a cheap grifter and a thief,"
"I was raised to believe that we defeated fascism in World War II and that we would never allow it again in the world. I don't always state publicly my political opinions, and like anyone I don't always know all of the facts, but when it comes to this man and this administration I'm not going to be like one of the silent minority of 1930's Germany. This man is a danger to not just America but the entire world and that's not an exaggeration, he's dismantling democracy and endangering the planet on a daily basis, and we. all. know. it. -JW III...

[Kevin Gallagher @KevG163]

~ In Memoriam ~

#Chiefs legends Derrick Thomas and Marty Schottenheimer

DT tragically passed away 25 years ago today. Marty passed four years ago today after battling Alzheimer's.

Here's the famous clip showing the special player-coach bond that they had.

RIP gentlemen🕯️🕯️

#ChiefsKingdom

[Acyn @Acyn]

Trump: Tommy Tuberville, a great coach. You know, his quarterback was named Mahomes, he was a great college coach.

Tuberville: I recruited him.. I got to be very good friends with him

Mahomes: He did not recruit me at the time. I don't remember if I ever got to meet him or not.

[Taylor Witt 🇺🇦 @Taylor_Witt]

Not only do the Chiefs have the best 20-game stretch in NFL playoff history at 17-3, they also have the worst 20-game stretch in NFL playoff history at 4-16.

A streak that started with a 2OT loss on Christmas to Miami in 1971 and ended with Alex Smith's final game as a Chief.

[Mizzou Hoops @MizzouHoops]

OH MY, LOGO GRILL!!

#MIZ 🐯

[BBQ Chiefs @BBQChiefs]

When you realize that you are going to the Super Bowl

[#ChiefsKingdom @Prollyurdaddy]

Kansas city after the Chiefs win to go to the Super bowl. I love my city #ChiefsKingdom   

[Hudi Productions @hudsononeill15]

The "Villains" of the NFL
#ChiefsKingdom @Chiefs

[🆎 @theABinKC]

when he has a montage like this let me know

[Scott Kacsmar @ScottKacsmar]

The Chiefs are good, the NFL referees are bad, and that's why the discourse is ugly.

There is no conspiracy. You just watch the Chiefs win too many big games and you're tired of it.

https://t.co/GfzwIpCzOL

[Bryan Stewart @BryanStewart_]

Chris Simms completely dismantles Chiefs Derangement Syndrome this morning:

[Victor Shi @Victorshi2020]

Bill Burr NAILED it about the LA fires on Jimmy Kimmel last night:

“I think they did a great job, unlike the internet.”

“Mismanaged…like some person on the internet knows how to manage the worst fire in LA, sitting there in his underwear.”

Watch this.

[Old Time Football 🏈 @Ol_TimeFootball]

Jerry Burns who goes on a tirade after the crowd 👎 Bob Schnelker in 1989 after a #Vikings win over the #Rams
Jerry swears like a sailor in this clip, he also has the greatest 🎤 drop in the history of press conferences
#Skol 
#RamsHouse

[Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter]

The call of Zane Gonzalez’s game-winning field goal from Commanders’ announces Bram Weinstein and London Fletcher:

[Kansas City Chiefs @Chiefs]

Looking to watch Chiefs football today?

Here is all of @tkelce's 77 franchise-leading receiving touchdowns 🏹

[DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm]

Christmas movies & where they’re streaming:

• Elf - Max
• Klaus - Netflix
• Gremlins - Max
• Die Hard - Hulu
• Violent Night - Hulu
• Batman Returns - Max
• Scrooged - Prime Video
• The Polar Express - Max
• A Christmas Story - Max
• The Holiday - Prime Video
• Black Christmas - Peacock
• Love Actually - Prime Video
• Home Alone 1 & 2 - Disney+
• Jingle All The Way - Disney+
• The Holdovers - Prime Video
• Miracle on 34th Street - Disney+
• It's a Wonderful Life - Prime Video
• The Santa Clause Trilogy - Disney+
• Muppets Christmas Carol - Disney+
• Nightmare Before Christmas - Disney+
• A Charlie Brown Christmas - Apple TV+
• National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - Max
• Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special - Disney+
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Peacock