It was morning in the middle of August this past summer, and the sun beamed down on the shining red helmets on the campus of Missouri Western State in St. Joseph, Mo.
As they do annually, the dog days of Kansas City Chiefs training camp had come and the feeling of anomaly that a professional football team brings with it when it invades a college campus had worn off.
By this time, school employees and students taking summer classes were used to seeing the 6- and 7-foot men as they rode through campus and the coaching staff members had adjusted to their harder-than-usual dorm-room beds.