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KC
Wolf hits town with
message of self-esteem
by
Kim Tiefenthaler
Landmark reporter
While you can usually see the famous KC
Wolf on
the sidelines and in the stands of Arrowhead Stadium cheering
on the Kansas City Chiefs, he also travels to nearly 130
schools across the Midwest each year talking to students
about self-esteem.
This past Friday, KC Wolf, also known as Dan Meers to
many outside Arrowhead Stadium, stopped by Platte County
R-3 to speak with students from Rising Star and Siegrist
Elementary Schools.
"I take my job as a role model seriously because
I do speak at a lot of schools," said Meers. "It's
fun to be a role model for kids because they definitely
need them this day and age."
Before appearing as the KC Wolf 12 years ago, Meers was
the St. Louis Cardinals mascot.
"Kansas City contacted me while I was at St. Louis,
and I felt this is where I should be," said Meers.
"In baseball there are 81 home games a season while
in football there's only 10 home games. I realized a football
career would last longer because I could perform eight
seasons here compared to the one in baseball."
The move to Kansas City would also allow Meers to do
more community appearances, events with children, parades
and weddings.
Meers stated that while weddings rank up there in the
strangest appearances made, a celebrity cow milking contest
at the Kansas City Zoo claimed the top spot on the list.
Meers responded with a laugh and a grin: "Cows don't
care too much for mascots."
Meers made 430 appearances across the world last year,
traveling across the U.S., as well as Berlin, Germany
and Japan.
To keep up with the busy year round schedule, Meers credits
his ability to stay enthusiastic to three attributes.
"The first thing is I love what I do. When you love
what you do it makes it all easier. Second is God's blessing
of good health and finally eating good, as well as plenty
of sleep," said Meers.
Meers graduated from the University of Missouri, where
he got his first break as a mascot.
After reading that the school was having tryouts for
the Tiger mascot, Meers decided to use his enthusiastic
attitude to pursue the job as the university's mascot.
Meers spent the next four years of his college career
cheering on the teams of the University of Missouri. He
graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism and communications.
KC Wolf sums up his job for the Chiefs in these words,
"KC Wolf presents the KC Chiefs in a positive fashion.
I'm paid to be the most optimistic guy at Arrowhead,"
explained Meers.
As far as his opinion on the Chiefs changes this year,
he said: "I think we'll do okay this year. It's tough
for any coach to come in and turn the team around in one
day but I like the changes we've made and I think we're
heading in the right direction."
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