Nearly every morning throughout the World Cup in Qatar, the first voice Angie Long sought to hear from outside the home was that of Shawnee Mission East classmate and cherished friend Grant Wahl.
Whether through his writings or his podcasts, she was eager to know what the estimable Wahl had observed because of his keen insights about soccer, the integrity of his work and his ever-unique perspective.
She even listened Friday to his final “Fútbol with Grant Wahl” podcast episode and knew he’d been very sick with bronchitis — but with no way of knowing what the deeper implications might be.
So amid the devastation of his astonishing death at age 49 later that day, she searched Saturday morning for the voices speaking of him — the voices of countless people, as it happens.
By 8 a.m., she observed there had been some 207,000 posts on Twitter about Wahl, who attended Princeton with Angie and husband Chris Long, owners of the Kansas City Current along with Brittany Mahomes.
“So many people thought they knew him so personally,” Angie said Sunday. “And the breadth of the people that he touched, in this country and in the world, is just incredible.”
He was a citizen of the world, really, recognizing few if any boundaries, literally or figuratively, in the considerable courage and span of his work.
But wherever he roamed or lived, he remained rooted here … and his towering work and gracious presence will endure in Kansas City.
More so than many might know.
Simply put, the KC Current wouldn’t exist without the advice of Wahl, as Chris Long put it on Twitter the other day.
When the Longs began just over two years ago to consider the notion of reviving women’s professional soccer in Kansas City, when their kids were telling them they were crazy to consider it, they called Wahl — who with his beautiful prose and jaw-dropping work ethic had risen through the ranks of Sports Illustrated to become the best-connected and most influential soccer writer in America.
“We were still in our exploration phase when we talked to Grant,” Chris said. “There was not a green light, full-speed ahead at all.”
With a laugh, Angie added, “He was a bit of a gut check on, ‘Are we really crazy? Tell us what we don’t know.’”
Love the game (both men’s and women’s) as he did, love Kansas City as he did and, surely, love the Longs as he did, Wahl embraced an informal consulting role as, well, a labor of love.
Which included the loving action of diplomatically telling them even what they might not have wanted to hear.
“In very typical Grant fashion, he wanted to make it clear to us that … this wasn’t a trivial matter: that it was a real undertaking, a real responsibility and not easy,” Angie said. “Even as excited as he was for us and even as much as he believed in us, (he) wanted to make sure we kind of realized the gravity of what we were doing.”
So the founders of Palmer Square Capital Management talked with Wahl about everything from sponsorships to facilities and the need for a grass pitch wherever they were ultimately to play. The Longs shared in advance with Wahl virtually all of their plans, including the idea of purchasing the rights to the defunct Utah Royals FC (the former FC KC) to effectively create an expansion team.
Someone else might have wanted to break the news. But he just wanted to help, much like he held that habit with other journalists behind the scenes.
Now, the Longs are rather a force of nature themselves. But they believe Wahl made a momentous difference in both their conviction about the operation and their ability to execute it.
“He even made all our first introductions to the then-commissioner (and) owners around the league,” Chris said. “And I really feel like he had a massive impact on us getting that team.
“People knew we had been successful in the investment world, but no one knew us as sports owners. But then all of a sudden you have Grant Wahl calling people and saying, ‘Hey, the Longs are for real, you’ve got to talk to them. And, you know, this is a great market in Kansas City. I grew up there.’”
Then there was the matter of where the team that became known as the Current would ultimately play. The Longs brought up the unprecedented idea of … “What if we just, you know, built our own?”
That was one moment when his typical healthy skepticism was eclipsed by his excitement.
“He was, like, ‘Whoa, OK, now that’s revolutionary,’” Chris recalled Wahl saying. “‘I mean, oh my gosh, you guys are going to do that?’”
Indeed they were, breaking ground on the $120-million, 11,500 seat ultramodern stadium in October with the plan for it to open in 2024.
It’s too soon after his death to determine how the Current will commemorate Wahl in the future. That’s largely because the Longs want to consult with his wife, Celine, about how to do it at a more appropriate time. But they have lots of ideas, to be sure.
Beyond his vital role in the formation of the Current, it’s easy to see how his work was an essential to another remarkable development in the history of the city itself: playing host to the World Cup in 2026.
His role with Sports Illustrated, and in turn Sports Illustrated’s role in the world of sports, Angie said, was a key part of “the virtuous cycle” that helped soccer flourish from there.
“He was so ahead of his time in so many ways,” she said. “It was almost like he was seeing into the future where everything was going.”
With groundbreaking coverage of the sport in what was one of the most significant sports publications in the world, Wahl had considerable sway in the mainstreaming and rise of the game here.
“I’m so sad that he’s not going to be here for the World Cup,” Angie said. “I just feel like that is really his whole life’s work come full-circle, to have it back in the U.S. when the U.S. understands it, when he’s not trying to explain it to the U.S. And for him not to get to be a part of that is …”
Her voice trailing off, Chris added, “It’s heartbreaking. It’s terrible.”
It is. Nothing less. And it’s hard not to think about how much more he was going to do … and give.
But at least we can know this:
The ripples of his life are immense and ever-lasting.
Up close and personal, he was a wonderful husband, son and brother.
On the job, he was trusted by his subjects, from back in the day covering Princeton basketball (with Chris Long on the team) through a galaxy of international stars along the way. He also was revered by colleagues around the nation and world.
“That’s not an easy thing to accomplish, I don’t think,” Angie said. “Especially when he was always honest.”
His beautiful life also included finding what he loved, contouring it to his own principles and humanity, and making a difference in so many ways.
As the Longs pondered his legacy, the word that came to mind for Chris was “unselfish.” Wahl’s purest passion, Chris said, was to be an advocate for others and “leaving the world a better place.”
In his very own way, a way we might aspire to be more like.
Then again, he just wasn’t like anybody else, Angie said.
So his absence will be all the more acute.
Yet so, too, will his ethereal presence.
All over the world, sure.
But also right here, forever animating some momentous developments in the history of the city.
