GRANTSBURG, Wis. (WJMC) – While many football fans across the country are uncertain about who they’ll cheer for in the Big Game on Sunday, at least one corner of Wisconsin will be backing the Chiefs, and it has nothing to do with Taylor Swift.
Former Grantsburg Pirate and Wisconsin Badger standout Leo Chenal is making his second consecutive trip to the Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs. In the lead up to last year’s big game, Chenal admitted that most of his teammates have no idea where his hometown is.
“Ha! Yeah, not many people do. It’s a town of 1,200. Northwest Wisconsin. It’s right on the nose of Wisconsin. You know the nose? Yeah not many people know it’s kinda by St. Croix, Rice Lake. You know those areas or no? Yeah, like Rice Lake, we’re like 40 minutes from there,” Chenal said.
Chenal said that growing up in a small town allowed him to focus on family and football.
“Man, yeah, like growing up I had no social life really, I was kinda just like inward with my personality,” he said. “Football was always that thing that I just loved. I be playing, like, outside, I could play by myself. I’d play on every sideline of every football game for my older brothers. I had a lot of older brothers that I looked up to that played football. It’s just the one thing I love as a hobby, as a passion, like you name it.”
Fans can look for Chenal’s number 54 on Sunday when the Chiefs try to become the first team in two decades to win back to back Super Bowls.