Here's hoping Kansas City shooting doesn't lead to end of championship celebrations | Habib

The 2020-21 season ended abruptly for the Miami Heat, swept by the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs. Although the Bucks went on to win their first NBA title in 50 years, two shootings taking place outside their arena following the Finals left three wounded. Two years later, the plot was relived. After Denver took out the Heat in the Finals, a shooting at the parade’s conclusion left two injured, although police did not think it was related to the celebration.

Plus, twice in a three-season span starting in 2020, teams couldn’t celebrate winning the World Series without gunfire breaking out, leaving two dead.

This ugly toll comes to mind following this week’s scene in Kansas City, where one woman died and 20 others — one just 8 years old — were shot after an estimated 1 million gathered for what was supposed to be a celebration of the Chiefs winning their second consecutive Super Bowl.

What’s worse? That there’s a segment that will read the summary of carnage at championship events in the past few years and not be surprised, or the segment that is? Although we’ve beaten to the ground the notion of how normalized mass shootings have become, it still bears pointing out that three days after the Super Bowl — the most-watched TV show in history — 21 people could be shot at a celebration and just hours later, the cable news networks had already returned to their regularly scheduled chatter about Putin and Trump and whatever else they think the public would rather hear.

Worse, the next morning, you could read about the incident on the website of The New York Times — the longtime “paper of record” — but to do so, you had to scroll beyond a story on Nickelodeon’s slime.

13-year-old boy, grazed by bullet, back in class next day

Cash Adams. You ought to know his name. Cash is a 13-year-old Chiefs fan who didn’t let a bullet keep him from his eighth-grade class the next day. He’d attended the celebration hoping defensive lineman Chris Jones might give him an autograph. Instead, he got a wound on his left leg and now says he can’t see himself ever attending a parade for the Chiefs or Royals again.

For 13-year-old kids, attending a championship parade ought to mark the start of their blissful love of sports, never the end.

At some point, after the funeral for Kansas City disc jockey Lisa Lopez-Galvan, and after the physical and perhaps mental wounds hopefully heal for Cash and victims scarred by what they saw and heard and feared, we’ll realize the secondary tragedy in play.

Athletes put all that sweat into winning a championship that for most never comes. Fans pour all that money and hope while willing their teams to championships, and now what? The days of Tom Brady tossing the Vince Lombardi Trophy from one boat to another or Travis Kelce singing off-key are history? It’s too risky to attend, maybe too risky to even organize? Kansas City had 850 officers on duty Wednesday. It wasn’t enough. No amount is.

Miami Dolphins showed power teams have to unite communities

I’ve lived in South Florida since 1965. The moment this area was most united and most joyful is easy to pinpoint: Little Havana after one of the Dolphins’ Super Bowl wins, with fans banging on pots and waving white bedsheets from balconies because the traditional white handkerchiefs of the era couldn’t express what needed to be expressed. No. 2 on the list? Shaquille O’Neal, armed, after helping the Heat win an NBA title. His “weapon” wasn’t firing bullets, of course. It was a souped-up water rifle, drenching fans. Even the insane traffic jam into downtown Miami for the Heat's parade wasn’t the inconvenience it normally would be. The bigger the party, the better.

Now look. We assume getting searched is the price of attending a sporting event or concert. That’s easy at a stadium or arena, not so easy at a sprawling party like the Chiefs’.

Just a few years ago, we measured mass shootings by comparing how many days had elapsed in the calendar year vs. how many mass shootings had occurred. Now, we can pick a day, any day, and count how many shootings are associated with that date alone. February 14 once was Valentine’s Day. For many now, it’s hell. Wednesday marked the six-year anniversary of the massacre at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, but it also will always bring back dark memories in Kansas City; Washington, D.C. (three officers were shot Wednesday); Atlanta (school shooting Wednesday); and at Michigan State (shooting one year ago).

Wednesday afternoon, Patricia and Manuel Oliver, whose son was killed at Stoneman Douglas, were on the set at CNN talking about gun reform. Six years ago, they accepted Joaquin’s framed diploma at the graduation ceremony. His mother took the stage wearing a shirt that read "THIS SHOULD BE MY SON." Joaquin’s parents received a standing ovation.

Wednesday? Patricia and Manuel’s interview was interrupted by reports of an incident at the Chiefs’ party.

“I’m not surprised at all,” Manuel said.

Patrick Mahomes threw the winning touchdown pass in overtime for the Chiefs. For an entirely different level of heroism, try offensive lineman Trey Smith hustling a distraught child to safety at the rally while handing him a WWE championship belt to distract him. Try the two men who are believed to have brought down an armed gunman — unquestionably the greatest tackle of the season.

Police believe the shootings were the result of a dispute unrelated to the rally, but those pulling the trigger didn’t seem to care who was getting struck by the bullets any more than do politicians in Missouri with a laissez-faire attitude toward open-carry.

More: New Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver is no Vic Fangio (and that's OK)

“This is not Kansas City,” Police Chief Stacey Graves said at a news conference after the shootings.

But it is Kansas City. It is Parkland and Washington, just like it is Boise or Brooklyn or Birmingham.

How messed up is it to know that had the 49ers won last weekend, Lopez-Galvan almost certainly would still be alive? And that someone in San Francisco might not be?

Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at  hhabib@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @gunnerhal.

Click here to subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: We can't let Kansas City shooting lead to the end of championship parades