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Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes wrote a touching tribute about the late Terez Paylor in Monday’s Football Morning in America (FMIA) column.
Paylor died suddenly just days after Super Bowl LV last February. He was just 37 years old. Prior to working as a national NFL writer at Yahoo Sports, Paylor worked the Chiefs’ beat for the Kansas City Star.
Paylor covered Mahomes during his first two seasons in Kansas City, his rookie season and his MVP-winning season, which was also his first as a starter. Paylor’s genuine nature, journalistic integrity and passion for the game left an impression on Mahomes, just as it did on many of us. Because of that, Mahomes kicked off Monday’s guest column for FMIA, reminding us that we must help Paylor’s legacy live on.
“I miss Terez Paylor. It’s crazy, and sad, to think he’s been gone for five months now.
In my first two years in Kansas City, he was the beat guy covering the Chiefs for the Kansas City Star. I thought Terez was what a big-time NFL writer should be. He asked insightful questions, not cliché questions. I always knew when he was going to interview me that he’d be prepared. He’d have done his homework. I think some of the best stories written about me came from him—he asked questions that made me think, and so I’d give him good answers back. That’s a big part of why I really enjoyed my interactions with him.
I trusted him. He never tried to play gotcha with me, never tried to catch me in something so he could make a headline out of it. What I always appreciated was that he asked me questions to really try to let the fans know the inside story of why a play worked, or why we won or lost. That trust led me, when I started my foundation in 2019, to think of Terez. He had left to go to Yahoo Sports by that time, but when I started my foundation, 15 and the Mahomies Foundation, I called him first. I wanted him to tell the story because I knew he’d tell it right.
One of the reasons I’m writing this today is that I feel we can’t let his legacy go dim. He deserves to be remembered, and to impact future journalists, for years to come.
Terez was just 37 years old. He had decades left to be a beacon for so many young journalists—particularly minority journalists. Terez didn’t get to be a national writer and forget where he came from. He knew as he rose in the business that he was a role model for minority journalists. He definitely knew who he was talking to, who he was writing for. It was for the football audience, yes, but it was also for a generation of journalists he was influencing and hoped would follow his path.
He knew he didn’t see many people from his race, people who looked like him, climbing the ladder in sports journalism. He wanted that to change, and I respected the heck out of him for that.
I hope through his scholarship fund at Howard University that young journalists study journalism well, and also study Terez’s path. I hope for years there is a stream of Terez Paylor Scholars entering the business and rising to the heights he did. Knowing Terez, and knowing where he came from, that would be a proud piece of his legacy.”
In addition to Mahomes’ tribute, NFL Network’s Steve Wyche, Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson, ESPN’s Cameron Wolfe and The Philadelphia Enquirer’s Josh Tolentino all wrote a little something about Paylor.
The column also revealed that Paylor will be honored during the Chiefs’ preseason game against the Minnesota Vikings on August 27 at Arrowhead Stadium.
If you’d like to help keep Terez Paylor’s legacy alive, you can make a donation to the Terez A. Paylor Scholarship at his alma mater, Howard University. You can contribute online or by check:
For online go to https://giving.howard.edu/givenow. Under “Tribute,” be sure to that your gift is made in memory of Terez A. Paylor. Under “Designation,” click on “Other” and write “Terez A. Paylor Scholarship.”
For check, write “Terez A. Paylor Scholarship” on the check and mail it to:
Howard University
P.O. Box 417853
Boston, MA 02241-7853