There are two ways to get a Heisman Trophy. One way is to be born with one-in-a-million athletic talent, play youth sports, attend a high school with a great football program, be recruited to attend a premier FCS university, avoid getting injured and outshine hundreds of other phenomenal athletes over the course of your college career.
Or you can be Jim Chappell.
If you are Chappell, it’s easy. A sports memorabilia dealer in New York City will call you up and offer a Heisman Trophy for sale. That’s how Chappell’s Restaurant and Sports Museum, north of the river, came to have a Heisman that once belonged to Packer legend Paul Hornung.
But that’s nothing. The most coveted statue in college sports is just a tiny part of Chappell’s truly vast collection. There’s an astonishing array of pictures, posters, pennants and assorted objects d’sport covering every single square inch of the bar’s walls and ceilings. Even the bathrooms have thematically appropriate treasures.
On a frigid afternoon, by the cozy fireplace, Chappell told me how his sports shrine came to be. He grew up in Ohio, went to Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, and moved to KC in the late 60s, going into the insurance business. In 1985, he decided to start a restaurant.
“It started out as Chappell’s Bar and Grill,” he says. “Then it became Chappell’s Restaurant and Lounge. Then it became Chappell’s Restaurant and Sports Museum.”
“What makes it a museum?” I ask.
“Because it’s got museum-quality artifacts in here,” he says. “It’s one of the top sports restaurants for memorabilia in the country.”
He isn’t lying. The restaurant houses one of the finest collections in the country, lauded in publications like USA Today and Sports Illustrated.
“I didn’t want it to just be a rum-dum sports bar,” Chappell says. “I wanted some quality stuff in there. So I went through my scrapbooks. I went to the professional players, football, baseball players that I knew and collected stuff and got some vintage stuff.”
That “some vintage stuff” became something incredible, collected over the course of nearly 40 years. You can see an autographed Michael Jordan jersey from the Olympics, a World Series trophy, a Lombardi trophy, Roberto Clemente’s Gold Glove and a glass case filled with autographed baseballs, including a bunch of Hall of Famers. There’s Tom Watson’s putter and signed photos of Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, Satchel Paige and Billie Jean King. On and on.
It’s a remarkable place.
The football helmets are an especially big draw. “I’ve got a thousand helmets,” Chappell says.
They cover every inch of the ceilings, with virtually every college team in existence represented. Name a school and Chappell, remarkably, can probably take you right to their helmet and maybe even share a tale or two about the team it represents.
Sharing tales is, after all, kind of his jam. These days, he’s sort of owner emeritus, having sold the restaurant to an investor. Chappell is still there almost every day, though. A raconteur extraordinaire, you can find him laughing, chatting and telling stories about his incredible collection. Enshrined into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Class of 2013, he’s even co-written a book, Conversations at Chappell’s, and is currently working on a second tome.
The whole collection is worth millions to be sure, but money isn’t what matters. There is, quite simply, a radiance there—a sense of being in the presence of greatness, even if it’s just a wisp. Walking around the place, staring at the walls, you know that Muhammad Ali or Lou Gehrig, say, touched these objects. There’s an undeniable power to that, an energy that every sports fan can understand.
Just ask Chappell. He’ll tell you all about it.
