Travis Kelce is getting sentimental about recently returning to his hometown.
The Kansas City Chiefs traveled to Ohio to take on the Cleveland Browns at Huntington Bank Field on Sunday, December 15, winning 21-7. As a Cleveland Heights native, Kelce, 35, was excited to show his teammates around.
“I just love that city, man. It was so fun. I felt like a tour guide,” Travis shared on the Wednesday, December 18, episode of his and brother Jason Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast. “When we flew in, I felt like a tour guide, just telling everybody every single city that we were going past, every monument, every building. ‘Oh, that’s where my mom [Donna Kelce] worked, right there, the big one, the [Key Tower], the tallest one.’”
Travis noted that he has “such a love and appreciation for how we grew up and the fun that we had and all the people that we knew that helped mold me and have the values that I have today.” A lot of those people were at Sunday’s game, with Travis giving a shout-out to “my friends being there, my friends’ parents being there, my childhood friends’ kids now watching me like I was a little kid watching the Browns.”
Passing by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Great Lakes Science Center — where Travis and Jason, 37, would go on school field trips as kids — was nostalgic.
“[It brought up] silly memories, like, going to the cafeteria at the Science Center and spitting spitballs at random people and getting in trouble for it as a kid,” Travis quipped. “Just being reckless and getting in trouble with my friends and the memories and all that silly stuff was just, like, going in and out of my mind. And I just, you know, it felt so surreal.”
Travis also hinted that he’s unsure whether Sunday was the last time he’d be able to play in his hometown city again in his NFL career. “It kind of felt like I was giving it one last hurrah before I’m done because, you know, I’ve only played there twice in 12 years,” he explained. “So, unless we get thrown on there in the next couple, I don’t really see it ever happening again.”
He continued: “It was just a special day for me personally, man, so shout-out to everybody from the Heights and everybody from Cleveland that showed up for me and has always supported me in life, not just since I’ve been in the league.”
Though Travis had the support of his Ohio friends and family in the stands at Sunday’s game, his girlfriend, Taylor Swift, was not in attendance. Swift previously wrapped up The Eras Tour on December 8 and celebrated her 35th birthday on Friday, December 13.
Despite Swift’s absence, Travis felt the love from her fans on Sunday and even high-fived two Swifties sporting Eras Tour merch on his way out of the stadium. “@newheightsshow tell travis thanks for saying hi to us🥰,” one of the fans captioned an X clip of their interaction with Travis.
