They say you never know who might be at the next gas pump. Now, no one knows that better than Caine Huffman of Camden Point.
On Thursday, Aug. 15 on one of his final free days of the summer, Huffman, a senior at North Platte High School, had what he calls a “once in a lifetime opportunity” at the always-busy QuikTrip in Platte City.
Huffman was with his girlfriend, getting gasoline at about 11:30 a.m. when he thought he recognized some hair hanging out of a hoodie on a man at a nearby gas pump.
Huffman said he went up to the hooded gentleman, tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he was Patrick Mahomes.
It was the NFL MVP, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. “He was driving a Bentley Genesis,” Huffman said.
Huffman pulled out his cell phone and asked the star athlete to pose for a picture, and the quarterback gladly obliged.
“He is a good dude,” Huffman said.
Nobody else in the vicinity on the QT lot apparently knew there was a nationally known star in their midst. “Just us,” Huffman said, referring to himself and his girlfriend.
The windows on Mahomes’ vehicle were heavily tinted, so Huffman said he could not tell if there was anyone traveling with the quarterback.
With a unique hairstyle that is sometimes copied by some of his hard-core fans, Mahomes no doubt was wearing the hoodie on a warm summer day to prevent being easily recognized.
“I asked what he was doing in Platte City. He said he was on his way back from training camp,” Huffman said.
The Chiefs training camp at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph wrapped up Thursday morning and Mahomes was making his way home to Kansas City when he apparently needed some fuel for the Bentley.
“We talked for about three minutes while he was pumping his gas. I Facetimed (video call) my buddy and (Mahomes) talked to him. I think my buddy was shocked,” Huffman said.
Huffman said he walked into the QT store afterward and some construction workers asked him if that was Mahomes out on the lot.
“But by that time he was gone,” Huffman explained.
An interesting tidbit? Huffman says the Chiefs are not even his team.
“I’m a Raiders fan,” he says.