Tracy Wolfson stood next to Patrick Mahomes during an interview that’s become an annual tradition.
“We meet again,” the CBS sideline reporter told the star quarterback after the Kansas City Chiefs advanced to their fifth Super Bowl in the last six seasons.
After defeating the Buffalo Bills in the AFC championship game, the Chiefs are trying to return to another familiar mountaintop. The first NFL team to repeat as Super Bowl champion since the 2004 New England Patriots is one win from becoming the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls. A win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Feb. 9 would make the Chiefs the first NHL, NBA, NFL or MLB team to “three-peat” since the Lakers did it from 2000 to 2002.
That team led by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal completed the franchise’s unfinished business from the Showtime Era under Pat Riley, when the Lakers won NBA titles in 1987 and 1988, and with a third title in view, guard Byron Scott labeled it the pursuit of a “three-peat.”
Riley trademarked the word, but the Lakers couldn’t bring it to fruition. They got swept by the Detroit Pistons in the 1989 NBA Finals.
At the same time across town, at a school tucked behind tree-lined Sunset Boulevard, Sue Enquist felt like “kindred spirits” with the NBA stars.
Enquist was coach of the UCLA softball team and the Bruins were in the midst of their own three-peat, winning NCAA titles in 1988, 1989 and 1990. Until 2023, when Oklahoma won its third of four consecutive national titles, no NCAA softball team had won the Women’s College World Series three consecutive times since the Bruins.
Enquist, now a consultant working on team building and culture while teaching a master’s program in transformative leadership and coaching at UCLA, realizes only a select group of athletes knows the pressure and privilege of chasing a three-peat at any level.
“It’s like sprinting on a tightrope, right?” Enquist said. “Zero margin for error.”
Only nine NFL teams have won back-to-back Super Bowls. Three repeat champions — the 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers, 1989 San Francisco 49ers and 1993 Dallas Cowboys — had their three-peat bids end in conference championship games. The Chiefs are the only team to make it to a third consecutive Super Bowl after repeating as champions.
“It’ll be something I’ll look back at the end of my career, if we’re able to go out there and get that three-peat,” Mahomes told reporters after the Chiefs held off the Bills in the AFC championship game, “but at the same time, you just treat it as one season and one Super Bowl run, which is always hard to do.”
More than talent, technique or tactics, a steady culture and belief are the most important ingredients to pulling off a three-peat.
“There is such a fanaticism around remaining disciplined, not getting too high, not getting too low,” Enquist said. “And a humility. We have an optimism that we’re going to do this, but not a cockiness that we can mail it in.”
UCLA coach Sue Enquist talks to her team during a break in play against Louisiana State in the 2004 Women’s College World Series.
(Jerry Laizure / Associated Press)
Instead of allowing complacency to set in with each championship run, Marko Pintaric was motivated more by each victory during USC’s six consecutive men’s water polo titles from 2008 to 2013. Pintaric, who rose from an assistant on those teams to coach in 2019, has been fighting to maintain the championship standard.
“When you win first time, you put the target on your back, you set up the standard where everybody’s going after you,” Pintaric said. “So second time, it’s even harder to defend that. And then third time becomes that much harder. Because every time you keep winning, I felt always that that target became bigger and bigger.”
Six years removed from the program’s last NCAA title, Pintaric says his awe for that dynasty has only grown. The Trojans have played in the NCAA final four times since their last championship, and losses in those games still hurt Pintaric more than the joy of a title.
Each celebratory jump into the pool after winning a championship was the height of euphoria, Pintaric said. To the former USC All-American and father of two, the emotion is second only to witnessing the birth of his children.
The pure joy hit Enquist along with a sigh of relief each time the Bruins celebrated a softball championship. The first person to win NCAA softball titles as a player and coach, Enquist learned to exhale the expectations with each celebration. Then the emotions quickly morphed into excitement for the next season.
With a grateful smile, Enquist often started thinking about the next season’s lineup while on the plane coming home.
“Whether you did it or not, you give yourself grace,” Enquist said, “and say, ‘Wow guys, that was a great journey.’”
This story originally appeared on LA Times
