PHILADELPHIA — The first question you have to ask yourself when you’re writing about a deep and unseen connection between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce is what to call them after your first reference to them. Are they Swift and Kelce? That would be standard practice at a website or publication such as The Philadelphia Inquirer, a legacy media institution. But that degree of formality probably comes off as square and stodgy to the millions of people who are interested in, or even feel invested in, news about the pair’s careers or romantic relationship or both. To those fans, they’re Taylor and Travis. Or Travis and Taylor. Or maybe Tay Tay and Trav, but only if you’re a true Swiftie.

This question became relevant over the last couple of days, with the revelation that Swift (I chose stodginess. Sue me.) would be appearing on "New Heights," the popular podcast hosted by Travis and Jason Kelce, for the first time. What’s more, in a social-media teaser for the episode, she unveiled the title of her next album: "The Life of a Showgirl."

This announcement set much of the internet ablaze with joy and anticipation, and while it’s usually a lazy and inaccurate trope to claim that “the internet” is unanimous in its opinion about anything, Swift’s popularity and influence are so vast that this time it might be true. The woman completed a 630-day, 149-show, five-continent tour in December that reportedly raked in more than $2 billion. She doesn’t just move the needle. She tosses and twirls the damn thing like it’s a drum major’s mace.

The snippets of the episode that the "New Heights" producers have released so far don’t give much indication of what topics the Kelce brothers and Swift covered during their conversation. One of those snippets, though, caught my attention. It was a 1-minute, 45-second clip of Jason Kelce, in a rant so loud and breathless that he might as well have been wearing his Mummers costume, introducing Swift by listing her accomplishments in the music industry: her 14 Grammy Awards, the billions of digital streams of her previous album, her status as the most honored artist in the history of the American Music Awards. He could have been reeling off his brother’s accomplishments in the NFL: Travis’s 1,004 receptions, his 77 touchdown catches, his 10 Pro Bowls, his three Super Bowl victories.

That harmony is no coincidence. At least I don’t think it is. Strip away the superficial nonsense around them — the gossip and the gratuitous TV camera shots of Swift during Chiefs games and the GQ photo spread for which Travis recently posed — and what you’re left with is this: two incredibly skilled practitioners of their respective crafts who perform at the highest possible levels of their professions, with the highest possible amounts of stress and pressure within those professions.

Neither of them lucked into such incredible success. Swift sings, plays four instruments — guitar, banjo, ukulele and piano — and writes her own lyrics and music. Kelce isn’t merely a physical outlier, in his strength and speed, as a tight end. On the field, he’s incredibly smart and instinctual; he and Patrick Mahomes seem to practice a kind of telepathy, especially when a play breaks down and both are forced to improvise to complete a pass. That Swift can be at the top of her game in concert after concert, in front of countless fans expecting and demanding the best from her, is a pressure few on this planet can understand. Her boyfriend is one of those few.

In February 2024, at a media availability in Las Vegas a few days before the Chiefs beat the 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII, I asked Kelce whether he and Swift shared this particular bond and, if they did, how it manifested itself.

“She’s as much of a professional as anybody I’ve ever met,” he said, “and she just has a desire and a love for what she does. You can see it in how she creates things, how she strategically goes about her career. You can tell she loves every bit of it. I just take that and know, when I come into the building and show everybody every day how much I love it when I come in to work, that’s respected very much.

“She’s played in every stadium I’ve played in. That’s for sure.”

That pressure to perform is inescapable for Swift and Kelce, and they can relate to each other through it and through the mental, physical and emotional preparation they practice to overcome it.

“This implied link between musical and athletic disciplines is a logical one,” Dr. Dimitry Olevsky, a classical violinist and sports psychologist who teaches at three elite prep schools in Southern California, wrote in an email. “Similarly to athletes, musicians must achieve high levels of technical skill, efficient movement patterns, acute focus, composure, and extreme concentration, all while maintaining a consistently high level of performance.

“Musicians ‘play’ music as athletes ‘play’ sports. Therefore, like sports, a musical performance is a physical activity with extreme demands on technical facility, training ethics, discipline, deliberate practice, structure, physical choreography, dedication, determination, motivation and inspiration. Like sports, it is a form of self-expression, performed in front of an audience that demands astounding mastery of the human mind and body. Both performance practices provide the performer with opportunities for excellence, though the journey may bring forth intense pressures, challenges, anxieties, and fears.”

Put simply, there’s a lot more going on between the pop star and the football star than just the postgame kissing, the paparazzi ducking and the social engagement farming. The full "New Heights" episode will be available as of 7 p.m. ET Wednesday. It has already been recorded, but any time Tay Tay, Trav, and Jason might have devoted to lifting the veil on this fascinating subject would have been time well spent.

____

©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.