Breaking News: Travis Kelce Reveals the ‘Aura’ and ‘Magic to the Stache,’ Says ‘It Just Brings Success’ (Exclusive)…. See More

The tight end tells PEOPLE exclusively about the “magic” to his mustache and, in part, the reason why the three-time Super Bowl winner grows it out each NFL season

The Kansas City Chiefs tight end has become synonymous with a particular look — his mustache, that is — which begins to take shape just ahead of the start of a new NFL season and remains maintained in the 18-plus weeks that follow.

Kelce, 35, tells PEOPLE exclusively that the mustache move is strategic. “I grow out the stache every training camp — or at least I have the past three or four years since we’ve been making these title runs in honor of coach Andy Reid,” he says. “He is the walrus!”

The NFL star, who’s been coached by Reid, 66, since being selected by the Chiefs during the 2013 draft, has taken note of his longtime coach’s iconic facial hair for a while now. “He’s got that thing looking beautiful every single day,” adds Kelce.

The stylish tight end also made it known that he wasn’t the only person on the team who has been influenced by Reid’s mustache. “It wasn’t just me, a couple of the offensive linemen and a couple of the skill players on the offense all did it the first year,” he says.

Although Kelce initially thought “it’d be funny to show up” rocking the same facial hair as Reid, now he and the team upkeep their upper lips to “keep the tradition alive.” In fact, the tradition has turned into a bit of victorious one, to say the least.

Reid has led Kelce and the Chiefs to three Super Bowl victories, including back-to-back wins in 2023 and 2024, since taking over as head coach in 2013. The team, which has clinched four NFL championships in its franchise history, is looking to earn a third consecutive, and fifth overall, title come February 2025.

With that goal in mind, Kelce is mindful about the tactical decision to keep the mustache throughout the 2024-2025 season because “there’s always magic to the stache,” he says. “There’s an aura around it. It just brings success.”

While that’s likely true for the football season, Kelce hasn’t yet created a superstition around his latest on-screen endeavor as host of Prime Video’s Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity. Although the game show premiered amid the current NFL season on Oct. 16, his mustache was notably absent.

That’s because the athlete, who is seen sporting a trim beard on the show, filmed the series over the summer, along with the show’s contestants and celebrity guests.

With Kelce as host, the Prime Video series sees contestants rely on the help of various stars who are tapped to assist contestants in answering elementary school questions in a range of subjects (rather than compete against students like in the original series, hosted by Jeff Foxworthy) in hopes of winning $100,000.

Kelce calls Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? a “nice little twist” of the game show classic, sharing that he “always thought that was a really fun show.” He adds, “Now that I had a chance to revamp it a little bit, kind of make it my own and I don’t know… I was really excited about it.”