Kansas City, Mo. ? A small replica of a football found among the debris of the World Trade Center will take an honored place today in the locker room of the Kansas City Chiefs.

“We have a very significant item that we’re going to highlight in our locker room and highlight with our football team,” Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil said Tuesday, on the eve of the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

The item was found in the debris from the North Tower and bears the Chiefs logo.

“It was on a treadmill,” Vermeil said. “It’s a small Kansas City Chiefs carved football, gold and red, that’s going to be on a trophy case. I understand it was on the 115th floor.”

Vermeil said a New York policeman found the item while looking through debris.

“He took it off and looked at it and thought about it for a day or two and said, ‘You know, the Kansas City Chiefs might like to know that somebody in that building was a Chiefs fan.”‘

The Chiefs are hoping to learn who owned it.

“We’ve gone so far as to find out if that person might be identified, who was the Kansas City Chiefs fan on the 115th floor. This is going to be a symbol for our football team the whole year,” Vermeil said.

Team spokesman Bob Moore said someone who worked in the North Tower is checking for the Chiefs to see if the owner can be identified.

“He thinks he knows who it is. He thinks he’s seen it on his desk. But it’s speculation,” Moore said.

On the first weekend of NFL games following the Sept. 11 attacks, the Chiefs played host to the New York Giants, the team closest to ground zero. The Giants’ players had actually been able to see smoke rising from the disaster scene from their practice field.

At the game, Chiefs fans contributed more than $225,000 to a relief fund for victims and their families. Their contributions were then matched by Chiefs players and staff and the team’s owner, Lamar Hunt.