Your Orangin: Reflecting on Our Broncos Fandom

and I don’t even think I know a Broncos fan. I began to love them i think in 2007. I always loved Champ and Rod Smith and i liked John Lynch and DJ Williams a lot. I began to watch some of their games and fell in love with the team. It wasn’t a certain player that got me there, I just had to watch one of their games. In fact, the first game I really remember is the OT game against Green Bay (that was horrible). I really am a loner here in the Twin Cities area (Minnesota), and I get a lot of hate for wearing Broncos jerseys(and I hate the Vikings). I am a fairly new fan, but I believe I came at a good time, getting to experience that crazy offseason and this great beginning to the season. This will always be my favorite team, and I would love to move to Colorado someday.

As for me, I was born in Vail, and raised in Gypsum. When I was 14 I moved to southern California and lived there until I was 18, then I moved back to Gypsum for work. After a while there, I moved to Denver for a short time. Next up, lol, I moved to PA for a few months. Then it was off to northern California (near Stockton), and after 10 months there, I had to come back to the mountains so I moved back to western Colorado (near Grand Junction to be exact). Now I’m up in western Massachusetts hating every minute of it. I’ve never seen more fickle fairweather fans than Patriots fans.

Anyways, my first memory of being a fan was being a young kid watching Elway vs. Montana on MNF in 1994. I wasn’t too involved in the Broncos for a couple years, and then 1996 rolled around. I remember the heart breaking loss to Jacksonville in the playoffs that year. I remember the great season that 96 brought, too. I remember the first time CBS 4 news showed the new Broncos logo and uniform designs on live TV. I still have the newspaper that has a great big Techno Bronco on the main page of the sports section. I got more into it after that thanks to my grandmother. During the 97 and 98 seasons, I would go to her house with my dad and we would all scream at the TV together. After hearing the words “This one’s for John”, it was settled. I was a fan forever. It’s impossible to experience something like that as a young kid and NOT walk away a fan. I remember the emotion and the collective release in my grandmothers house. My whole family was there, and there was people screaming in the streets afterwards.

I’ve never felt closer to this team than I did when McDaniels was hired. Mike Shanahan was always a constant in my younger life. There was 3 things: School, girls, and Shanahan coaching Broncos football. It was nice to have things shaken up a little bit. McD is just a coach that I could rally with. I’ve felt that since day one and I feel it even more now. Now I just have to get back to Denver, permanently…

I was born in LA, but my Dad is from Denver and is a diehard Broncos fan. I was indoctrinated into Broncos fandom from birth. When my sister and I were toddlers my Dad’s parents bought us Broncos cheerleader outfits for Christmas (my parents were less excited about the stick pompoms they gave us – toddlers can do some damage with those things). I grew up on Elway and Shanahan. I was just 9 when we won our first Super Bowl – I was so excited. That’s my first Broncos memory – I remember watching football and being a Broncos fan before that but I don’t remember any particular games. I remember my Dad’s reaction to the win – it meant much more to him that it did to me. It wasn’t until years later that I realized just how big of a deal that win was – I never had to live through our losing seasons at the beginning or our Super Bowl losses. In my mind, Elway and the Broncos were the best and always had been. I was stunned when Elway retired because I had never experienced the Broncos without him. I love our colors, I love that we don’t play in a dome, I loved Barrel Man. I don’t remember ever not being a huge Broncos fan.

Since I grew up in LA and now live in Boston I never really knew any Broncos fans outside of my family. Sadly, few of my friends care about football in general, much less the Broncos. After three years on the east coast, I still miss Sunday morning football – waking up, going to church or sleeping in, then watching football. It just doesn’t seem right that there’s no football until 1 pm. The sense of community with other Broncos fans (along with the opportunity to greatly expand my knowledge of football) is what has made me fall in love with MHR. In LA I was surrounded by Chargers and Raiders fans, the occasion 49ers fan, and (oddly) lots of Cowboys and Packers fans. In Boston I’m surrounded by Patriots, Giants, and Jets fans (a much kinder crowd, since they hate each other much more than they hate the Broncos). I have to agree with Calijoefornia – this year has brought me even closer to the Broncos. I’m loving watching McDaniels develop this team – he is just an exciting coach to get to root for. I dream of someday getting to watch the Broncos live at Mile High.

I was born in Greeley, went to elementary school in Ft. Collins and middle and high school in Windsor, so I’m a local boy. I’ve always been a Broncos fan. I don’t know anything else. My first real Broncos memories stem from seeing the final score in a Broncos/Chiefs game at my grandmother’s house when Wade Phillips was the coach (the Broncos won). I don’t remember Reeves, but I remember Wade.

I do remember when Shanny was hired, and I remember the tremendous feeling when the Broncos finally won the Super Bowl. Though I was born in ‘88 and don’t remember the previous Super Bowl nightmares, I still burned to see Elway finally win one, though, like MDeeSh above, I was only 9 years old at the time. I’ve always had a sense of history. The only thing greater in my memory than hearing, “This one’s for John!” was seeing Joe Sakic turn and hand the Stanley Cup to Raymond Bourque in 2001 (hockey will always be #1 in my world).

My first live Broncos game came in the dismal 1999 season. Vance Johnson used to own a trucking company in Windsor called V-2 Logistics. My grandmother was a dispatcher for the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Ft. Collins for 20 years, so she got to know Vance. On the day that the Broncos played the Jets that year, Grandma called and asked if I wanted to go. If you’ll recall, this was the game in which TD got injured. We sat in Vance Johnson’s box for the game, which was awesome. Vance even took me to meet Elway, but the Duke wasn’t attending that one.

The best part of that story? Prior to driving us back to the park and ride, Vance gave my grandma a gift. She was staring at this autographed picture of John Elway, TD, and Shannon Sharpe. He noticed her looking at it, and said to her, “That’s for you, Peggy.” It’s hanging in the office at her house today.

I’ll share a poem written by a friend of mine when he was in the 8th grade. He isn’t a Coloradoan, but he said he’d recite this in class all the time, much to the chagrin of his classmates.

Who Was That Man?

He stepped out of a Sky Blue dream
All dressed in Orange for all to see
He passed
He ran
He did it all
He made defenders feel worthless and small
At the end of the day, when the game was won
The losers voiced their dismay
“Who was that man?”, they’d say
That man was John Elway

My father has been a Bears fan all his life, but his second favorite team was always the Broncos. I’ve lived in Central Illinois most of my life, and I used to get ridiculed at school for being a Bears fan because of how bad they were. At least I’m not a Cubs fan!
Now, as everyone is aware, the Bears and Packers are major rivals. So when the Broncos played the Packers in the Super Bowl, naturally we rooted for the Broncos.
That’s when my love for the Broncos started, with John Elway making Brett Favre cry. (You know he did. I hate Favre.)
So I’ve been a dual fan for a long time now, because I can’t give up on the Bears that I had been watching since birth. But I think I have just a bit more love in my heart for the Broncos, especially now that KO is their starting QB. I always loved him in Chicago.

in 1983 I was born in Denver, a Bronco fan immediately. September “7th” the commencement month of the best sport ever created by man. This would be the year “The General” would take the reigns of the Denver Broncos and ride on forever!!

THE END

I was so sick of the raidas on the other side especially when they (Al Davis) moved the team to LA , I knew I had to root for somebody to kick their butts. It wasn’t going to be the chargers for sure and I hated Hank Shramm or what ever his name was, so I started watching the Broncos and how they handled themselves as an organization. Then along came Shanahan and everything started to click. I moved to Colorado Springs in 1997 to work for the Army at Fort Carson and 97 and 98 were the 2 most amazing years of my life. God Bless the Broncos, they were tough and didn’t take no crap off of nobody…just like my favorite actor, John Wayne. I remain a fan even when the years waned by unfavorably, hoping and (yeah I know) even praying for some devine help with our beloved team. Hmmmm…Thank you lord.

and from the first football game I saw I loved the sport. I never really cared for soccer (obvious reasons). My host family were passionate Broncos fans and I got sucked in immediately. People questioned why on earth I supported the Broncos (during the 7-9), but it just felt right. Got myself a Cutler jersey, some other appearal, and I felt great.

I think I became a true fan when I went back home in May ‘08. While in the US I just watched the game, talked about the team, but when I went home and had no football to watch, I quickly realized how much the game did for me. I started reading books on football (thank god for amazon.com), online Broncos forums until I found this great website, and now its the only place I visit for Broncos news. The first thing I do in the morning is check for Broncos news, and it’s the last thing I do before going to bed. My Cutler jersey has been banned to the back of my closet, but instead I now wear my Orange Alternate #19 Royal jersey with pride.

I try to explain to people here why it’s such a great game, but I guess most of them think Im crazy. At least I got my best friend to come watch the ’09 Super Bowl with me from 1 AM – 4AM, and he admitted he liked it. But nevertheless: Bleeding Orange and Blue forever!

My dad watched elway play high school football. He watched him at stanford. He followed him to the broncos and that’s our family team. Living in so Cali and without a criminal background made it hard for my dad or I to be raiders fans. Glad he watched elway play in h.s. And thankful to be raised a broncoholic.

On the planet Klypton, a scientist named Dumb-el knew their world was going to implode. The government did not believe him, and so he sent his only son Barb-el in a rocket to Earth wearing only an orange and blue baptismal gown. Klypton did not implode as Dumb-el had predicted. It seems old Dumb-el was a bit of a whacko.

The year was 1964 on Earth. The tiny child crashlanded near Pueblo, Colorado and was adopted by loving humans who were not big football fans. But Barb-el quickly took to the sport and the then perennially losing franchise known as the Denver Broncos. He converted the entire family that had adopted him, and soon an entire household of humans were screaming at their television sets every Sunday afternoon. The humans also began to wear orange and blue clothing during those times, much like Barb-el enjoyed wearing every chance he could.

During those lean years our hero went through many hard times for his choice of attire. There were those who preferred him to wear Silver with a blue star, black and silver, black and gold and even blue and gold. But our hero never wavered. He had faith in those who wore orange and blue and knew that the day would come when orange and blue would be the preferred clothing for the people.

Then came the year 1977 and with the rise of the Orange Crush Defense the day had arrived. Orange and Blue were seen everywhere. Homes, cars, pets, barrels. Yes the Orange and Blue were loved as never before. Throughout the Country of Broncos the orange and blue had united as one and Barb-el was happy both for his beloved Broncos but also for his father Dumb-el who maybe was not as whacked as many believed.

Born in ’69. Born a Broncos fan!

My first memory of the Broncos was when my dad took me to a game at Bears Stadium. Had to be ‘63 or ’64, because the Broncos had Billy Joe. Things were not going well, as was so often the case in those days (picture yourself as a Raider fan, and you’ll get some idea of what it was like), and the crowd began to stomp their feet (which made a really impressive noise/motion, even in those days) and chant “We want Billy Joe!” I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the two first names thing, so this led to one of those “Who’s on first?” conversations with my dad, who played it totally straight with me the whole time. From there, I was hooked. We’d put the game on a transistor radio and listen while we played football in the back yard (no local TV coverage in those days), and dream of someday putting a 56-7 beatdown on somebody else for a change. Floyd Little and Rich Jackson helped me persevere through Steve Tensi and Pete Liske. Then Charley Johnson brought a ray of hope. That hope became a reality the night we tied the Raiders on Monday Night Football, and even Howard Cosell couldn’t ignore us, at least for one night. The Orange Crush finally gave us legitimacy, and Elway elevated us to the elite. A long, slow, tough climb, filled with heartbreak — and I wouldn’t have missed any of it for the world!

I have been a bronco fan ever since about 1994, when I recall my first memories of my dad getting me an Elway jersey and telling me wonderful stories about the game of football in Denver.

In a way, I owe my life to the broncos. My mom and dad met at a superbowl party for Super Bowl 21, where the broncos tragically were destroyed by the Giants. Point being, my dad has always been a diehard broncos fan after living in denver when he went to college. If it weren’t for THE DRIVE, he would have never gone to the superbowl party and met my mom, and thus, I would never have been born.

I was watching football at about the age of 14, and I had thought that the Giants would be my team. But I happened to catch another game as I was flipping channels, and I think it was the Orange uni’s that caught my attention. So I watched it and before long the announcers were talking about this Elway kid, with the rocket arm, who could throw the ball off his back foot from one side of the field to the other, on a line. I became hooked and have never looked back. It was 1985. I saw them lose three Super Bowls and everything since.

I’m more passionate about the Broncos than any of my home town teams, like the Leafs and Jays. And I’ve passed my passion on to my little brother (10 years my junior). I hope to one day see a game in Denver. I’m not too far away anymore living in Calgary, except that I can’t seem to get a direct flight from here. It is something I shall do one day, this I vow. :)

I can’t say I was a die hard fan until ’97, but I aways had a soft spot for them. Watching them win the SB was amazing and I was hooked for life. Ironically, I wound up moving to Denver in ’98. Watching the Broncos kill the Falcons was one of my fondest memories. Except for the fact that after the game, someone had slashed all my tires. I still had GA plates…. grrr