In Denver, Nothing Is Bigger Than Broncos, Not Even the Rockies

Broncomania is not a passing fancy. There are, however, degrees of fanaticism when it comes to this city’s professional football team, and the current state has settled somewhere between euphoria and lunacy.

When the Denver Broncos, objects of public affection even when they aren’t AFC champions, defeated the Cleveland Browns a week ago today to qualify for the Super Bowl, the mania and maniacs reached a frothing peak not experienced since the Broncos’ first Super Bowl appearance in 1978.

About 20,000 fans stood for four hours in the cold outside a hangar at Stapleton Airport Sunday night, waiting to welcome the team back to the states of Colorado and delirium. Local TV stations broke into network programming for live coverage of the team plane’s landing.

To put that celebration into proper perspective--if that is possible here?--newly elected Gov. Roy Romer drew only 3,500 to his inauguration two days later.

Of course, you can count on inaugurations every four years. How many times do the Broncos make it to the Super Bowl?

No question, this former Wild West city is wild about the Broncos. Even if fans here realize that they sometimes pig out at the Bronco table, they always seem pleasantly glutted.

During the game last Sunday, ratings showed that 9 of every 10 Denver television sets were tuned to the Broncos. Downtown streets were practically deserted. Department stores closed, although bars remained open. And there is, apparently, no separation of church and Broncos. Most Sunday morning services were shortened so as not to coincide with NBC’s pregame show.

Last week, the symptoms of advanced Broncomania--a manifestation of Orange Fever?--were prevalent. You would think, nine years after the first onslaught of Broncomania, that fans would show some restraint.

Naaah .

“It’s a different kind of mania this time, but it’s still pretty exciting,” said Craig Morton, who quarterbacked the Broncos in the 1978 Super Bowl and now is a local businessman. “The Broncos never had any success before that ’77 season, so the fans’ objective was just to get to the Super Bowl. Now, they want to win it. After last Sunday, I can feel that frenzy building again.”

The Broncos have been called the only game in town here--what does that say about the hometown Nuggets of the NBA?--but actually it is the only pro football in the Mountain time zone. So, any success the team enjoys seemingly gives people an identity.

“We’re kind of isolated here inside the Rockies,” said long-time fan Tim McKernan, who transforms himself into the Barrel Man at Bronco games. “Why is it that the TV networks never mention Mountain time when they tell you the time of the shows? That really depresses me.”

Denver’s economy also has been depressed in recent years, and Morton says he knows many who have turned to the Broncos for comfort and optimism.

“I’d like to see Denver rejuvenate itself, get the oil prices back up so people will come back,” Morton said. “It was a going town, back in the mid-’70s. Now, a lot of people are hurting. One great thing about seeing the Broncos in the Super Bowl is that it lifts people’s spirits.”

Along with such spontaneous celebrations as the airport party, the following official acts of Broncomania have been planned by the city:

--The City Council voted to temporarily rename Federal Boulevard, one of the city’s busiest streets, Bronco Boulevard. If the Broncos win, what the heck, it might stick.

--Win or lose, the city plans a rush-hour parade through downtown streets when the Broncos return from Pasadena. In 1978, after the Broncos lost to Dallas in the Super Bowl, a mere 100,000 fans showed for a parade.

--This afternoon, the day before the Broncos leave for California, the city will open Mile High Stadium for a free pep rally. To limit the crowd to a capacity of 76,000, officials began issuing tickets Thursday. Honest.

Monday night, the Broncos will arrive in Newport Beach for their final week of preparation. Some of their disciples will soon follow. For a week, at least, Orange County will be aptly named.

To some Broncomaniacs, orange is not just a color and Orange Crush is not simply a soft drink.

They take their fun quite seriously here.

THE GENESIS OF ORANGE CRUSH

Jan. 1, 1978, marked not only a new year but also the birth of Broncomania. This little bundle, swaddled in orange diapers, arrived hollering, loud and lustily, after keeping everyone pacing in the waiting room for 17 years.

For it was on that day that the Denver Broncos, a model of football ineptitude since 1960, defeated the Oakland Raiders to win the AFC championship and earn a trip to the Super Bowl. A real team had been born and, in lieu of cigars, doting people purchased anything and everything as long as it was orange.

A few snapshots from Bronco-mania’s infancy:

Here’s the one of the church in suburban Aurora that had its trim painted orange and added orange carpeting and pews of orange crushed velvet . . . . Here’s one of that crazy supermarket chain that bought a one-ton block of orange Cheddar cheese from Wisconsin . . . . How about this one: Christmas trees were spray-painted orange and players’ faces were attached to the top . . . . Look at all these cars painted orange and blue with Bronco insignias on the sides . . . . And wasn’t it nice that local hospital nurseries wrapped all their newborns in orange blankets . . . . And here’s our favorite, the orange toilet seat sent to Coach Red Miller. Miller, now a businessman in Denver, still has that orange toilet seat, although he doesn’t actually use it. It’s just one of the keepsakes appreciative Broncomaniacs gave him after that victory over Oakland.

It was, Miller says, a time he won’t forget.

“I have cartons and cartons of stuff in a room of my house,” Miller said. “Plumbers sent me orange faucets. I got an orange wrench, and orange typewriter, the toilet seat. So many things. It was incredible.”

Said Morton: “It was like the dark ages previous to that year. People went absolutely berserk because they’d never had success. They were at our training facility by the thousands. Every time you walked into a restaurant, people would get up and applaud. It was the most marvelous thing any athlete could experience.”

But, Craig, didn’t it infringe on an athlete’s sacred right to privacy off the field?

“Yeah, but who cared?” he said. “There were guys here who were unknown for so long because they lost that, when they had recognition, they reveled in it. And rightfully so. Just getting to the Super Bowl caused all that.”

It didn’t really matter that, two weeks later in the Super Bowl, the Broncos were thoroughly beaten by the Dallas Cowboys. According to the Denver Post, “Old-timers said there were more people (at the Bronco parade) than for the parade on V-J Day in 1945 when World War II ended.” And the locals had won that one.

The Bronco parade was kind of a compromise. Then-Gov. Dick Lamm and then-Mayor Bill McNichols had planned a state-city holiday for 62,000 employees. When it was learned that the holiday would cost taxpayers quite a sum, the holiday was scratched.

Did Broncomanias go too far?

“Doesn’t every city get all excited about its teams when they win?” Miller asked. “It’s a phenomenon of society. You see it everywhere. Maybe not as intense as it is here, but everywhere.”

The difference is that it didn’t fade much or lose its zest over the years.

THE LUNATIC FRINGE

Another important date in Broncomania history is Oct. 16, 1978. That was the day Tim McKernan, a mechanic for United Airlines, discovered that a rather rowdy spirit was sharing his flesh and would not go away.

It is his alter ego, the Barrel Man. This crazy character leads cheers at Bronco games every Sunday during the chilly fall and winter dressed only in an orange cowboy hat, orange boots and a barrel.

Yes, he wears shorts underneath. Orange, of course.

The Barrel Man is not the only Broncomaniac who takes fandom to extremes, only the most noticeable. There is also the Bronco Bunny--Shirley Gorman--who dresses for games in an orange bunny suit for reasons too involved to explain. There is Bronco Karen Hanson, who wears an orange wig to games and claims to have Denver’s largest shrine to John Elway. There are others such as Marie Lance, who wears a 6-foot Bronco horse costume; Bill Sonn, who keeps mistletoe above his TV set during games for luck, and Kim Morss, who superstitiously waves pompons in front of her TV set all game long.

Apparently, Broncomania transcends class distinctions. McKernan is a mechanic, Gorman a housewife, Hanson a former stewardess and cheerleader, Sonn a president of a printing firm, and Morss an attorney.

McKernan, the Barrel Man, is the most visible and colorful of these extremists. He has become so popular locally that he can be seen hawking cars on TV and heard plugging other products on radio.

On this day, he is at KBRQ radio to cut a couple of radio spots. He is dressed not in a barrel, but in the orange cowboy hat and boots, a Bronco jacket and orange belt buckle. After spending only a few minutes with McKernan, it is apparent that the Barrel Man is threatening to conquer what remains of the real McKernan. But, hey, it’s been a good gig so far.

“In 1977, Broncomania took on epic proportions and I didn’t want to see it die, so I dressed up and led cheers,” McKernan said. “I sometimes find it tough to get them to cheer, but not lately.”

You won’t find McKernan on the field, though. By the early ‘80s, he became so popular that Bronco officials issued him a field pass. Then in 1982, McKernan jumped leagues during the NFL’s off-season and started doing his thing at the USFL’s Denver Gold games. The Broncos apparently felt spurned and took away the Barrel Man’s field privileges.

So, now he is back in the stands.

“It was a big mistake,” said McKernan, sounding genuinely contrite. “It was strictly a monetary thing for me. (The Gold) made it worth my while, know what I mean? What I didn’t realize is that I alienated the Broncos. So, I’m back in the stands.”

The Barrel Man has tried hard since then to prove his loyalty. He is out there in his skimpy costume no matter how cold it gets. He was at one game a few years ago at Soldier Field in Chicago when the temperature was 17 below zero. Another time, in Kansas City, the wind-chill factor was 41 below.

Fortunately for McKernan, 46, he is well insulated and works himself into such a feverish state that the cold apparently doesn’t affect him.

Still, even some fellow Broncomaniacs call him crazy.

“Some people think I’m a voyeur because of the way I dress,” McKernan says. “I like to keep it a mystery, what is on under the barrel. I tell them to look for themselves and find out. Those people who ask, they’re the voyeurs.”

McKernan says that both his job and family life have suffered because of his addiction to the Broncos. It is worth it, he says.

“I find myself wearing orange year round now,” McKernan said, shaking his head. “I can’t help it anymore.”

MAN BITES ‘DAWGS’ HEADLINES

Anyone walking by the newspaper racks at Stapleton Airport last Monday morning couldn’t help but notice the big, bold headlines on the front pages of Denver’s two daily newspapers, the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post.

SUPER! blared the News.

WOW! exclaimed the Post.

Had some earth-shaking event occurred that would forever change mankind? Depends on how you view the world. Here, it was big news because the Broncos had beaten the Cleveland Browns--and silenced their rabid “Dawg Pound” fans--to win the AFC title.

Both newspapers had special sections--a “pull-out” in the Post, a “lift-out” in the News--detailing every aspect of the game.

The Post called its section, “Drive to Destiny,” referring to the Broncos’ 98-yard scoring march in the waning minutes that sent the game into overtime. The Post ran 19 stories in its sports section Monday, 10 more in its main news section.

The News was just as expansive in its coverage. There were 20 stories in sports, 7 in the main section. Cartoonist Drew Litton had a caricature of Elway in a Superman suit lifting a giant Browns’ Dawg bone.

Both papers, which have been engaged in a circulation war for some time, had intricate diagrams of the drive.

As if Elway’s impressive last-minute heroics had not been fully chronicled in Monday’s editions, both papers wrote about the drive again Tuesday. Anatomy of The Drive , was the headline in the Post. The News’ headline proclaimed: The Drive wins place among best in history .

Earlier in the week, the News ran a detailed story explaining why Cleveland Stadium is so cold (Hint: It’s next to Lake Erie). And the Post ran an exclusive on the couple who named the Broncos back in 1960--Ward and Maxine Vining of Truth Or Consequences, N.M.

“Denver doesn’t have a major league baseball team, so you don’t have that as a distraction from the Broncos,” Dick Connor, a columnist for the News, said. “The Cleveland game was a very big game, so it warranted all the coverage. During the season, we assign only one columnist and two beat writers to a game.”

Said Joseph Sanchez, the Post’s Bronco writer for eight of the last nine years: “The Broncos are generally regarded as the only game in town, and that’s the way we approach it. It is not unusual to have three or four Bronco stories a day during the week. I get a lot of response (from readers) on our Bronco coverage. They read the stories.”

MUSIC STARS AND SPORTS BARS

Perhaps two good ways to judge whether a town truly is crazy about its team are the musical tributes people compose and the crowds at the most popular sports bars.

Late in the week, a few Bronco players hastily gathered in a local studio to record the seemingly obligatory music video. Before that, though, fans literally sung the team’s praises on records that have received healthy airplay on rock and top 40 stations.

Some of them are “We Love Elway,” a send-up of Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.;” “Throw Johnny Throw,” sung to the tune of “Johnny B. Goode;” and one simply titled “Broncomania.”

Perhaps the best is “Pasadena Dreamin’,” sung to the tune of The Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’.” The parody was written and sung by three KPKE disc jockeys. A sample verse:

All the teams are down ,

Their season’s gone away .

They’ll be couch potatoes

On that winter’s day .

Home on Super Sunday ,

Watching John Elway .

Pasadena dreamin’

The Broncos all the way .

It may not earn a Grammy nomination, as did the Chicago Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle,” but the crowd at Fenway Park likes it.

There was an overflow crowd at Fenway last Sunday, but it wasn’t for the Red Sox. And the locale isn’t Boston. Fenway Park is a perhaps the most popular sports bar in Denver .

The owner, R.J. Rogers, is not from Boston. In fact, he never had clam chowder before opening the bar.

“Denver doesn’t have much sports tradition, so to traditionalize it, I decided on Fenway Park,” Rogers explained. “Another guy across town called his the Boston Garden after ours was around for a while.”

Although Red Sox shirts and Celtic souvenirs adorn the walls, this is a Bronco bar. Many of the regulars wear only orange--and not only on game days. “It was utter and complete pandemonium last Sunday, a gridlock,” Rogers said. “We couldn’t get drinks to the back, so we had customers passing the drinks back and the money forward. It was 45 minutes after the game before people settled down enough so that we could start serving again.

“The hype is building daily. You notice it in the (customers’) talking and in the cash register, too.”

ASSAULT ON PASADENA

In “The Grapes of Wrath”, the Joads and other families packed up their flat-bed trucks and made the trek to California, searching for the prosperity denied them by the Dust Bowl.

Well, any day now, a caravan of campers carrying orange-clad Broncomaniacs will arrive in Southern California searching for prosperity in the Super Bowl.

Leading the pack will be Shirley Gorman, the Bronco Bunny. She’ll be the one driving an orange van with windows shaped like footballs, orange crushed-velvet interior and a horn that blares the cavalry charge.

“We’re leaving Tuesday night,” Gorman said. “Be there probably Thursday. Watch out for us. And we’ll buy any extra tickets you have.”