A Small World

The quaint brick building looks like a church, which is exactly what it was for years, one of many in this small town located about halfway between Los Angeles and Detroit.

The first hint at some other form of Sunday worship appears as a question posted in the building’s marquee:

Are you ready for some football?

Inside, a pair of stadium seats from Denver’s old Mile High Stadium sit against a wall just off a first-floor kitchen. Five posters of legendary Denver Bronco quarterback John Elway flank the souvenirs.

Upstairs, muted sunlight filters through three symmetrically-arched windows, bathing a huge room that features a choir balcony, a sofa, three recliners and several pews.

And there, on a pulpit, stands what might be any pro football fan’s most cherished earthly possession: A 62-inch flat-screen television.

“We’ll watch the Super Bowl right here,” Jay Brammer says.

Brammer is neither priest nor pastor. The easygoing municipal court judge and his wife bought this church two years ago and converted it into their family’s sprawling home.

Brammer’s beloved Broncos were eliminated from the NFL playoffs two weeks ago, but the couple, their three sons and more than a dozen friends and family members will congregate on Sunday to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers play the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL at Detroit’s Ford Field.

The Brammers will not be alone.

An estimated 90 million Americans and 40 million viewers in other countries will gather before televisions for what has become the biggest day of the year on the national sports calendar. Thirty-nine years after the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs battled for the NFL title in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Super Bowl Sunday permeates American culture. The hyped spectacle extends well beyond easy chairs and sports bars, cutting across gender lines and drawing in viewers from major media markets and small towns such as Sterling, which has a population of under 14,000.

“It has become a de facto national holiday,” said Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp, a Chicago-based sports consulting firm. “It is one day a year when a very large percentage of our country comes together and participates in a single communal event. There is virtually nothing else out there that brings together such a large number of diverse people at the same time, effectively, in the same place.”

Like just about everywhere in the United States, Super Bowl celebrations large and small will abound on Sunday in Sterling, which is located about 125 miles east of Denver and within 80 miles of the Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming borders.

“The town comes to a standstill on Super Bowl afternoon,” said Pat Maucher, an events coordinator for the Logan County Chamber of Commerce, which is housed in a historic Union Pacific Railroad depot in Sterling. “If you don’t catch the game it’s because your TV blew up or your car ran out of gas on the way home from somewhere.”

It is not difficult to get around in Sterling, which encompasses about six square miles and features 14 stoplights.

Much of the local news can be heard in places such as Bill’s Barber Shop, which opened in 1976 in the downtown area and serves a steady stream of customers of all ages during weekdays. Bill Trahern and his wife, June, have been cutting hair in the two-chair shop since it opened.

Like the Traherns, many Sterling townspeople are longtime or lifelong residents. Some grew up here, moved away for college or work, then returned to the area to raise their own families.

“We go down the street and we’re not honking our horn if we see someone we know; we wave,” said Jennifer Burmester, manager of T.J. Bummers, a popular Sterling eatery. “If someone needs help, we stop.”

For all of its small-town feel, Sterling is the largest city in agriculture-based Logan County. The Sterling Correctional Facility, one of Colorado’s largest state prisons, sits on the other side of Interstate 76. The nearest shopping mall is 100 miles away in Fort Collins, so for residents of neighboring rural communities, Sterling is a bustling metropolis.

“This is where we come for all of our big-city experience,” Don Jaeger, a 35-yard-old farmer who lives about 25 miles away in Stoneham.

Sterling also is a thriving sports town, though one that is regarded as hard to reach by many of the “front range” high schools in or near Denver.

“We’re kind of considered out in the sticks,” said Wally Beardsley, assistant principal at Sterling High, which has an enrollment of about 625 students. “In the front range, they think they’re falling off the end of the world if they have to come out here to play.”

When visiting teams arrive, they find a sports-mad citizenry that supports its local teams.

“Sports are the focus of our community: That’s the entertainment,” Beardsley said.

And like they do in so many small towns, community members pack the stands at Tiger Field on Friday nights during the fall.

“Football is a big deal here,” said Coach Mark Bauder, who guided Sterling to the 3-A state championship game in 2004 and has coached at the school for 21 years, the last six as head football coach.

A few years ago, Bauder said community members chipped in $20,000 to start a youth football program that last season served about 270 kids in Sterling and the outlying areas.

Brendan Diaz, 11, said it was natural that he would play quarterback after watching the Super Bowl every year since age 2.

“I like the Broncos but I also like Tom Brady,” Diaz said of the New England Patriot quarterback.

Football might be king in Sterling, but other sports thrive. Sterling High’s girls’ basketball team won a state title last year and is riding a 37-game winning streak. The girls’ volleyball team also won a state championship and the girls gymnastics’ team has multiple state titles.

The city is home to Northeastern Junior College, which features a state-of-the-art multiuse athletic center that is on par with or better than the facilities at some of the nation’s four-year schools. The men’s basketball team has won several regional titles and last week was ranked in the top 20 nationally.

But before Sterling sports fans turn their full attention to basketball, they will close out the pro football season by watching the Super Bowl.

Jay Brammer, who played football at Sterling High and returned here from the front range in 1996, can hardly wait, though he is still getting used to his family living in a church.

The Brammers were simply looking for a larger house when their third son was born. Coincidentally, the congregation that had occupied the church also needed more room.

“I mentioned to a friend that we were looking for a new house,” Brammer recalled. “He jokingly said, ‘You should buy the church.’ And my wife said, ‘That’s not a bad idea.’ ”

Brammer has presided over a relative’s wedding in his converted chapel and fired up his sons’ football teams with a showing of the movie “Remember the Titans” before a game.

People “think it’s cool or they think we’ve lost our minds, one of the two, and sometimes I wonder which it is myself,” Brammer said chuckling.

But Brammer surveyed his Super Bowl set-up and acknowledged that come Sunday, he will be perfectly at home.

“From a football perspective this is cool ... “ he said. “You can cheer in peace, I guess.”