This week, Kelly Woodward and I had the opportunity to be part of the judging committee for the annual Youth of the Year program for Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver.  I was part of the team that met with the young people at the Wilfley Branch and Kelly was part of the Boettcher Branch team.

This experience is always an inspiring one as it enables us to come face to face with some of the community’s most amazing young people and all that they are doing to make our world a better place.  It was a difficult decision, as it always is, to select the junior and the senior youth of the year winners respectively. 

Nash Hahn (junior winner) and Shonnetta Henry (senior winner) were our recipients at Wilfley, which is located at I-70 and Pecos.

Good morning, Broncos Country.

Thank you for following our organization’s community work over the season.  We will have some exciting offseason projects on the horizon.  Though we will not have weekly posts, please check in periodically to get a feel for where we are headed in the new year.  All the best to you all. 

Upon opening my e-mail this morning, I was very excited to see the construction bids come in for the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center (thank you Will Bussard of OZ Architecture for your hand in this) and to know that as of January 9th, 2008, we will have our construction partner in place and the work will begin . . . . bring in the New Year.

As you all know from past blogs, this project means so much to all of us in the organization and to the Williams’ family and we certainly know it will have an amazingly positive impact on the young people who will be members of the Center.  Particulary in the week leading up to the anniversary of Darrent’s death, it is extremely important for us to have this positive outlet to focus on and to know that something truly positive will happen in our community from a place of tragedy.

Ed Dwight, the sculptor who is working on the bronze of Darrent to be displayed outside the Teen Center entrance, has started the first casting and some of our kids from the Broncos Boys and Girls Club have been over to his studio to learn about the process.  This is also very exciting.

Last Tuesday proved to be another special holiday moment as we had our annual holiday party with the Denver Rescue Mission Crossing facility.  We adopted every room currently occupied at the Crossing and approximately 40 families were treated to an old fashioned Christmas experience–gifts, dinner and cheer!!!

My favorite moment of the evening came when a young child about 3 yrs. old all dressed up in a Christmas sweater vest was so taken with the excitment that he literally began jumping up and down with joy–to see the holiday spirit through the eyes of a child is something every adult should make a point of doing each and every year.  That is where true inspiration is born.

Last night at Dick’s Sporting Goods at Park Meadows, the Denver Broncos formally kicked off the holiday season.  Dick’s was very gracious to give $100 gift cards to each of 40 children from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver and they enjoyed a festive dinner and shopping spree with Miles and four members of the team:  Steve Cargile, Domonique Foxworth, Chad Mustard and Brandon Stokley.

What really warmed my heart was the special spirit of the kids.  They were really neat, wonderful young people who were so very appreciative of the evening and the opportunity.  One young man, Brandon, from the Denver Broncos Boys and Girls Club is a Hurricane Katrina evacuee who fled to Houston and ultimately ended up in Denver.  He was so gracious and personable and I marvelled at the thought of what he has gone through and how he is persevering…

As exciting as the win was for us last evening, there was an equal excitment running through Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in LoDo at the noon hour as the Monday Night ESPN crew hosted a special Chalk Talk luncheon to get the fans geared up. 

Denver Broncos alumni David Diaz-Infante, Karl Mecklenburg and Ed McCaffrey joined in on a panel discussion moderated by ESPN’s John Seibel who asked them about special Monday night memories in their playing days.  It was no surprise that Ed McCaffrey highlighted the first Monday night home opener at INVESCO Field at Mile High against the Giants and he described feeling on top of the world and really connecting with the fans early on, only to have his season end with a broken leg.  That, he claimed, paled in comparison the following morning when he learned of the world changing events of September 11th . . . powerful memories. 

Overall, the guys all talked about the excitement of a Monday night game and the thrill of truly being the “only game in town that night” and playing in front of their peers. 

Hall of Fame great Steve Young ended the panel discussion with some candid commentary on Broncos’ quarterback Jay Cutler, saying that Cutler has done all he personally could have asked of a young quarterback so early in his career.

It was a neat day shared by our Broncos’ corporate partners and the ESPN local administration that was capped off by a very special “Fans Helping Fans” community award given by TEAM ESPN, Dick’s Sporting Goods and the Denver Broncos to long-time community partner Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver–a well deserving community recipient. 

Have a great Thanksgiving in Broncos Country

It’s an exciting time of the year for the high school community as the state high school football tournament is underway at stadiums throughout Colorado.  The Broncos are thrilled to partner with the NFL in support of high school football each year, and at this particular time we have made our Coach of the Week selctions final for 2007.  We salute the following:

Rocky Whitworth, Glenwood Springs High School
Todd Matkin, Highland High School
Paul Griese, Woodlin High School
Doug Johnson, Longmont High School
Jason Catron, Falcon High School
Mike Woolford, Regis High School
Mike Griebel, Heritage High School
George Purnell, Holyoke High School
Bret McGatlin, Chatfield High School
Tim Owens, Thomas Jefferson High School

As the high school state football championships come to a close in early December, we will also look forward to naming our 2007 High School Coach of the Year.  All of these great leaders will be recognized during a special half-time presentation on field at our home game against the Vikings on December 30th.  As part of their recognition, the Broncos, in collaboration with NFL Charities, will award $1,000 to each of the aformentioned coach’s schools and then $2,000 to the school of the Coach of the Year winner.

It really is a privilege to be able to support high school football in this manner and to truly celebrate the fine leaders that are mentoring our children on high school fields all over the state.  We salute them.

Until next time, have a great week in Broncos Country. 

We are so happy to share with you that the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center is officially underway.  Work on prepping the interior of the building for the renovations began over the past week.  Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver has started searching for a Center director.  Ed Dwight, the world-renowned artist who is creating the life-size bronze of Darrent that will be in the courtyard of the Center, has also had his initial meeting with our Teen Center members who will be helping him with the sculpture. 

We are thrilled to be at this point and continue to raise the funds for completion. . . .if all goes according to planned, we should have the doors open in March of 2008.  It really does feel good to be able to give you this update.

As I have mentioned before, phase 2 of our dream to honor Darrent’s legacy is to build a gymnasium as part of the Teen Center.  NFL Charities has agreed to grant to this project under their new Fitness Zone campaign.  Last week, we received a start-up grant from them for $55,000 with the promise for the same in 2008.  We are definitely on our way with the gym as well.

On a different note, our department had a wonderful experience this year facilitating our annual Walter Payton Man of the Year selection process.  We had four great candidates from our team whom we put before a highly respected selection committee comprised of community and business leaders.  These guys were evaluated on their on- and off-field leadership and community involvement.  We will announce their nominations and the winner later this month.  I think we were all very proud of the community work these guys did and very honored to put them before the selection committee…stay tuned for the winner. 

Until next time, have a great week in Broncos Country!

Tuesday, Oct. 16 marked our annual NFL Hometown Huddle program in partnership with Mile High United Way.  This year’s joint service project focused on kids’ fitness as part of the NFL Play :60 campaign, encouraging children to get at least 60 minutes of exercise in per day.

Tuesday was a perfect day for this.  The skies were blue, the sun was shining and about 120 kids from Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver were raring to go as the Broncos and United Way introduced them to the fundamentals of football.

Players Brian Clark, Chris Myers, Domonique Foxworth and Brandon Marshall joined Ring of Fame Member Billy Thompson in hosting five different stations of the Gatorade Junior Training Camp, with each running a station that presented a different football skill for the kids to practice while getting exercise at the same time.

Brandon Marshall had his kids doing the infamous touchdown dance of their choosing after completing his drills.  Will we see any of these dance renditions from Brandon on Sunday?  He saw a lot of good material from which to choose.

The day was capped off by decadent ice cream treats from Cold Stone for all who participated.  That may not exactly support the primary health and fitness message for the day, but it sure brought smiles to the kids’ faces and supported the notion that life is all about balance.

Unbelievable to think that today is the 10th Annual Denver Broncos Community Blood Drive with Bonfils Center.  As of about 2:30, we have collected over 1,000 units of blood — each of them with the potential to save up to three lives in need.  What a great day!!!!

Our team once again has represented our organization with such class and professionalism — Louis Green, our resident early riser, was here at 7 a.m. welcoming the morning’s very first life-saving donors.  Shortly thereafter, donors saw the likes of Nick Ferguson, Brian Clark, Domenik Hixon, Nate Webster, Elvis Dumervil, Steve Cargile, Andre Hall, Antwon Burton, Mike Leach (who was pulling double duty today as he then went on to his monthly visit to the pediatric ward at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s . . .above and beyond) just to name a few.

Nate Jackson, Tony Scheffler, Chris Kuper and  Chris Meyers joined some of their teammates in the afternoon.  Nate, by the way, is going to help us with a special mural, the “All Ready” wall, at the new Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center by giving permission to have some of his wonderfully written tributes to Darrent scripted into the mural .  Thank you, Nate.