Community
Development

On Tuesday, Nov. 20th, Dre’ Bly joined by teammates Rod Smith and Ian Gold wanted to ensure that the families of Place Middle School (The Dre’ Bly Foundation has adopted Place for the year) had plenty to be thankful for.  Keeping up with a tradition he began in Detroit, Dre’ worked with King Soopers to provide a turkey and holiday meal items for 165 families.  Students and their families arrived at the school Tuesday evening and were thrilled to be greeted by Bly, Smith and Gold who signed autographs as they helped hand out goodies.

The neat thing about this program and Dre’ is that he started working on in back in August.  Dre’ contacted our community development department during the summer and begand figuring out how he could continue his community work here in Denver.  He hired a director for his foundation and got right to work selecting a middle school (because as he said they are often overlooked becuase they are at an in-between age) that served students that may need a little extra help from time to time.  Dre’s Foundation set up a metoring/tutoring program and he visists regularly.  He bought 25 game tickets for each Broncos home game to reward kids doing well in their mentoring/tutoring programs.  When you consider how busy these guys are (Dre’ has four children of his own!) and the weekly demands put upon them with a big game looming each Sunday…it is special to see a guy but a lot of heart, thought and planning into a great event that helped an entire community.

 The event on Tuesday was definitely a success but the bigger impact Dre’ has made on these kids–letting them know that he is there to support and encourage them–that is something the students and their families will remember and benefit from long after Tuesday.  Isn’t that what the holiday season is there to remind us of each and every year?  Lending a hand to help one another can continue beyond November and December..thanks for being such a wonderful example of that Dre’!

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!