Paige: Pat Bowlen Is One of Colorado's Most Important Sports Figures
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Paige: Pat Bowlen is one of Colorado's most important sports figures By Woody Paige The Denver Post July 23, 2014 This one's for Pat. After his birth 70 years ago as the son of a Canadian wildcatter and a steadfast Wisconsinite, Patrick Dennis Bowlen never stopped skating, swimming, skiing, biking, hiking, competing and running. He ran as a youngster so he could play football and hockey. He ran the 440 in track in high school. He ran wind sprints and pass routes trying to make the University of Oklahoma football team. In his 20s, Pat ran his own law firm. He later would run several of his father's businesses, then run an independent oil and gas and natural resource company he started. He passionately ran hundreds of miles a week. He ran the New York City Marathon in 3 hours, 3 minutes. He ran, biked and swam in two Ironman events on the Big Island of Hawaii and finished 137th, then 135th out of a thousand entries, the majority half his age. Then before stepping down as owner Tuesday because of his battle with Alzheimer's disease, he ran the Denver Broncos for 30 years to six Super Bowls and 307 victories with only five losing seasons. He ran the franchise to two Super Bowl championships and the pinnacle of prestige, pride and power in the National Football League. He ran the campaign to get, and help fund, a new stadium for Denver. He ran first in the race to keep John Elway in Denver as a quarterback and make him the highest-paid player in the NFL, to bring Elway back to the organization as the chief of football operations and the effort to bring Peyton Manning to Denver. Bowlen admitted he committed errors in three decades, but it was not for the lack of committing his financial resources and football wherewithal to the Broncos. He has been the owner, and he has been the No. 1 fan. While he has been running the franchise, the Broncos have reached the postseason 16 times in 30 seasons. Compare that deed to other owners in every professional sport in every city. He was not ever standing Pat. The legacy and level of triumph for the longest-running owner, executive, coach and player in Colorado history have been established and probably never will be duplicated. Pat has proved himself. Mr. B must be included among the half dozen most iconic figures in the history of Colorado sports. Pat Bowlen the Denver sports megastar has earned the right to slow down and enjoy life. Of all his accomplishments and actions, this one for Pat is the most courageous and difficult, and could have the most impact and influence. More than 5 million people in this country, and approximately 30 million around the globe, suffer from Alzheimer's, and 50,000 annually die in North America from complications of the disease. Pat is acknowledging publicly that he has Alzheimer's, and he no longer will serve as the CEO of the Broncos. The Broncos' owner always said he wouldn't give up ownership of the team: "I will die with my boots on." Bowlen is not dying, but he still wears his cowboy boots, and he has much left to achieve. Pat and his wife, Annabel, have raised millions for charities and nonprofits, and he has been a creative force in the mushroomed development of the NFL. With his creativity and wealth of knowledge, Pat always will be of service to the Broncos, Denver and pro football. In May of 2009, during a lengthy state-of-the-Broncos interview with Pat when the team was in a bad state, I asked, "How is your health?" The candid Broncos owner blurted out (as he has been prone to do): "Physically, I'm great. But I have short- term memory loss." I'm two years younger than Bowlen. I said, "We all do, Pat." He hesitated, then added, "But I don't remember much about the (two) Super Bowl wins." I was shocked. So were most who read his comments. Bowlen was a fitness freak who ran laps while the Broncos practiced. He was sharp as a steak knife. He was feisty as a junkyard dog. When Elway returned, I asked Bowlen if he could envision a third Vince Lombardi Trophy in the team's headquarters. Bowlen used an expletive before declaring, "We're going back to the top." But our conversations the past three years after games on the road and during the offseason didn't have the same old Bowlen zing and zest. This was an owner who once wore a fur coat on the sideline at the end of a game and had no ctrl-alt-delete on his tongue. Truthfully, Bowlen was somewhat introverted when he arrived in Denver, uncertain how he would be accepted after he and his family (two brothers, a sister and his mother) purchased the majority of the team's ownership from fellow Canadian Edgar Kaiser Jr., not a popular person in Colorado. But Bowlen got comfortable in his western boots and his skin. And Pat brought his mother, Arvella, to Denver. She lived across Cheesman Park from me and was a hoot. And, unknown to most, it was the Arvella Bowlen Trust that really owned the Broncos. She lived to 90 but had some memory problems, and Pat always was fearful that he eventually might have similar issues. He did. In 2011, Bowlen turned most of the day-to-day business leadership to trusted longtime lieutenant Joe Ellis and the football operation to Elway. But Bowlen always has reported first thing each morning to Dove Valley and met with both Ellis and Elway. And no decisions, from the Manning signing, to the Tim Tebow trade, to the $100 million spending sprees for free agents, were made without Bowlen's approval. When Jim Saccomano, the Broncos' venerable media relations guru, asked Bowlen what he wanted to add to his biography in the annual guide, Bowlen said, "I want to be No. 1 in everything." He was, at last, at Super Bowl XXXII. When Bowlen was handed the trophy, he could have pontificated, and mentioned that the victory over the Green Bay Packers was particularly meaningful to him. In 1944, Paul and Arvella Bowlen, who were living in Alberta, while Paul attempted to find wet, not dry, wells. Arvella learned she was pregnant and told Paul she was going home to Prairie du Chien, Wis. (population 6,000), to have the baby. Later, young Pat would return from Canada to school in Wisconsin and grew up as a Packers fan. Instead, after the Super Bowl, Pat said simply, "This one's for John." Pat Bowlen also has failed to tell people that he once loaned the owner of the Montreal Alouettes' Canadian Football League team $1.5 million to finish the season. And he turned down offers to own teams in the CFL and the defunct United States Football League because he wanted to own an NFL team. Kaiser and Bowlen were members of the same Catholic church, and Bowlen said one Sunday, "Edgar, if you ever decide to sell the Broncos, I hope you'll give me a call." Bowlen owning the Broncos is the best thing that ever happened to Denver professional sports. How many contractual problems have the Broncos had? None, really. Cheap? No. Losers? Rarely. Sure, they've lost Super Bowls, but they certainly have been to a lot of them. There have been some who didn't like Bowlen the owner or Bowlen the man, but there is no one who can deny that while the Broncos are the soul of the city, Bowlen has been in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s the real beating heart of the Broncos. A wide receiver in high school, Pat went off to Oklahoma (his dad's school) and was a walk-on for the football team. "I found out right away I wasn't good enough," he told me. He didn't play in a college or a professional game, but Bowlen belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame because of what his team has done and what he did as the head of the league's television committee that secured billion-dollar contracts from the network. And Pat belongs in our hearts today. There have been rumors and speculation the past few years. But there are reasons and rationales for privacy that anyone who has been touched by Alzheimer's should understand. Last year an audience of 2,200 showed up for the Mizel Institute award for community enrichment given to Pat Bowlen. At the end, he stood on the stage in the middle of Broncos Hall of Famers Elway, Shannon Sharpe, Floyd Little and Gary Zimmerman. Even though he didn't speak, there were tears in Pat's eyes that said everything. He got the award, and he got it. The Broncos should win one for Pat this season. He is No. 1. Kiszla: Broncos owner Pat Bowlen always "got it” By Mark Kiszla The Denver Post July 23, 2014 In a city whose heart bleeds orange, you can't spell Broncos without Mr. B. So pardon us for feeling a melancholy shade of blue as Alzheimer's disease forces Pat Bowlen to relinquish power in day-to-day operations of the NFL team that has done Denver proud during three decades of his ownership. For the past 30 years, Bowlen expected the Broncos to win the Super Bowl every season.