One man`s savage attempt to follow his beloved Denver Broncos

09 / 2011
$3.99 US
page seventy three
MAssivE ProjEct The Broncos are rebuilding from top to bottom and on both sides of the ball
page eighty eight
2
page one hundred and four
liFE And FootbAll
A FAn in ExilE
Matt McChesney’s journey of triumph, tragedy and education
One man’s savage attempt to follow his beloved Denver Broncos
September 2011 m i l e h i g h s p o r t s . c o m
contributors
J. GRIGSBy CRAwfORd
contributors
Typically, freelance submissions for Mile High Sports
Magazine come from local writers and fans. It’s a
rare occasion, however, when such stories come
from other countries or continents. In the case of
J. Grigsby Crawford, his story idea was somewhere
in-between. Crawford, a lifelong Broncos fan and a
member of the Peace Corps, was forced to “follow”
his beloved Broncos from a tiny town in Ecuador,
South America. His trying and turbulent experience
is chronicled in this month’s issue, marking
Crawford’s inaugural appearance in MHSM.
tHis MontH’s toPic: TEBOW OR ORTON?
Editorial
editor-in-cHief - Doug Ottewill Tebow. If the mantra is still Super Bowl or
bust, then Orton’s the wrong choice. [email protected]
senior editors - Brian Dvorak I’ll take John 3:16. Michael Stock To watch
my wallet, babysit my kids or escort my wife? Tebow. Ted Yhedri Timmy T.
contriButing editors - Clinton Doaks Orton. I’ve never been a fan
of lefties. Norm LaChatlier Orton. I feel worse about myself watching 15 on
Sundays. Drew Litton Elway. Red Schaefley Tebow.
contriButing Writers - Julie Browman Orton. Robin Carlin I’m going
with Orton Hears A Who! Jimmy Cautosin Orton. Just going with what I see.
Vanessa Hughes Kyle Raymond Orton. Daniel Mohrmann Quinn. Ken Reed
Andrew Luck. Pencils Robinson Tebow. Pat Rooney Orton.
ProofreAder - Laura Rothenfeld Orton. Or I’d be willing to step in as QB
wARReN McCARTy
Making his Mile High Sports Magazine debut is
Warren McCarty. Hailing from the great state of
Texas, McCarty has made his way north, finding a
home on Mile High Sports Radio. Each weekend,
McCarty’s takes on football and fighting can be
heard on AM 1510 or FM 93.7 from 2p-4p. But
this month, the editors of the magazine called
upon McCarty to interview “Rampage” Jackson,
who will be fighting in Denver as part of UFC 135.
McCarty’s interview can be found in this month’s
installment of the Mile High Interview.
if necessary.
contriButions - MHSM will consider, but assumes no responsibility for,
unsolicited proposals, manuscripts, photographs and illustrations. All such
materials not accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope will
not be returned. Haas Rock Publications, LLC retains all reprint rights for
submitted materials.
CrEatiVE
Art director - Nick Heckman Tebow. [email protected]
Advertising coordinAtor / WeB MAster - Josh Pennock Tebow, but
right handed. [email protected]
contriButing PHotogrAPHers - Jathan Campbell Orton for President!
Don Cudney Orton. I don’t know squat about football, but I know experience and
talent is worth a lot more than looks and charisma. Getty Images Tebow is more
photogenic. Randy Parietti Models in bikinis. Wait, are we talking football?
Bill Swartz Line up both QBs in shotgun formation three yards apart and make
‘em guess. Have two plays called, and let the center decide, based on the defensive
setup. If Fox needs some X’s and O’s, I am available.
NICK SCLAfANI
Another Mile High Sports Radio host showcasing
his skills as a writer this month is co-host of the Pro
and the Pundit, Nick Sclafani. Along with his on-air
partner, former Buff and Bronco Matt McChesney,
Sclafani delves into the serious side of sports, and
can be heard on air each Saturday and Sunday from
10a-12p. Through his work and his relationship with
McChesney, a story was born. In fact, it’s the story
of McChesney’s wild ride to professional football.
In his first efforts as an MHSM contributor, Sclafani
pens a story that’s both intimate and revealing.
JAMeS MeRILATT, dOUG OTTewILL ANd dAN MOHRMANN
Football season at Mile High Sports Magazine
just wouldn’t be complete without an extensive
breakdown of the Denver Broncos. Along with
some help from the talent at Mile High Sports
Radio, James Merilatt, Doug Ottewill and Dan
Mohrmann tackle the dog days of camp in
search of some answers. After weeks of research,
observation and interviews, the MHSM trio
assesses the 2011 Denver Broncos.
COMING up IN
OCTOBeR...
drop the gloves and get ready for hockey. Per the norm,
MHSM previews the upcoming season on ice at every
level. specifically, the staff’s hockey experts – Julie
Browman, vanessa Hughes, robin carlin and Pat rooney
– delve into the stories and personalities that are sure
to make this year an exciting season inside the rink.
cover PHoto: Bill Swartz and Randy Parietti • Swartz Photography • www.swartzphoto.com
8
September 2011 m i l e h i g h s p o r t s . c o m
adVErtiSiNG SalES
Account executives - Chris Dolge Read “The Outsider” (Tuesdays on
milehighsports.com) [email protected] Will McKinlay Tebow, and
please take me off your “cc all” list. [email protected]
diStriBUtioN
distriBution coordinAtor - Amber Merilatt T-E-B-0-W!
[email protected]
radio AM1510 | FM93.7
stAtion MAnAger - Casey Light Orton, in deference to Steve DeBerg. casey@
milehighsports.com
executive Producer - Dan Bettlach A bearded Jake Plummer. dan@
milehighsports.com
on-Air Hosts
Marcelo Balboa
Chris Bianchi
Irv Brown
T.C. Clark
Chris Cruz
Josh Davis
Jimmy Doogan
Gary “Coach”
Eklund
Eric Goodman
Kurt Hansen
Karl Hungus
Meegan Keifel
Mark Kiszla
Warren McCarty
Matt McChesney
Mark McIntosh
Renaud Notaro
Josh Pennock
Tad Powers
Marcello Romano
Jenny Dean Schmidt
Nick Sclafani
Matt Sierra
Lisa Snyder
Luke Sobieck
Brandon Spano
Gil Whiteley
Dan Williams
Joe Williams
Andy Zodin
HAAS ROCK PUBLICATIONS
President - James Merilatt Tebow. Without a doubt. jmerilatt@
milehighsports.com
Accounting - Kathy Merilatt Tebow. A losing season with Tebow is better
than a season of mediocrity with Orton.
in-House LegAL counseL - William T. Sawyer, Esq. Orton. legal@
milehighsports.com
***
MiLe HigH sPorts
11203 East Peakview Avenue
Centennial, CO 80111
p. 303.650.1795
f. 303.524.3410
www.milehighsports.com
Copyright 2011
Haas Rock Publications, LLC
All rights reserved
BY J. GRIGSBY CRAWFORD
T
here is only one
point during the last two
NFL seasons when it is
good to be a Broncos fan –
early fall 2009.
We’re winning. We’re hot. We are
rocking. We are rolling. Our star players
are healthy. Josh McDaniels isn’t
cheating yet. We’re doing so well that
people are beginning to get over the Jay
Cutler trade. We’re good enough that
people are almost forgetting about Mike
Shanahan. We are… undefeated.
Broncos fans are on top of the world –
and I am in the middle of nowhere.
I
n early 2009, after graduating
college, I left Colorado and began
service as a Peace Corps volunteer in
South America. Ecuador is a country
nearly the same size as Colorado,
squished in between Colombia and Peru.
Its capital, Quito, lies almost exactly on
the equator.
If you leave Quito and head south for
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September 2011 m i l e h i g h s p o r t s . c o m
about 16 hours, you arrive in Zumbi, the
tiny town that I would live in for the next
two years. Nestled in the Amazonian
foothills in the southeastern corner of
the country, it is about as far as you
could get from Peace Corps headquarters
in Quito and still be in Ecuador. It is also
20 miles from the Peruvian border – a
line that is still somewhat ill defined,
given the jungle’s thickness and a
border dispute that’s left some areas
scattered with landmines to this day. As
a Peace Corps volunteer, it’s a perfect
place to teach rural communities about
improving their environment; as an NFL
fan, it’s like being sent off into exile as
part of some cruel joke.
I was far from lots of things, but most
of all, I was far from football – fútbol
americano, that is. On the first Monday
night of the season in 2008, I watched
us (Note: It’s us. I’m a fan, so I don’t need
to be proper or say “the Denver Broncos”
like I’m some neutral reporter. I’m not.
And my Broncos aren’t they or them. To
me, the Broncos are we and us. Just
so we’re clear.) dismantle the Raiders
from the comfort of my own couch. On
this first Monday night of the following
season, I decapitated a chicken with
a machete, held it up while the blood
drained out and ate it for dinner an hour
later. Neither my couch nor my team was
anywhere to be found.
I
t’s week six of the 2009 season
and we’re 5-0. To get here, we needed a
miracle pass deflection in Cincinnati, a
last-second goal line stand against Dallas
and an overtime against New England in
week five. But still, we’re 5-0 and feeling
like rock stars. And tonight we play the
division rival San Diego Chargers – on
Monday Night Football.
I have traveled over three hours
ascending out of the jungle and into Loja,
a city in Ecuador’s southern sierra. As a
large provincial capital not too far away,
Loja has been a comfort zone during my
service. I can come here every month or
so and experience faster Internet, some
restaurant options beyond the roadside
cantinas serving only chicken and rice,
an actual grocery store, and – wait for it –
cable television.
Just recently, I’ve found out that the
Latin American ESPN – a channel that
normally devotes approximately 23 hours
and 59 minutes of every day to soccer
coverage – actually airs the Monday
Night Football broadcast. Since then, I’ve
had this date circled, underlined and
highlighted on my calendar. I should point
out that before it was football season, I
had gone through such boredom and long
periods of intense isolation down here that
on more than one occasion I’ve forgotten
what day it is – and I’m not talking about
“Oops, I totally just wrote down the wrong
day in my planner.” I’m talking about going
about my business for two full days before
realizing it was Friday, not Wednesday.
But not now – not in the middle of football
season with my team doing well and the
chance to actually watch them play. I
would’ve endured a 10-hour bus ride to see
this if I had to.
Why the excitement? First, I clearly
haven’t been getting the Denver CBS
affiliate beamed down into my jungle hut
on Sundays. Also, there probably isn’t a
satellite in the world big enough to pick
up 850 KOA’s radio signal and allow me
to hear Dave Logan call the game from a
hemisphere away.
Then, there’s the issue of the worldwide
web. I spent the previous six months
ducking into obscure Internet cafés across
I have spent four
hours straight
in sweaty jungle
Internet cafés
– which, at $1
an hour, means I
paid nearly half
of my daily wage.
the countryside, pulling up
the Denver Post’s web site on
dial-up connections to read
about the Cutler trade and
McDaniels’ other sketchy
offseason moves. Needless
to say, the jungle Internet
doesn’t allow me to stream
any video or online radio; it
barely allows me to open up
an email with an attachment.
So once the regular season
rolled around, what depths
would I stoop to in order
follow the games?
I present to you ESPN.com’s
GameTracker, a web page that allows you
to follow games live online (of course, just
how “live” the game appears to be unfolding
depends on your connection speed.) And
I use the term following the game loosely,
since GameTracker is really just a web page
that refreshes every minute with lines, dots,
and letters showing stats, a description
of the previous play and a diagram of a
football field to mark where the ball is at
that moment.
GameTracker is a nifty little device for
people who have no other way to follow the
action; it also happens to be a giant leap
backwards for anyone who
grew up following games on
TV – or even radio. A halfcentury ago, you could press
your ear up to the transistor
radio and get a fluid analysis
of events happening on the
field. When the ball wasn’t
in play, you at least had two
people offering commentary
on the game. Now, despite
GameTracker’s streaming
stats and score pop-ups from
across the league, I’m much
less connected to what’s actually happening
in the game. There is no picture or sound.
But what’s really eerie about it is that
I’m emotionally tied to lines and dots on
a screen – a collection of random pixels
are making me crack my knuckles with
nervousness, lurch with excitement and
writhe in anger. And this is over events
that probably took place several minutes
before. Sometimes, I don’t know whom I
feel more sorry for – myself or the ESPN
employee who’s actually entering this
information into the system all afternoon.
This is how I’ve followed every game
so far this year. I have spent four hours
straight in sweaty jungle Internet cafes –
September 2011 m i l e h i g h s p o r t s . c o m
105
which, at $1 an hour, means I paid nearly
half of my daily wage as a volunteer. Then,
I realized that four hours in those places
is no place to be on an empty stomach;
so for the following weeks, I ate pasta
beforehand and brought a Gatorade with
me, probably marking the first time in
history anyone has ever “carbed up” and
intentionally hydrated before using the
worldwide web. I have also had my own
“away games,” where I was traveling to
a Peace Corps meeting on the other side
of the country and had to wait to receive
text message updates from my brother
back home as my bus swerved through
the Andes, in and out of cell reception, at
uncomfortable speeds.
So tonight is big. I’ve ridden the bus into
the big city. I’ve gotten a room at a local
hostel ($5 for the night). I’ve even scoped
out a place to watch the game. Tonight at
7:00 p.m., I’ll walk in, ask them to change
the channel to ESPN (pronounced “ehspeeeeeen”), sit back and relax as I watch
the game. It’s so simple.
Except that nothing here is simple.
Later in the evening, I hear from
another volunteer who lives 14 hours
north of me. Despite the fact that he is
a Chargers fan from San Diego, he’s a
good friend (long story). And he is bearing
bad news: It seems that in place of MNF,
the Latin American ESPN has chosen
to carry the TBS broadcast of Major
League Baseball’s playoffs, which overlaps
precisely with the football game.
Since he’s a Chargers fan, I do some fact
checking. This leads me on a wild goose
chase of an Internet search that begins
with ESPN’s en español web page and
ends up at some other Spanish-language
chatrooms about fútbol americano, where I
confirm the bad news and see that dudes
from Tijuana to Lima are also distraught
by the fact that ESPN will be showing the
Dodgers-Phillies match-up instead of MNF.
(I’m not sure which surprises me more:
That theses sites exist or that I was mad
enough to be navigating them.)
Now, I’m scouring the entire city. I’m
on a mission and I’m a little revved up.
It feels like blood is being pumped into
my cranium at a faster-than-normal rate
and my fingers
are twitching a
bit. I need to find
some Monday
Night Football. I’ve
reasoned that one
of the nicer hotels
or restaurants in
town might have
In 2010, Matt Prater led the
satellite TV, and
Broncos in scoring with 76
that they might
total points, the fewest by
have access to
a team leader in a 16-game
one of ESPN’s
season since 1979.
other channels,
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September 2011 m i l e h i g h s p o r t s . c o m
Until now,
I’ve never had
anything try to
get in between
me and my
Broncos on
Monday Night
Football.
which might
be showing the
football game.
(Note: If it’s
strange that I’m
a Peace Corps
volunteer in
a developing
country and I’m
referring to not
only Internet but
text messaging
and satellite
TV, I should
point out that Ecuador – like many other
under-developed countries – is a country
of contradictions. The same way Ecuador
straddles the Andes Mountains from
north to south, it also straddles two eras:
An ancient, underdeveloped one, and a
new, globalized one. This means that tiny
villages like the ones where many Peace
Corps volunteers live, have Internet or
cable connections or hardware stores,
but still dump their latrines directly
into their main watershed or grossly
malnourish their children. There are
also absurd jumps in technology: For
instance, there are no landlines, but
everyone has a cell phone. Therefore,
it’s the type of country where I can live
under somewhat “rugged” circumstances,
but still be less than four hours from
a city with a few nice hotels, banks, a
small tourism industry, and – if God has
any mercy – some satellite television.)
Now, I’m poking my head in every bar
and restaurant I can find and asking – to
no avail – if they have any type of DIRECTV
or multiple ESPN channels. Some look at
me like they have no idea what I’m talking
about. Some say, “Sí señor” only to turn on
the remote and spin through a grand total
of six fuzzy Ecuadorian stations. Some tell
me to check out the place that’s just around
the corner. So, I go to that place and they
tell me they can’t help me, but that I should
really go back to the place where I just
came from – because they’re 100 percent
sure that place does get the channel.
As volunteers, we’ve been coached
numerous times on the various ways that
stress and anxiety manifest in the body
and mind of the sojourner (that’s me). Over
the years, studies have shown that simply
being in an environment different from what
you’re used to – whether it be dissimilar in
language, customs, climate, etc. – can cause
an array of perilous reactions from jaw
clenching to severe depression to volatile
mood swings that include bursts of anger
and so on. Every person experiences some
form of this “culture shock” – some milder
than others – at some point during his or
her stay. I’ve had my moments, but for the
most part over the last eight months, I’ve
kept the more extreme reactions to the onset
of culture shock at bay. And of course, until
now, I’ve never had anything try to get in
between me and my Broncos on Monday
Night Football.
I spend another hour running around
the city, working up a sweat and becoming
increasingly upset by the non-answers
I’m getting. I haven’t had any luck at any
of the hotels or even a nearby place that
advertises itself as a sports bar (!). But just
before game time, I discover an upscale
restaurant on the far end of town that not
only claims to have DIRECTV, but also
has a giant pull-down projection screen
normally used for karaoke night. The
manager assures me they have access to
the ESPN channel I’m referring to.
I sit and he asks if I’d like a drink. I tell
him I’ll wait to make sure that the game is
actually coming on. He smiles and says no
problem, then turns the channel to ESPN.
While I wait, I’m thinking about how
it’s been over nine months since I’ve seen
Champ Bailey and the boys running
around… live… in uniform. Now, here I am
with the chance to see us at last – in all our
undefeated glory.
At 7:00 p.m., ESPN comes out of
a commercial break and my palms
are sweating and I’m tapping my foot
anxiously. Since I’m the only person in the
restaurant, all the waiters are standing
around and staring at me, wondering why
I’m so worked up. I smile uncomfortably.
Then, the TV fades in to an overhead shot
of… Dodger Stadium.
I lurch out of my seat and run to the
manager. We have a brief and useless
conversation in which he finally admits
that, “Well, eh, um, ha! I must have
forgot to mention, señor, that all we have
is just regular cable.” And I barely hear
him because I’m already out the door,
marching down the street – getting up to a
jog now – and working up my second full
sweat in less than an hour. My face is red,
I’m a little dizzy and I’m breathing heavily.
Just like that, with about 10 minutes
until kickoff, a scheduling conflict
at hand, and confusion over South
American TV reception, nearly a year’s
worth of culture shock, frustration and
unchecked aggression come raining
down on me. Much to the shock and
disgust of onlookers and passers-by, I’m
ranting and swearing – and they don’t
need to speak English to know it isn’t
pretty. Now, the salty sweat is dripping
down my face and stinging my eyes, my
teeth are clenched, and I’m snarling and
slurring that all I want is some goddamn
football like I was promised.
And somewhere on a quiet, poorly lit
street in this quaint city in the southern
sierra of Ecuador, I hear it come out of my
mouth as though it’s not even coming from
me so much as it’s coming from the bowels
of a feral beast. It sounds something like:
“I WILL BURN THIS PLACE DOWN!”
By the time I walk back to the center
of town, I’m relatively calm. I’ve had a few
blocks to blow off some steam. I’ve also
all but given up on seeing any football
tonight. I cross the central plaza and
decide to find a place to eat, while halfheartedly keeping my eyes peeled for any
hole in the wall that by some miracle will
have satellite television. At first, the search
is again fruitless, but just as I’m thinking
to myself, “Well, at least baseball season
ends in a week,” I duck my head into a
small diner near one of the hotels I’d been
by earlier in the day. What I see is too good
to be true: At the back of the empty dining
room is a tiny TV screen, and right below
that, glistening under the fluorescent
lights, is a DIRECTV box.
“I don’t believe it!” I yell loud enough for
the cooks to hear. “You have DIRECTV?” I
yelp to the man at
the cash register.
“Of course, it’s
right there,” he
says.
“This is
incredible, this
is…” I stutter
and pause and
Kyle Orton has thrown for
remember that
the sixth and seventh most
it was just a
yards in a season (3,802
hypothesis
in 2009; 3,653 in 2010) in
of mine that
Broncos history.
DIRECTV would
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September 2011 m i l e h i g h s p o r t s . c o m
I’m snarling
and slurring
that all I
want is some
football like I
was promised.
have a second ESPN channel
and that that station would
be showing the game.
“Please… um… could I please
use the remote?” The man
smiles and hands it to me.
I find the channel, turn to
it and… Kyle Orton completes
a third-down pass to Brandon
Marshall. It’s early in the
first quarter, game tied. I’m
in disbelief. I’m in heaven. I call my friend
to say that I found a place showing the
game. I find out that in his town they’ve
had no such luck. I describe my night and
how I could have given up, sulked around
some more, gotten dinner and gone to bed
thinking how great it could have been to
see this game live on TV, but how instead
I kept the dream alive and here I am
enjoying the fruits of my labor, and oh how
magical it is!
His response: “Whatever, man.”
The rest is not really important,
because after what I’ve gone through just
to see this game, I don’t think there’s any
way we could lose. Over the next three
quarters, Eddie Royal returns two kicks
for touchdowns, leading us to a 34-23 win.
We’re still undefeated. We’re 6-0.
I walk back to my hostel in the dark
feeling glorious.
O
ver the next 10 weeks, though,
we will win only two more games; and
over the next 16 months, we will win a
grand total of six.
But here I am, once again on the road,
following the game via text messages and
finding out that, for the 50th season in a
row, we won’t finish undefeated.
Here I am back in the Internet cafes –
my eyes burning, my butt numb – staring
at our pitiful defense and an offense that
can’t convert on third downs. (When I
say Internet café, it probably brings to
mind high-tech images of nice computers,
sleek desks, carefully-placed wires and
adjustable office chairs; however, in my
case it’s better to visualize a place with
plastic lawn furniture where I compete
with flies for fresh oxygen while wondering
if the loud humming noises coming from
the sockets will lead to my first experience
with a fire extinguisher.)
Here I am with friends celebrating
Thanksgiving at a Shuar indigenous
community (I joke to the other volunteers
that it’s our first Thanksgiving with Native
Americans; they don’t laugh) and silently
fist pumping by the campfire when I get
the text message saying we’ve finally won
another game.
Here I am once again following a game
via GameTracker at an Internet café. Chris
Simms can’t complete a pass.
I have an idea where this
dismal game is headed and
just then the power goes out,
forcing me to walk across
town in the pouring rain
and get on a lonely bus ride
back to my community. I’m
seeing the losses add up and
wondering what’s the point,
but then remembering that I
sure as hell don’t have anything better to
do on a Sunday afternoon.
Here I am traveling into Loja for
another Monday Night Football game
and this time there are no scheduling
conflicts. There are, however, rolling
blackouts throughout the country that
– surprise! – coincide exactly with the
game, forcing me on another edgy chase
around town to find the one place that
has a backup generator and then still
having to stretch an extension cord across
the lobby of the nicest hotel in town before
I can finally sit back, relax, and watch
us… get our asses kicked.
Here I am, by chance, discovering that,
at the Internet café in Loja with the “fast”
connection, I can stream 850 KOA’s web
site and listen “live” to a game that we
actually win against Kansas City.
And here I am taking the bus back into
Loja for the following weekend’s game, only
to discover that last week was just a fluke:
Streaming off the radio station’s web site
from outside the U.S. is prohibited, so I’ve
bussed all the way into the big city just to
use GameTracker like I normally do out
in the jungle. I’m beginning to feel like I
have some sort of personal relationship
with GameTracker; now I even have
conversations with myself under my breath
giving analysis of the games.
Here I am in the Internet café once
again, becoming nauseous in the heat, as I
observe freaking JaMarcus Russell lead the
Raiders to a last-minute victory over us at
home and swearing that it’s the last time I
follow a game like this online.
And here I am just a week later
following the game online – this time in
the Guayaquil airport paying the ungodly
sum of $1.75 an hour for the Internet while
I wait for my brother to arrive in Ecuador
for a visit.
And, finally, here we are in the final
week of the season, incredibly still with
a chance to make the playoffs with a win
and my brother and I are on vacation in
Cartagena, Colombia. We’re hopping in
and out of taxis like madmen, going to
every fancy hotel in the city to see if they
have any football, only to get back to our
apartment as the game is winding down
and finding out that we received a royal
shellacking that makes us glad we never
saw it anyway.
A
nd then I’m feeling emptier than
I’ve ever felt in an offseason. Despite
the losing and the frustration, the weekly
games helped pass the time slightly
quicker during the loneliest and most
isolated months of my life. Throughout
the season, I kept the Broncos’ schedule
taped to the wall above my desk. On it, I’d
marked our wins and losses after every
game. Most people would be eager to tear
down such an eerie reminder of failure –
even looking at the column of outcomes
that reads WWWWWWLLLLWWLLLL is
somewhat grotesque – but for me, taking it
down is a sad reminder that I have to wait
another eight months to have something to
look forward to again.
I have a whole offseason to think
about the facts. Never in my lifetime have
the Broncos had a 2-8 stretch. We’re
just the third team in history to miss
the playoffs after a 6-0 start. This is the
first time in 32 years that we’ve gone
four seasons in a row without making
the playoffs. This is the first decade since
the ‘60s that we’ve gone without a Super
Bowl appearance (after averaging two
per decade in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s).
Somewhere in the dust left behind by
two separate four-game losing streaks,
the notion that we actually won more
games than most people predicted we
would was no longer a consolation.
After an offseason of previous changes
in personnel we found ourselves with a
better defense and a worse offense – all
culminating in the exact same crappy
win-loss record as the year before.
How could things possibly get any worse?
W
elcome to the 2010 season.
Things actually start off well – so well,
in fact, that I’m watching us win a game
in person. In mid-September, I come
back to the U.S. for a sibling’s wedding
and I have a few days in Colorado, which
overlap with our home game against the
Seahawks. My dad has season tickets with
some friends and we drive down to Denver
and tailgate
beforehand. Then,
we’re in Invesco
Field.
The last
time I saw this
place was on a
grainy TV in a
South American
Last season against the Colts,
restaurant with
Kyle Orton had the secondthe waiter looking
most yards (476), third most
attempts (57) and most
on with profound
completions (37) in a single
confusion. But
game in Broncos history.
now I’m here and
110
September 2011 m i l e h i g h s p o r t s . c o m
it’s all a bit overwhelming:
There’s the smoke-filled
tunnel that leads the players
onto the field. There are Tim
Tebow jerseys everywhere
I look. I’m surrounded by
people speaking… English!
I’m not even thinking about
GameTracker.
I’m holding a beer that
costs $7, an amount of money
that, in Ecuador, could buy
me a beer and I’d still have
enough left over for breakfast,
lunch and dinner. The ticket
in my pocket costs $77, or
26 percent of my monthly
volunteer living allowance.
The Broncos beat the
Seahawks 31-14 to move to a
1-1 record on the season.
Unfortunately, after this, I
have to head back to the jungle.
And even more unfortunately,
I’ve just witnessed one-quarter
of all the games we would win
this season.
Here I am in the
Internet café once
again, becoming
nauseous in the
heat, as I observe
freaking JaMarcus
Russell lead the
Raiders to a lastminute victory
over us at home
and swearing that
it’s the last time I
follow a game like
this online.
my own community, thanks
to a friend’s intricate
channel-pirating scheme
involving a satellite dish
that looks like it could
receive channels from the
moon. I sit down alone in a
poorly lit room while outside
there’s a hard rain causing
f lashf loods and such loud
noise on the tin roof that I
can barely hear the game. I
do, however, get to see the
game and it’s not pretty: a
35-14 loss to the Chargers
that, remarkably, isn’t as
close as the score makes it
sound. Just sitting there
through the whole thing is a
soul-crushing endeavor, but
O
ut of the 14
remaining games this
season, we lose 11.
We lose big; we lose small;
we lose to good teams; we
lose to bad teams; we lose
at home; we lose away; we lose just about
every way you can lose – we even fly to
London for a game and lose in a foreign
country.
And here I am in more scary Internet
cafés following the carnage one pixel at
a time.
And here I am visiting friends at their
remote villages and receiving increasingly
depressing messages that describe the
pain via text; and here I am vacationing at
the beach searching for reception so I can
receive the bad news in real-time: I get to
follow us lose from some of the most exotic
locations on earth.
And here are more power outages in
the region, leaving me to sit and wait for
messages on my phone, except it runs
out of batteries and there’s nowhere to
charge it.
And here are giant landslides, meaning
I couldn’t take the bus into Loja to watch a
game even if I wanted to.
And here’s the time that the power
actually is up and running in the province,
except that a worker on my building
electrocutes himself to death, causing…
um, complications with the electricity in
the neighborhood on game day.
And here I am, for once, watching
Monday Night Football in the comfort of
it’s better than another night of reading
in my room alone for five hours.
And here I am once more with the
Internet functioning and the power up
and running, except that it’s national
census day in Ecuador, meaning that
everyone has to stay in their homes to be
interviewed by the high school students
who are charged with scouring the country
to interview every household, including
foreigners. Anyone caught out in public on
this day will be arrested. A 13-year-old girl
asks me census questions while it rains
outside. We lose 36-33 to the Rams.
T
hen, the jungle fog clears.
The Broncos limp to the end of the 2010
season and I complete my Peace Corps
service. I wrap up my time of going to such
lengths to see – or not see – a game. I revel
in the fact that I no longer have to travel
over mountains to almost feel connected
to my team. I’m euphoric to move on after
two forgettable seasons (and a forgettable
coach). I’m ecstatic to put an end to two
years away from friends, family and
football. I’m overjoyed to be back in the
heart of Broncos Country. It’s fantastic.
I, for one, am ready for some football!