Super Bowl offers a lesson in loyalty

There is still plenty of time and space if you would like to join me on the Denver Broncos bandwagon for the Super Bowl.

The Orange and Blue Crew welcomes you. We’re United in Orange and Ready to Ride.

Omaha!

Unless you’re already a Broncos fan, you might not get some of the above-mentioned references. A native of Colorado, I’ve been a Bronco fan since the days when Old No. 7 led the Orange Crush to the Super Bowl. Not that No. 7, the first one – Craig Morton. The first football game I ever watched was Super Bowl XII on Jan. 15, 1978.

The hype leading up to and through that game helped mold the loyalty trait in me that would so vitally shape the rest of my life. That day I learned to love the sport of football and the Denver Broncos above all other sports teams. I also learned to “hate” the Oakland Raiders and the Dallas Cowboys.

I use the word hate lightly here. I don’t hate anyone. I hate these teams in a friendly rivalry sort of way. I will almost always root for their opponents unless doing so is detrimental to advancing the Broncos to the playoffs.  

Loyalty to my second, third, and fourth favorite teams has been far less consistent. At times I have been a fan of the Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers, Minnesota Vikings, Miami Dolphins, and Carolina Panthers. For the past 12 years my No. 2 team has been the Houston Texans. They’re a closer No. 2 than any other team has been, but still a distant second to the Broncos.

Over the years I have come to “hate” each team that beat Denver in the Super Bowl. My respect for Joe Montana and his 49ers suffered greatly when his team trounced Denver 55-10 in Super Bowl XXIV. That loss put me in a funk that took months to pull out of.

My ex-wife – a huge Dolphins fan – killed any passion I had for that team when she divorced me. I learned to like the Vikings when I lived there in 1987-89. I lived in North Carolina when the Panthers came into the league and I closely followed their development and early years. Time and distance from those two teams have weakened my passion for them, but not my fandom.

I was instantly a fan of the Texans when Houston came out of nowhere with a franchise bid that upset Los Angeles – the presumed winner of the bid for a new NFL team.

When former Broncos players, coaches and front office staff made the move to Houston, it made it that much easier to follow the team. Now that I’ve lived in Texas for eight years and five of these in the Houston metro area, it has been easy to support the team.

That brings me to the Seahawks. They were always the loveable losers, especially in the Jim Zorn years. With my father and former father-in-law before him having season tickets to the Broncos, I could usually count on getting tickets to one of the division rival games. It was most often Seattle because it was a throwaway game. They were pitiful and had few big name stars to watch.

When the Texans entered the league, Seattle switched conferences and is now Denver’s opponent in Super Bowl XLVIII. Unless the unexpected happens and the Seahawks just skunk the Broncos I will continue to have a fondness for them as a third or fourth favorite team.

In the meantime, the Orange and Blue bandwagon is rolling into its seventh Super Bowl (and hopefully third victory). Y’all are welcome aboard, even for a couple of weeks. You can still root for the Texans when next season comes around. It’s allowed. I will, but it will be under the glow of the bright orange aura called Broncomania.