Broncos football game

The menfolk's Bronco weekend in Denver was last weekend. They had a grand time as usual. They have been going to one of the Bronco's Denver football games for 4 or 5 years. Scott and Kincade always stay at the same place in Glenwood Springs (I love that town), sometimes joined by Rick and Chris.

Twelve years ago, 2001, Jason and Rick went to the last game held in the Mile High Stadium. And now with Peyton Manning the quarterback, doesn't matter if they're Bronco or Colt's fan, they love to see him pulling the game out of a loss in the last quarter or last few plays.

The only football game I have ever watched from beginning to end (and that includes when I was a high school cheerleader) was in 2007, when the Colts won the SuperBowl. I remember I was doing a lot of subbing and the teacher's lounges, especially the elementary school in Mill Creek, were all decked out showing Colt spirit.

I just read a little about the beginnings of the sport in "Imprimis," conservative pamphlet put out monthly by Hillsdale College. The first intercollegiate game was in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers with 25 players to a team, 11 each side on the field playing. The pamphlet said it isn't "a contact sport - it's a collision sport." In the early days, without the safety equipment and rules now used, it wasn't unusual to have a dozen players die every season. In 1905, 18 people died playing the game. "Players would wrestle for advantage by throwing punches and jabbing elbows...even try to gouge their opponent's eyes." The usual hue and cry about this "savage" game that was a "huge training ground for young gladiators, around whom as many spectators roar as roared in the (Roman) amphitheatre" commenced. The New York Times ran an editorial about Two Curable Evils - the first evil was lynching and the second was football.

Teddy Roosevelt, a man's man if there ever was one, loved the game and threw his weight behind supporting it, even as he played in it for Harvard. The early game looks little like what is played now, as rules became more formalized and safety equipment became required.

But some type of football has been played for centuries. There are reports of early settlers at Jamestown, Virginia playing games with inflated balls. Even Shakespeare has some mention of football in a few of his plays.
       
At any rate, the guys look forward each year to their annual pilgrimage to Denver, paying homage to the Broncos and football.