Tim Tebow may be gone but his bizarre legacy remains in Denver
“It’s Tim Tebow’s bizarre legacy that Denver, Colorado has become the most eventful sports town in America. Unequivocally.”
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In New England the frenzy over Tim Tebow won’t be quite what it was in New York. In New York it wasn’t quite what it had been in Denver. Even though the Big Apple has the most invasive sports media industry anywhere, Tebow did not receive the sensational coverage he did as the enigmatic quarterback of the Broncos. In New York Tebow was a sideshow. In Boston he will be a curiosity. In Denver he had been the feature attraction, the million dollar darling of every network from the Golf Channel to ESPN. Tebow turned the spotlight toward the Mile High City.
From the very moment that he was selected by Josh McDaniels and the Denver Broncos with the 25th overall pick in the 2010 draft Tebow was surrounded with hyperbole and controversy. Was he a quarterback or wasn’t he? Would his biggest fans hail from Broncos Country or from the Bible Belt? Was young McDaniels a genius for picking Tebow or did he squander a valuable first round selection on a player that would never be named the starter?
Tebow’s presence was a constant distraction for the Broncos in training camp and throughout the 2010 season. As fans clamored to see him start ahead of incumbent Kyle Orton, the Broncos were suffering a serious slide. That slide, during which the hated Raiders beat the Broncos 59-14 at home and the Broncos lost all but four games, would ultimately cost Josh McDaniels his job and at the same time spin the Broncos and the entire Denver sports ecosystem into a spiral of weirdness which fans are yet to see the end of.
It’s Tim Tebow’s bizarre legacy that Denver, Colorado has become the most eventful sports town in America. Unequivocally. Ever since America’s cameras first followed him to Dove Valley, Colorado has been a sports bizarro world. There aren’t off-seasons anymore. The flow of wild stories is constant and every team is in flux. No job is safe and, for professionals who report on sports in Denver, it’s a new gold rush.
When Tebow was drafted there was stability of sorts in every organization this side of the Denver Broncos (who had removed Mike Shanahan a season before). Dan Hawkins, who had been hired in 2005, was coaching the CU Buffs football team with his quarterback son, Cody by his side. George Karl had taken the reigns at the Nuggets in the same year that Hawkins signed on and was five years into his stint with Denver’s NBA franchise. Jim Tracy had been managing the Colorado Rockies since 2008 and Joe Sacco had been freshly installed to lead an optimistic Avalanche team into the future along with Adam Foote, whose captaincy replaced a retired Joe Sakic’s.
There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the Colorado sports scene in 2010 aside from Tebow himself. Besides the Carmelo Anthony led Nuggets, who could be counted on to at least make the playoffs consistently, every local franchise was middling and uninteresting. The Rockies had made a surprise run to the World Series years before but local sport was otherwise a wasteland. Somehow, however, the massive amount of attention Tim Tebow received from the National media ignited a forest fire of insanity, however, making Denver worthy of its very own 24-hour sports network.
First Josh McDaniels, the arrogant young head coach who drafted Tebow, was fired. Interim head coach Eric Studesville installed number fifteen at the starting quarterback position and, in a 24-23 win over the Houston Texans at Invesco Field, Tebow gave Broncos Country its first glance at his magical comeback powers. John Elway was named the de facto owner of the team that year and a new era in Broncos history was underway.
The University of Colorado made a highly controversial coaching change of their own in 2010, firing Dan Hawkins and elevating a former player and CU legend, Jon Embree. The installation of Embree mirrored the Broncos’ hiring of John Elway to the extent that a name that had long been associated with the program had become its most visible component. Buffs fans were filled with the optimism that “getting the band back together” would result in good things for CU.
The following February, halfway through basketball season, the Denver Nuggets were involved in one of the most block-busting trades in NBA history. Carmelo Anthony, possibly the best player ever to don a Denver jersey, was shipped off the New York Knicks along with point guard Chauncey Billups, the “King of Park Hill” and JR Smith in exchange for an entire starting rotation of players including Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari. Denver’s young general manager, Masai Ujiri was lauded for his shrewd negotiations with New York. Denver fans were stunned by the bounty the Nuggets emerged with. The transaction brought the media horses to Denver once again. Meanwhile, the reengineered Nuggets amassed an incredible fifty win sans Anthony and finished second in the Northwest Division. They were eliminated from the playoffs in the first round by the Oklahoma City Thunder but the future was considered to be very bright for the blue and yellow.
The 2011 Denver Broncos season was mired in controversy from the jump. John Elway had employed former Jaguars coach, John Fox to pull together a squad still reeling from the McDaniels era. Fans and media types alike were howling to see Tim Tebow start at quarterback. After the Broncos began the year with a dismal 1-4 record Elway granted everyone their wish. Once Tebow was handed the keys the Broncos went on the most unlikely runs in NFL history, winning seven of their next eight games in shocking style. Each of their victories was more stunning than the one before. Despite dropping their last three tilts the Broncos finished that season with a record of 8-8 which, in 2011, was enough to earn them a Wildcard berth.
The Broncos hosted the heavily favored Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2011 AFC Wild Card game. After playing the Steelers to a draw in regulation, Tim Tebow hit receiver Damaryius Thomas for an 80-yard touchdown strike on the very first play of overtime. The pass would mark the climax of Tebowmania in Colorado. It was January 8th, 2012.
In March of 2012 the National sports media would once again lock in on the Denver market. Future Hall of Famer and former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was rumored to on the Broncos’ radar as a possible free agent signing. When Manning flew to Denver to meet with John Elway and John Fox his motorcade was followed from a regional airport to Broncos HQ by news helicopters and an army of reporters, radio personalities and scribes from papers across the country.
After a two week decision period that dragged on for what seemed like centuries, Peyton Manning opted to sign with the Denver Broncos. Tim Tebow’s future in Denver suddenly looked very bleak. Sure enough, the young quarterback that had led the team to its most exciting season in over a decade, was unceremoniously traded to the New York Jets for a seventh-round draft pick. Even though he had proven that he could make amazing things happen on a football field, the Broncos were through with his unconventional playing style and exhausted from the media circus that constantly surrounded him. The Manning signing was the most noteworthy free-agency signing in league history and the hype that came along with it was enough to keep the country’s attention squarely locked onto Denver.
That fall, as the Broncos won game after game with Manning at the helm, both the Colorado Rockies and the Buffaloes of CU made headlines by terminating their coaches. Jim Tracy, the manager of the Rockies since 2008, resigned on October seventh. Jon Embree in whom the CU Buffs had entrusted their future was also fired. Embree’s firing after only two seasons with the school became a complete circus. Embree made assertions that racism was at the center of Athletic Director Mike Bohn’s decision to send the coach packing. Bohn in turn held a famously awkward press conference at which Embree was in attendance.
The following spring the Colorado Avalanche made news by naming former star player Joe Sakic as the team’s general manager. The Avalanche then fired head coach Joe Sacco and, in a move that set the hockey world on its ear, replaced him with none other than Patrick Roy, the legendary goalkeeper of the Stanley Cup winning Avalanche teams of the 1990s.
A month after the Avalanche fired Joe Sacco the University of Colorado fired its Athletic Director, Mike Bohn, who had replaced his head football coach not six months before. Bohn’s was not the last head to roll in 2013, however.
In June Nuggets general manager Masai Ujiri, the architect of the Carmelo Anthony trade, was wooed away by the Toronto Raptors. A week later head coach George Karl, who had been with the Nuggets for over eight years, was fired. Ujiri had been the NBA’s Executive of the Year. Karl had been the Coach of the Year. In a span of less than two weeks the Nuggets saw two award winning professionals, man who directed the Nuggets to their winningest ever season, vaporize. Nuggets team president Josh Kroenke, a man only 33 years of age, found himself reconstructing the franchise from the ground up.
The Nuggets story, like so many that preceded it, made Denver the center of attention, the focal point of the National sports universe. Ours has become a four sport town with no shortage of outrageous goings on. There’s always something happening worth talking about. But it wasn’t always that way. It all began back in April of 2010 during the first round of the NFL draft.
Josh McDaniels selected Tim Tebow and the entire country turned its head to notice Denver, Colorado for the first time since the late 1990s when the Broncos won back-to-back Super Bowls. Our franchises have commanded the Nation’s attention over since. Denver is, without question, the most dynamic sports town anywhere … and it all started with Tim Tebow.
