“I’ll never forget Elway with the guys carrying him on their shoulders and all the confetti. He was crying. That was about the point it hit me.”

One of my favorite stories about the Denver Broncos’ first Super Bowl win in 1998 was written a decade later, looking back at the wild run that  ended with a victory over the Green Bay Packers.

In 2007, wide receiver Rod Smith compared the 1997 season to recess.

“You go to school in the morning and they ring the bell for recess and then they didn’t ring the second bell for you to go in,” he said at the time. “I swear, the whole year was like recess.”

The Broncos play in their eighth Super Bowl Sunday, taking on the Carolina Panthers. Here’s hoping that in 2025, there’s a story written about this magical season and how the Broncos won their third Super Bowl.

And let’s not forget how a Super Bowl bet this year between Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams and North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall benefited the hungry.

Here’s the 10-year anniversary story, which appeared on Sept. 5, 2007:

THRILL OF VICTORY NOT DULLED BY TIME

Memories of magical run still vivid for Denver’s first NFL championship team

By Lynn DeBruin, Rocky Mountain News

They are scattered across the country now, selling real estate, coaching Little League or flying airplanes.

A few parlayed their fame into television gigs, horror flicks and a possible run for Congress.

One player used it to serve God. And the quarterback once called a god is busier than ever, racing cars, selling steaks, coaching high school football and pitching Arena Football League games.

Ten years ago, this group of wildly divergent personalities came together in the perfect storm to provide Denver with its greatest sports accomplishment.

Along the way, there was spit, suspense, even a new Mile High Salute.

In its 38th season, the franchise known as much for its Super losses finally was a Super Bowl champ.

“It feels like I never played football before, that’s how long ago it was,” said John Elway, who now is quarterbacks coach for son Jack at Cherry Creek High School.

“Obviously, things go faster every year, but it’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years. It’s harder for me to believe my kids are as old as they are rather than it being 10 years since that Super Bowl.”

While the years have drifted by, the memories and mementos remain.

Mike Shanahan has a replica of the Vince Lombardi Trophy on his mantel at home.

Terrell Davis still has his Super Bowl jersey, grass-stained and unwashed but aired out and awaiting placement in the big office he hopes to build one day.

Then there’s Rod Smith, whose prized possession is the framed photograph of himself, Ed McCaffrey and Elway jumping up and down and hugging each other as John Mobley tipped away Green Bay’s final pass in Super Bowl XXXII.

“It’s in my basement,” Smith said of the photo. “It’s not huge. It didn’t have to be huge to remind me of those days when we were top dog.”

Before the Broncos became top dog, though, 1997 first brought more heartbreak.

“You really can’t become a cohesive team headed toward a championship unless you have achampionship-caliber defeat,” said former Broncos tackle Harry Swayne, now team chaplain for the Chicago Bears. “You never know how good you can be unless you had to overcome amountain of difficulty.”

Bitter taste

Start with the loss to Jacksonville in the playoffs for the 1996 season, arguably the toughest loss in franchise history.

Team trainer Steve “Greek” Antonopulos said player “checkouts” the next day were the worst he had been around, including the Super Bowl losses.

With the first-round loss to the Jaguars on Jan. 4, 1997, came plenty of criticism.

“A lot of people said maybe John’s too old, we should have gone a different direction,” Shanahan recalled. “Then we let Michael Dean Perry go (late in the 1997 season). People said that was going to be our demise. ‘How can you let your captain go with two games left in the season?’

“There were so many things that went on during that time. . . . We got it done.”

Long season

The revenge tour, as it was billed then, started at home against Jacksonville on Dec. 27, 1997, then headed through Kansas City and finally through Pittsburgh.

But before that, there were plenty of issues to overcome.

Elway tore the biceps tendon in his right arm during a preseason game in Mexico, an injury that, instead of being career ending, eased the pain in his throwing motion.

There were other not-so-minor setbacks.

After a 6-0 start, there was the little run-in with the Oakland Raiders, when Napoleon Kaufman ran wild (227 yards and an 83-yard touchdown – the longest ever against the Broncos).

Then came the famous blizzard of Oct. 25 that made getting to Buffalo a challenge, and in Week 11 a 24-22 loss in Kansas City when Pete Stoyanovich’s 54-yard field goal as time expired ultimately proved the difference between a division title and wild-card finish.

Not to be forgotten was a road loss to Pittsburgh and the Monday night game in San Francisco when, with ABC cameras rolling, linebacker Bill Romanowski spit into the face of 49ers receiver J.J. Stokes.

Suddenly, a team so many thought was destined for greatness was on the verge of coming apart – until the veterans called a meeting.

“I had done what I’d done and a lot of heat and press was coming my direction,” said Romanowski, whose own teammates charged racism. “I remember John Elway getting up in the meeting and saying, ‘You know what, guys, he’s done about everything he can other than get down on his knees. Let’s go out there and focus on playing football and stop worrying about that.’ That’s kind of what we did.”

Jags to riches

The Broncos finished the regular season 12-4, and the rematch with Jacksonville loomed.

“As confident as we were going through the season, all the confidence kind of goes away going into the playoffs,” Broncos kickoff returner Vaughn Hebron said. “Until you do something, you’re still unsure.”

After all, Jacksonville had come to Denver the previous postseason and shocked the heavily favored Broncos 30-27. The Broncos, though, made sure there would be no repeat of the upset, crushing the Jaguars 42-17.

“When we got through Jacksonville (in the wild-card round), I thought there was no stopping us,” Hebron said. “Once we kicked down that door, I thought, ‘We’re gonna be all right.’ Everybody’s wings flapped after that.”

Elway agreed.

“We all came together in the playoff hunt,” he said. “The more we won, and the tougher games we got into, we got closer and closer as a team and it finally culminated in a Super Bowl.”

Rollin’ with jelly

Kansas City in January always is cold, and Denver’s offensive linemen were prepared for that. But Swayne chuckles as he thinks back on the scene as officials were tipped off some players had their arms coated in petroleum jelly.

One by one, Swayne recalled, officials called a timeout to send a lineman out of the game and wave a new one in until the petroleum jelly could be wiped off.

“It was hilarious because we knew exactly where it came from because it had to be inside information,” Swayne said.

He was referring to Perry, the former Broncos team captain released with two games left in the regular season, then signed by the Chiefs.

“The next year or two they made a rule, so now before every game and at halftime, a ref comes in and checks players for illegal substances,” Swayne said. “That’s where that came from. That’s my claim to fame. I was part of a rule change.”

The Broncos held on to beat the Chiefs 14-10, then continued their revenge tour in Pittsburgh, where they had lost 35-24 five weeks earlier.

This time, the Broncos again had the lead, but the Steelers had pulled to three points with 2:46 remaining.

Now the pressure was on the Broncos, facing third-and-6 and not wanting to give Pittsburgh one final chance.

Elway called a play that wasn’t even in the game plan, with five receivers each running short hitch routes.

“He just said, ‘Get open’ (to tight end Shannon Sharpe) and stuck it in his chest,” kicker Jason Elam recalled. “We had to have it because Pittsburgh had all the momentum. And that ended it. That would have been disaster (had we not converted).”

It didn’t take long for the realization to sink in the Broncos were San Diego- and Super Bowl- bound.

Linebacker Glenn Cadrez rolled around on the ground like a puppy. Detron Smith and Tim McKyer performed the Mile High Salute, a move introduced by the backs that season. Defensive end Neil Smith and Co. stomped on the Steelers logo.

The party continued on the plane ride back to Denver.

“I felt like I was in high school again,” backup tight end Byron Chamberlain said. “I remember in high school after a win, getting on the bus and driving back home and singing and yelling all the way. That’s exactly how it was the whole way from Pittsburgh to Denver. No one was tired. We were just so happy.”

They even sang the lyrics made famous by rapper Notorious B.I.G.: Going Back to Cali.

“Everybody was singing, even guys who didn’t know the song were singing,” Chamberlain said.

Eye on the future

Ten months earlier, guard Mark Schlereth predicted a title even as he rehabilitated aherniated disk in his back.

He still remembers the moment, sitting on the trainer’s table, looking at the 1997 schedule for the first time.

“Oh, my God. That means we’re destined to win the Super Bowl,” he said.

When teammates asked why, Schlereth spelled it out.

“It’s Super Bowl 32 and on the 25th of January. The 25th of January happens to be my birthday, and it happens to be my 32nd birthday,” Schlereth said.

The Las Vegas oddsmakers hardly saw it that way. The Broncos were big underdogs.

They did, blasting Atlanta in Super Bowl XXXIII the next year in Miami.The betting line was outrageous, stretching to 14 points and settling with the Packers favored by 12.

Perhaps it was the fact the AFC had lost 13 straight title games or the Broncos’ previous trip to San Diego for a Super Bowl ended with the Washington Redskins’ 42-10 romp.

Maybe fresher in oddsmakers’ minds was the Broncos’ 55-10 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIV or Elway was 0-3 in the big game or only one wild card had won it all.

Master planning

None of it fazed Shanahan, who already had a Super Bowl ring from his days in San Francisco.

“You just beat Kansas City in Kansas City and Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh,” Broncos publicist Jim Saccomano recalled of the coach’s early speech. “Would you rather try to go beat one of those guys again in their city? (Or play the Packers at a neutral site?) He made everyone in the room feel like, ‘Oh, yeah, the hardest part is over.’ From that point on, nobody looked at the line.”

Shanahan also took a different tact before the big game than previous Broncos coaches, particularly Dan Reeves.

“Dan’s mind-set was to start out practices for the Super Bowl right off the bat, with a bang, witha hitting drill the first day,” Antonopulos recalled. “I always thought if we could have played theSuper Bowl on Wednesday during those years, we would have won. Mike had a mind-set on how to handle players during the week of the game and the week prior to the game that I’d never seen before.”

That didn’t mean there weren’t distractions.

Super Bowl week, there was Choppergate, when Shanahan had a news helicopter taken out of the sky after it buzzed practice.

And the media attention opened players’ eyes, so much so that even Elam, a kicker, was forced to use an alias at the team hotel.

Of course, Elway probably was used to that by then, and he fittingly checked in under the name John Wayne.

Then there were the Disney officials who pleaded with Broncos offensive linemen to sign the “I’m going to Disneyland” contract should they be chosen as game Most Valuable Players.

“None of us would sign it,” Schlereth said, a move not surprising considering the unit’s kangaroo courts and no-talk rules. ” ‘C’mon, you guys ain’t gonna vote us MVP.’ That was just goofy.”

The only crazier moment happened as he walked out of the team hotel the day before the game with tickets in hand for his parents.

A scalper approached offering $3,500 for each one.

“My first inclination was to go, ‘Mom, Dad, you guys are going to be watching the Super Bowlfrom your hotel room,’ ” Schlereth said with a laugh. “I let them go.”

Company line

In the hoopla leading to the game, Shanahan urged players to play the underdog role, amove Romanowski called the perfect setup.

“It was all about telling (everybody) how great they were . . . how we were just fortunate to be here, hope we can give them a good game,” Romanowski said of the Packers. “That’s what we did for two weeks, built them up. Sure enough, I felt like that took the edge off and we were able to focus.”

When the game ended and a television reporter approached, Romanowski’s true feelings came flying out faster than spit – even though he had his son on his shoulders.

“I was so sick and tired of telling everybody how great the Green Bay Packers were I could puke,” he said. “Those were the first words out of my mouth; not very eloquent or diplomatic, but that’s how I felt.”

Major headache

Davis did vomit, but it was because he forgot to take his migraine medicine before pregame warm-ups.

When he took a knee to the helmet late in the first quarter, it set off a chain of events that led to precursor symptoms of a migraine – an aura that leaves vision blurred.

Saccomano got the news but admits he held back slightly on the injury report when Davis left the game during the second quarter.

“Kicked in the head sounded good to me. I thought if more gets ascertained, then I’ll announce it. But there was no sense announcing panic, head for the hills,” Saccomano recalled.

By the time broadcaster Jim Gray was announcing Davis had suffered a migraine, Davis was back in the game in the third quarter.

Though Davis scored three touchdowns and was named MVP, it was the one carry he didn’t get that made all the difference.

Replays of Super Bowl XXXII capture Shanahan the moment he was told about Davis’ situation.

“What do you mean he can’t see?” Antonopulos recalled Shanahan saying. “He was screaming.”

Shanahan needed Davis, not to carry the ball, but to carry out a play fake so the defense would bite.

“That was a classic,” Davis admits. “But it wasn’t crazy. Mike wanted to win. For us to win, for that play to work, I have to be in the game.”

The play worked to perfection as Elway scored on a 1-yard bootleg.

“It was a horrible fake, but they all bit on it,” Davis said. “I had blurred vision, but it was good enough to see to get out of the way. I was not trying to get hit.”

Beef to settle

The Broncos’ undersized line, meanwhile, was trying to keep Elway upright against a beefy Packers front that many figured would manhandle Denver.

Right tackle Tony Jones had perhaps the toughest assignment — block Reggie White.

“I didn’t want him to get no sacks,” Jones said.

“I didn’t want him to knock me over. I didn’t want to hear his name. At the end of the game, when I knew we had won, I was so relieved, so happy. I had played one of the best defensive ends in football. I shut him down. I know a lot of people didn’t believe I could do it.”

As fate would have it, a week later, the two men sat next to each other on the flight back from the Pro Bowl in Honolulu.

“You played a heck of a game,” White conceded.

Freewheelin’

Jones won’t soon forget those words, just as he won’t forget perhaps the most memorable play of the game.

It was Elway’s headlong, desperate dive late in the third quarter, on a key third-and-6, his twisting, spinning body as he was hit by two defenders symbolic of the determination of the 1997 team.

At 37, with tons of records to his name but three Super Bowl losses on his resume, Elway privately wondered beforehand if he had run out of years.

The sunny day in San Diego proved he hadn’t.

The other players helped make sure of that, as did owner Pat Bowlen, who, with the Lombardi Trophy held aloft, stated succinctly, “This one’s for John.”

Elway’s smile stretched back to Denver.

“You could see the weight of the world off his shoulders,” Jones said.

Yet the reality of the win hit everyone differently.

Power surge

When Mobley knocked down Brett Favre’s fourth-down pass with 28 seconds to play, preserving the Broncos’ 31-24 win, Chamberlain said a shot of energy ran through the whole sideline.

“I’ve never felt that before and never felt it (since),” Chamberlain said.

Antonopulos said it took a minute for everything to sink in.

“I’ll never forget Elway with the guys carrying him on their shoulders and all the confetti. He was crying. That was about the point it hit me,” said Antonopulos, who was among those with victory cigars in the locker room.

In Swayne’s eyes, the celebration wasn’t as loud as one would think for a team that just had gotten the monkey off its back.

“John had been on the losing end before and you’d think he’d let out a big old yelp. But I had been one who had lost as well, so it was a sense of relief,” Swayne said.”There also was a little something lingering, something that said we need to come do another one. It was a bit of, ‘Hey, that was good, but we got more left.’ ”

“I have two rings, but there’s nothing like the first,” said Hebron, who still shows them off frequently.

Rod Smith agrees, calling that 1997 season a blast.

“It was almost like it was recess,” he said.

“You go to school in the morning and they ring the bell for recess and then they didn’t ring the second bell for you to go in. I swear, the whole year was like recess.”

FYI:

I worked for the Rocky Mountain News when the Broncos won their first and second Super Bowls. I had the joy of being the lead reporter on both Super Bowl parade stories:

1998By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Salute this:

The largest crowd assembled in Denver history.

A sea of orange and blue.

The Super Bowl trophy hoisted above the steps of the City and County Building.

Thirty-eight years after the Denver Broncos first took to the field, 650,000 grateful fans on Tuesday showered them with love and confetti at a parade and rally.

Quarterback John Elway, staring at signs that read “Elway for President” and “One More Year,” flashed those famous teeth as the crowd went wild.

“This trophy is as much for you as it is for us,” he said.

At that, Brian Rooman of Aurora began crying. Nearly 12 hours earlier — before dawn — he and his family were the first fans to arrive at Civic Center Park.

“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” he said. “This is fantastic.”

Super Bowl 1999By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News

John Elway reigned at his parade Monday as 375,000 Broncos fans, not to mention his coach and his teammates, urged him to play One More Year.

The parade and rally in downtown Denver seemed less about Sunday’s victory over the Atlanta Falcons and more about whether No. 7 will lead the Broncos next season in a try at something no other team has achieved: three consecutive Super Bowl victories.

“Three-peat, yeah, that sounds good,” running back Terrell Davis said.

The signs in the sea of orange and blue at Civic Center Park told the story:

John, Back to Back to Back!

John, 2 is great, 3 is greater!

To see more posts from Lynn Bartels, visit her official blog at the Colorado Secretary of State website.