Non Imago Post - Broncos

As I noted in the post that deals with things of far greater significance than a football game...as a Broncos fan I am a pretty happy camper today. What was really fun about last night for me though was not just the game and its result, but the fun that my kids (especially my oldest) had with the game and everything that went on with it. I watched 7 of the 8 Broncos' Super Bowls (I was too young to remember much of the 1977 Super Bowl XII game) and so I have seen them win 3 and lose 4. Of course all four of those losses were pretty brutal losses to watch. But (right or wrong) there's a lot of ways that I can see some key moments in my life through these games.

The first three losses were all while I was in school and I remember watching them with my family and especially remember watching the 1986 AFC Championship (The Drive) on TV and then being at the 1987 AFC Championship (The Fumble). I have tried to block out much of the Super Bowls after those games (especially the 55-10 drubbing), but it was a while later until the Broncos made it to the big game again.

Enter 1997 and 1998. I was in seminary at the time and celebrated the first one with the only other Broncos fan I knew of at seminary. The second game the weekend that it looked like my now-wife and I would start dating. I had tickets to fly to Chicago to watch the game with a few of my college buddies and when I stepped off the plane, one of them said to me, "What's her name?" without even knowing that anything was going on.

Fast forward another decade (+) and I was married for over a decade, had three kids, serving in my second congregation as a pastor, and so forth. That of course was another drubbing (grrr...Seahawks) and not a happy memory for any of us who watched it. Then came last night and the fun of watching the team win the game and my oldest setting up one of his minions (pictured) to be excited for the game.

There are many ways that we can measure the stages of life - this is just one of them. Is a football game important in the grand scheme? Not really. But everything for me that has gone around these is important and are people and experiences I treasure - my family growing up, my friends in college and seminary, my wife and children, and much more.