NFL: LEADERSHIP & THE DENVER BRONCOS "PAT BOWLEN."

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team---milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed., Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . //. . . NFL: LEADERSHIP & THE DENVER BRONCOS “PAT BOWLEN” LEADERSHIP resonates---it isn’t necessary that you meet and follow a CEO, the VP-Operations, the law firm’s managing partner, the army battalion commander, the factory foreman or the hospital administrator to sense how well or how badly an organization is being led. This applies to any owner of a National Football League franchise, and surely in large measure when one considers all of the facets of an NFL team that require leadership 24/7. There’s careful selection of players, coaches and front office managers, and there’s spending money judiciously and for sufficient profit so that a team can endure. Add that there’s respecting the fan’s expectations and the fan’s responses to team losses, by seeking team improvements. There’s interacting with print, broadcast and electronic media wisely, and joint-venturing with stadium ownership + management if one isn’t a stadium owner. There’s the leasing of stadium sites, and providing the best training areas + locker room + food service + the latest football-related technologies & equipment. Without question, then, the announcement that Pat Bowlen has stepped down as team owner of the Denver Broncos has highlighted leadership as an overarching virtue, since all other virtues for team success evolve from it. And, it’s been reported that since Pat Bowlen took ownership of the Broncos more than 30 years ago that his leadership has been exemplary, coolly architectural and also compassionate, so that his team, and also every individual within, could have the support needed for organizational and personal success. Relatedly, the city of Denver is a highly spirited and serious sports town---it doesn’t take long for even visitors to get it that the city’s spirit and Broncos fandom are nearly one and the same. Who hasn’t tagged Denver more than once as, “Broncos Country?” And, as acknowledged and appreciated by the city is that its town/team relationship is largely from Mr. Bowlen’s leadership. In the “resonance stream” of this leadership, we can see easily the Broncos NFL and league championships, and stars John Elway, Jake Plummer, Peyton Manning, Champ Bailey, and head coaches Mike Shanahan and John Fox. And, of course, there’s been effective damage control when things went wrong, for instance, after demonstrating courage by bringing on that not-ready-for-prime time fellow from New England as head coach, and also Tim Tebow, who failed to be “the engine that could,” Pat Bowlen put that to rest by crafting the trio Elway/Fox/Manning under longtime Broncos President and confidant, Joe Ellis, now Pat Bowlen’s successor. But a curtain is dropping---Alzheimer’s disease, the reason for Pat Bowlen’s sudden departure from the Broncos, a terrible sadness in that Pat Bowlen will forget much if not everything about all of his franchise accomplishments, a sadness that is being met with understandable rage. Could it be that the greater the collection of good memories, the more painful is sight of the fade? It’s a climber coming down from a clean ascent of Mt. Everest, arriving at bottom without recollection of the climb or the descent. A disease can seem like a Devil’s best trick, it can make the good in us want to howl and throw hatchets at the sun. But we know of the necessity to regain composure, to commiserate. While praying for Pat Bowlen to beat down Alzheimer’s and return to the Broncos, the football world and all Broncos fans could join his family and close friends in remembering the franchise’s best moments for him, keeping those moments alive. END/ml.