honz
09-20-2009, 10:56 AM
http://www.denverpost.com/premium/broncos/ci_13378347?source=rss
Quicker than a click of a remote control, the mood at Chris Simms' home went from disappointment to pandemonium.
Many Broncos family members had gathered at the Denver-area home, although Simms wasn't among them. There was his wife, Danielle, who hosted the gathering, and some of her new friends — Lana Stokley, Richelle Scheffler and Bridget Orton, and their kids.
The women were watching their husbands play on television, and for a few moments late in last Sunday's game, their day seemed headed for a certain bummer. Their lesser halves were trailing the Cincinnati Bengals 7-6, the ball was way back on the 13-yard line, and there were only a few seconds remaining.
But then Bridget's husband, Kyle, threw a pass that bounced off a Bengals defender into the the hands of Lana's husband, Brandon, who ran for the game-winning touchdown. That's when the Simms' house nearly shook to its foundation.
Amid the celebration, Lana's maternal instincts led her to turn and see how her son, Cameron, was reacting. Although Cameron is only 5, he has been around his dad and Broncos players so much that he fully understood the magnitude of what his dad had just done. The Broncos were going to win, and his dad was the hero.
"We were jumping up and down and screaming at each other, and he did not move," Lana said. "And he got teary-eyed. I asked him, 'Cameron, why do you cry?' And he said, 'Mom, because I'm so excited.' He gets it."
Like father, like Cameron.
Brandon Stokley was raised in a college football environment by Nelson Stokley, a coach who frequently brought his only son inside the locker rooms and onto the practice fields at Virginia Tech, Clemson and what was then known as Southwestern Louisiana.
Since Brandon Stokley's career brought him to Denver three years ago, no children of Broncos players have spent more time at Dove Valley during training camp, or in the postgame locker room at Invesco Field
Brandon Stokley tackles his son Cameron in the playroom of their home last week. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)
at Mile High, than Cameron and, more recently, his younger brother, Carson.
"Cameron is just like me," Stokley said. "He sits there and he watches all our games, over and over. I TiVo them all. Last year he wanted to watch the Kansas City game at home. He just wanted to watch that one over and over. He loved that game because of Peyton Hillis."
Wait a minute. Didn't Hillis sustain a season-ending hamstring tear in that game?
"He can imitate to a 'T' how Peyton got hurt," Stokley said.
Cameron can't do the awkward catch Hillis made on the play of his injury. After all, the kid is only 5. But Cameron can pound his fist on the ground and impersonate Hillis' painful facial expressions.
"From what I've seen, he can do it a lot better than I can," Hillis said. "It shows he's really paying a lot of attention."
Reacting like a coach's kid
Broncos center Casey Wiegmann didn't know what to say about Stokley after Sunday's dramatic victory.
So much had been said about the Broncos' Game 1 hero already, and a cold tub was ready, and Wiegmann was in a mood to decompress. But, as he walked away from his locker, trying not to think, a thought occurred to him.
"You can tell he's a coach's kid, I'll say that," Wiegmann said.
There is something about spending one's elementary years in the culture of wet towels, foul mouths, smelly equipment rooms and magic-marker boards scribbled with X's and O's that makes a
The Stokleys strike a nice family pose Brandon and wife Lana, with sons Carson, 3, and Cameron, 5 at their home. (John Leyba, The Denver Post )
coach's kid smarter than other players.
"You think differently when you've been around football your whole life," Stokley said. "You grew up watching it on the sidelines, so the little details most people don't think about, you think about."
Had Stokley not been a coach's kid, would the Broncos be 0-1 heading into their home opener today against the Cleveland Browns?
Sure, it took some luck, a fortunate bounce. Had Orton's pass not been thrown so short of his intended target, Brandon Marshall; had Cincinnati cornerback Leon Hall been positioned even a foot back so he didn't have to reach so far and make an off-balance bat of the ball a perfect 9 yards forward; had it been another Bengals defensive back and not linebacker Dhani Jones giving chase to Stokley, the Broncos might have lost 7-6 instead of winning 12-7.
But as for Stokley winding up in the right place, at the right moment, maybe that was less about luck and more about the veteran's instincts. While all the leaping, deflecting and twisting was going on as the ball fell from the sky, Stokley had the presence of mind to break off his route and move toward the play.
You know, in case he needed to throw a block, or, yes, possibly catch a deflection. As opportunity fell, only Stokley was there to catch it.
"Luck happens when people put themselves in the right position," Orton said. "He was in the right spot at the right time because he paid attention to the entire play."
But it wasn't the Immaculate Deflection, as the play was overwhelming dubbed in a survey of Denver Post readers, that brought Stokley praise for his savvy. It was how in the midst of bedlam — Broncos players and coaches were waving and hollering, while Broncos wives were jumping and screaming — Stokley slowed it all down to think.
At the 1-yard line, he ran parallel from near the left sideline, across both hash marks, so as to kill a few seconds off the clock before crossing the goal line.
Perhaps only a coach's kid could have been so calculating, although another coach's kid, Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels, also was thinking: "Get in there, Brandon, before somebody not as smart as you clips.
"You've seen too many little things throughout your life that stick with you, and you know that there's a right and wrong way of doing things, there's a smart and not smart way, and there's a team guy and not a team guy," said McDaniels, whose father, Thom, was a successful high school coach. "There's all these things that you know because you've witnessed it for a long time."
It was the second time in 10 months Stokley used his head while others were swept up in the emotion of a touchdown. After catching the go-ahead score with 1:14 remaining at Cleveland last season, Marshall was going to make a symbolic gesture of Barack Obama's presidential election by pulling out a black glove. Marshall would have drawn a 15-yard celebration penalty had he not been instantly met by Stokley, who told him not to pull out the glove.
"I think of that as one of my jobs out there," Stokley said. "Being an older player (33) and being around the game as much as I have, I'm supposed to be the one that does smart things. I take that seriously."
A generational legacy
As a man devoted to family, Stokley has suffered his share of sadness. After playing in a football game for his dad and coach in his senior year at Southwestern Louisiana, Brandon received a phone call informing him his mom, Jane, had died.
Last year, the coach's kid learned his coach and father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Maybe the best thing Nelson Stokley ever did for his son?
Support him after Brandon decided to give up football after his freshman year in high school. Brandon was a quarterback who was only 5-feet-4, 115 pounds. At that size, Stokley believed his best chance of competing at the college level would be in baseball or basketball, so he concentrated on those sports in his sophomore and junior years.
Fortunately for the gathering at the Simms' house last Sunday, Comeaux High School had hired a new football coach who wanted to bring in a new spread offense and knew how to recruit senior athletes walking the hallways.
"Brandon only played two years of high school, and his dad never cared one bit," Lana said. "I think that made a big difference, and Brandon is the same way with our kids."
Despite their athletic prowess — Lana was a two-time All-America softball player at Southwestern Louisiana — the Stokleys never pushed their sons to like football. And so Cameron doesn't like football. He loves it. The Broncos have many players and coaches who hang out with their families after practice or games. It's just that no one has a better attendance record than the Stokley boys.
"What makes it different for Brandon is he grew up as a ball boy when his dad was coaching so he understands what it's like to be that little kid and admire all these guys," Lana said. "He knows what those guys meant to him. He says if I wasn't that type of kid growing up, I wouldn't see it through Cameron's eyes. So Brandon takes him out as much as he can."
Quicker than a click of a remote control, the mood at Chris Simms' home went from disappointment to pandemonium.
Many Broncos family members had gathered at the Denver-area home, although Simms wasn't among them. There was his wife, Danielle, who hosted the gathering, and some of her new friends — Lana Stokley, Richelle Scheffler and Bridget Orton, and their kids.
The women were watching their husbands play on television, and for a few moments late in last Sunday's game, their day seemed headed for a certain bummer. Their lesser halves were trailing the Cincinnati Bengals 7-6, the ball was way back on the 13-yard line, and there were only a few seconds remaining.
But then Bridget's husband, Kyle, threw a pass that bounced off a Bengals defender into the the hands of Lana's husband, Brandon, who ran for the game-winning touchdown. That's when the Simms' house nearly shook to its foundation.
Amid the celebration, Lana's maternal instincts led her to turn and see how her son, Cameron, was reacting. Although Cameron is only 5, he has been around his dad and Broncos players so much that he fully understood the magnitude of what his dad had just done. The Broncos were going to win, and his dad was the hero.
"We were jumping up and down and screaming at each other, and he did not move," Lana said. "And he got teary-eyed. I asked him, 'Cameron, why do you cry?' And he said, 'Mom, because I'm so excited.' He gets it."
Like father, like Cameron.
Brandon Stokley was raised in a college football environment by Nelson Stokley, a coach who frequently brought his only son inside the locker rooms and onto the practice fields at Virginia Tech, Clemson and what was then known as Southwestern Louisiana.
Since Brandon Stokley's career brought him to Denver three years ago, no children of Broncos players have spent more time at Dove Valley during training camp, or in the postgame locker room at Invesco Field
Brandon Stokley tackles his son Cameron in the playroom of their home last week. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)
at Mile High, than Cameron and, more recently, his younger brother, Carson.
"Cameron is just like me," Stokley said. "He sits there and he watches all our games, over and over. I TiVo them all. Last year he wanted to watch the Kansas City game at home. He just wanted to watch that one over and over. He loved that game because of Peyton Hillis."
Wait a minute. Didn't Hillis sustain a season-ending hamstring tear in that game?
"He can imitate to a 'T' how Peyton got hurt," Stokley said.
Cameron can't do the awkward catch Hillis made on the play of his injury. After all, the kid is only 5. But Cameron can pound his fist on the ground and impersonate Hillis' painful facial expressions.
"From what I've seen, he can do it a lot better than I can," Hillis said. "It shows he's really paying a lot of attention."
Reacting like a coach's kid
Broncos center Casey Wiegmann didn't know what to say about Stokley after Sunday's dramatic victory.
So much had been said about the Broncos' Game 1 hero already, and a cold tub was ready, and Wiegmann was in a mood to decompress. But, as he walked away from his locker, trying not to think, a thought occurred to him.
"You can tell he's a coach's kid, I'll say that," Wiegmann said.
There is something about spending one's elementary years in the culture of wet towels, foul mouths, smelly equipment rooms and magic-marker boards scribbled with X's and O's that makes a
The Stokleys strike a nice family pose Brandon and wife Lana, with sons Carson, 3, and Cameron, 5 at their home. (John Leyba, The Denver Post )
coach's kid smarter than other players.
"You think differently when you've been around football your whole life," Stokley said. "You grew up watching it on the sidelines, so the little details most people don't think about, you think about."
Had Stokley not been a coach's kid, would the Broncos be 0-1 heading into their home opener today against the Cleveland Browns?
Sure, it took some luck, a fortunate bounce. Had Orton's pass not been thrown so short of his intended target, Brandon Marshall; had Cincinnati cornerback Leon Hall been positioned even a foot back so he didn't have to reach so far and make an off-balance bat of the ball a perfect 9 yards forward; had it been another Bengals defensive back and not linebacker Dhani Jones giving chase to Stokley, the Broncos might have lost 7-6 instead of winning 12-7.
But as for Stokley winding up in the right place, at the right moment, maybe that was less about luck and more about the veteran's instincts. While all the leaping, deflecting and twisting was going on as the ball fell from the sky, Stokley had the presence of mind to break off his route and move toward the play.
You know, in case he needed to throw a block, or, yes, possibly catch a deflection. As opportunity fell, only Stokley was there to catch it.
"Luck happens when people put themselves in the right position," Orton said. "He was in the right spot at the right time because he paid attention to the entire play."
But it wasn't the Immaculate Deflection, as the play was overwhelming dubbed in a survey of Denver Post readers, that brought Stokley praise for his savvy. It was how in the midst of bedlam — Broncos players and coaches were waving and hollering, while Broncos wives were jumping and screaming — Stokley slowed it all down to think.
At the 1-yard line, he ran parallel from near the left sideline, across both hash marks, so as to kill a few seconds off the clock before crossing the goal line.
Perhaps only a coach's kid could have been so calculating, although another coach's kid, Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels, also was thinking: "Get in there, Brandon, before somebody not as smart as you clips.
"You've seen too many little things throughout your life that stick with you, and you know that there's a right and wrong way of doing things, there's a smart and not smart way, and there's a team guy and not a team guy," said McDaniels, whose father, Thom, was a successful high school coach. "There's all these things that you know because you've witnessed it for a long time."
It was the second time in 10 months Stokley used his head while others were swept up in the emotion of a touchdown. After catching the go-ahead score with 1:14 remaining at Cleveland last season, Marshall was going to make a symbolic gesture of Barack Obama's presidential election by pulling out a black glove. Marshall would have drawn a 15-yard celebration penalty had he not been instantly met by Stokley, who told him not to pull out the glove.
"I think of that as one of my jobs out there," Stokley said. "Being an older player (33) and being around the game as much as I have, I'm supposed to be the one that does smart things. I take that seriously."
A generational legacy
As a man devoted to family, Stokley has suffered his share of sadness. After playing in a football game for his dad and coach in his senior year at Southwestern Louisiana, Brandon received a phone call informing him his mom, Jane, had died.
Last year, the coach's kid learned his coach and father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Maybe the best thing Nelson Stokley ever did for his son?
Support him after Brandon decided to give up football after his freshman year in high school. Brandon was a quarterback who was only 5-feet-4, 115 pounds. At that size, Stokley believed his best chance of competing at the college level would be in baseball or basketball, so he concentrated on those sports in his sophomore and junior years.
Fortunately for the gathering at the Simms' house last Sunday, Comeaux High School had hired a new football coach who wanted to bring in a new spread offense and knew how to recruit senior athletes walking the hallways.
"Brandon only played two years of high school, and his dad never cared one bit," Lana said. "I think that made a big difference, and Brandon is the same way with our kids."
Despite their athletic prowess — Lana was a two-time All-America softball player at Southwestern Louisiana — the Stokleys never pushed their sons to like football. And so Cameron doesn't like football. He loves it. The Broncos have many players and coaches who hang out with their families after practice or games. It's just that no one has a better attendance record than the Stokley boys.
"What makes it different for Brandon is he grew up as a ball boy when his dad was coaching so he understands what it's like to be that little kid and admire all these guys," Lana said. "He knows what those guys meant to him. He says if I wasn't that type of kid growing up, I wouldn't see it through Cameron's eyes. So Brandon takes him out as much as he can."