The Broncos were the first major league team in any sport to call Denver home. Frank kicked it off in great style, beginning a love affair between the Broncos and the region that lives on to this day. RIP.
I dated a girl with that last name a long time ago. She was a cousin of the basketball player, which I thought was cool because I had a family member who played Major League Baseball.
Names omitted on purpose.
http://www.remembertheafl.com/BroncosFacts.html
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Frank Tripucka, the Broncos' first quarterback, sighs at the memory. Speaking by phone from Bloomfield, N.J., Tripucka flatly says the original Broncos uniform was the ugliest thing he ever wore. And he played for three NFL teams before spending seven years in Canada.
Hideous? Horrible?
"Unquestionably," Tripucka says. "We were a very poor ballclub, financially. They took anything they could get their hands on."
Literally.
Those first uniforms came from a defunct college bowl game (the Copper Bowl). Rips and tears had to be repaired because there was no way to get more of these dandy duds. The colors were technically "seal brown and gold."
"Mustard yellow would be a more accurate description," says Jim Saccomano, the team's director of public relations, a club employee for 32 years and a lifelong Denver resident who has seen almost every game the Broncos have played.
Denver's second coach, Jack Faulkner, set fire to the old socks at the club's intrasquad game in 1962, with new ownership in place, a little more money available and new colors of orange, blue and white adopted. Yet no one who ever saw the vintage hose will forget them.
The Broncos still have one of their originals at their headquarters in Englewood, Colo.
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http://www.talesfromtheamericanfootballleague.com/1962-denver-broncos-a-tale-of-two-seasons/
