SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Broncos-Seahawks pose Super Bowl struggle for Ron
Jan 21, 2014, 4:49 PM | Updated: 5:09 pm
Lifelong Broncos fan and Seahawks supporter Ron Upshaw is a bit conflicted about the Super Bowl. (Josh Kerns/My Northwest.com)
(Josh Kerns/My Northwest.com)
What do you do when you grow up a lifelong Denver Broncos season ticket holder but you live in Seattle and love the Seahawks? That’s the conundrum for KIRO Radio’s Ron Upshaw, clearly confused Tuesday as he sported a construction orange Broncos baseball hat and a Seahawks sweatshirt.
The saga starts back in 1970, when Ron’s parents first bought their season tickets and started taking him to Broncos games at Denver’s Mile High Stadium.
“I still remember the exact seats at Mile High – Section 113, row 13, seat 13 and 14,” Ron fondly recalls. “I knew these people in section 113 better than I knew my own family because I would see them more often than my own aunts and uncles.”
Even after the Upshaws moved to Albuquerque, they kept the seats. And all these years later, they’re still season-ticket holders. But Ron’s moved plenty since then, and after settling down in Seattle, something’s changed.
“Don’t send this to my family, but I need to be honest. My head is rooting for the Denver Broncos because for 43 years I’ve been a Broncos fan. My heart is for the Seahawks,” he says.
Ron says he’s simply become more emotionally invested in the Seahawks. And he says he wants Seattle to take the Super Bowl for a simple reason: Denver already has two, Peyton Manning won one with Indianapolis, and the Seahawks are still seeking their first title.
“I think it means more to this area right now than it means to them,” Ron says. “Right now today, if you ask me, I want it to be a great game. I want it to not be a blowout because I lived through the blowout of the Broncos-49ers game and it was over in the first quarter and it was miserable.”
But just because he’s siding with the Seahawks doesn’t make it any easier. Not only does he have to face his family, but he also has to answer for the fashion choices that have already garnered what he can only describe as “sideways looks.”
“In fact, a guy stopped me and asked ‘are you on the radio? Are you Ron or Don? The minute I saw you walking up I had to check my smartphone because I figured what other whack job would be wearing a Broncos hat and a Seahawks sweatshirt?'”
