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Saccomano cornerstone of Broncos' front office

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Contributed by: Kim Amidei on 2/3/2006

The people who live in Colorado love professional sports, and at the top of the list is the Denver Broncos football team. In 1977, after 17 years of existence, the Broncos finally reached the Super Bowl. The following season, Jim Saccomano joined the organization as Associate Director of Public Relations.

For the next 27 years, the media and the fans have turned to Saccomano for information and guidance in finding out every little detail about the local football team.

Now as Vice President of Public Relations, Saccomano is on the top of the football world. Throughout the years, he has worked with John Elway, stood on the awards stand for the presentation of the Lombardi Trophy, witnessed the drive in Cleveland and celebrated more than 280 victories.

“The wins are the highlights of this job, of course,” Saccomano said. “I’ve been a part of more wins than any other public relations director in the league, and that’s important to me.”

Working with Elway through the years, Saccomano was constantly asked how many times the quarterback had piloted game-winning drives. After looking it up time and again, he decided to officially establish a “Game Winning Drive” statistic, and now it’s a big part of football lore. And though Saccomano gives Dave Plati from the University of Colorado at Boulder credit for initially using “Performance in the Red Zone” as a statistic, he was the first to use it in professional football.

One of the challenges of Saccomano’s job is that sometimes he has to tell people no, but being able to work amiably with both the public and the media is crucial.

“Taking nothing away from the other teams in Colorado, but the Broncos are the state’s religion so we’re always working with 30 or 40 media, and then it increases during the playoffs,” he said.

The public is always clamoring for news about the organization, players and coaches, and Saccomano feels it’s key to provide accurate information and to manage media access so it doesn’t become a distraction.

“We have a great owner in Pat Bowlen, Mike is an extremely successful head coach, we have superstar players and great fans,” Saccomano said. “The foundation is laid so we challenge ourselves to stay on top of things.”

A constant hunger for more information is fed by a media barrage and the public just can’t seem to get enough of the Broncos. Saccomano feels his responsibility is to take the lead and make sure the media is taken care of.

"After 17 1/2 years of changes in who covers the Broncos' beat, this year when I took over, Jim Saccomano and his assistants made me feel like a big shot in the first week. They went out of their way to set up introductions to players,” Mike Klis, first-year Broncos reporter for The Denver Post said. “The Broncos are pretty much known as a class organization within the city, state and country and I believe much of this is because Jim is the face the public media sees first.''

With an AFC West Championship and a spot in the AFC Championship game, the team again added hardware to their trophy case. As the players disperse, Saccomano will stay busy at the Broncos headquarters in Centennial providing the media with season-ending statistics and looking forward to another successful season.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Kim Amidei

Centennial , CO

Kim Amidei has posted 22 stories and 0 comments since joining on 10/21/2005. Kim Amidei 's average story rating is 5.

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