Golf Therapy

How Brandon Stokley finds his competitive fix on Denver courses

by Jim Bebbington

Brandon Stokley  is playing on a Wednesday afternoon in May at his home course, The Colorado Golf Club, near Parker.

A reporter and photographer are tagging along – which has got to be just weird when you’re out with four (yes, four) buddies in a friendly five-some.

But Stokley is accommodating. “What do you need? Sure, absolutely. Here, walk with me and let’s talk…” kind of friendly.

They had to pause on the first tee box. Stokley needed to know: what are the stakes? A flurry of complex calculus and moveable teammates and side one-on-one bets are quickly agreed to. Lots of nods and grunts of assent.

A coalition of teammates forms; play begins.

On the second tee – a 115-yard par three over a steep ravine – Stokley is next. The first couple players have come close, but the putting green is still unmolested by the presence of a golf ball. A photographer – John Leyba, who took pictures of Stokley during Stokley’s four years with the Denver Broncos – is aiming the camera at him from 10 feet away. Leyba, like the pro he is, keeps his shutter quiet until the moment of impact, then the air is filled with the Nikon-equivalent of a dove fluttering by.

Brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr softly goes the Nikon’s rapid-fire shutter.

Stokley hits a crisp wedge – bullet straight. He holds his pose.

His ball lands a few feet from the pin – center cut on a tiny, swift, rolling green – and stops five feet from the cup.

The crowd – four buddies – goes wild. One of the group, Kevin Tarrant, laughs.

“He needs that pressure. That’s the kind of thing he needs.”

What do you do after you finish your dream job?

Brandon Stokley loves pressure. He loves stakes. He loves teammates.

Growing up in Louisiana as the son of a football coach, Stokley has always been around football.

For 15 seasons, he got all of the competition and camaraderie he could want as a wide receiver in the NFL. He played four seasons for the Denver Broncos, as well as four each with the Baltimore Ravens and the Indianapolis Colts. Along the way he met one of his best friends, Peyton Manning, and was on two Super Bowl winning teams – Baltimore in 2001 and Indianapolis in 2007.

But in 2013, after a fantastic 2012 season with the Broncos in which the team went 13-3 only to lose a disappointing playoff battle to the Ravens, Stokley signed up for what would be his final season – back with the Ravens where he started. His wife, Lana, stayed behind in Denver with their two sons, Cameron and Carson.

“We always planned on going back to Louisiana,” Stokley says. “But then it was just like ‘You know what? This is a great place to raise a family.”

His final year – him in Baltimore, his family in Denver – made it clear it was time to retire.

“I was bouncing around year to year in different places,” he says. “My kids were getting older and I’m spending more time in the training room. And it’s not fun to be in the training room a lot and especially when you’re getting older. I went to Baltimore my last year and I’m out there by myself. My family stayed here and I’m in an apartment and I’m hurt a lot. That was when they kind of let me know – OK, it’s time for the next chapter.”

The next chapter began with some time off. But once in a while he sat in on the radio shows on KKFN 104.3 The Fan, adding his insight as an NFL insider. Then program director Armen Williams called him out of the blue and offered him a job.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to – to do three hours a day talking – so I decided I’ll just do a trial run,” he says.

That was six years and three radio partners ago.

Here’s the thing about talk radio jobs – they are a lot more complex than they sound on the air.

The vibe sports talk shows shoot for is fast, informed segments that sound like a couple of people shooting the breeze.

But Stokley’s partner, radio veteran Zach Bye, puts in about 90 minutes a day before they get on the air typing up a rundown for the upcoming show – writing intros and deep teases that he will deliver at each commercial break with the goal of gaining audience as the show goes on through the afternoon. There is a plan.

In the studio, Stokley sits bolt upright, across a high table from Bye, with a computer and phone in front of him, his microphone dangling from a metal arm coming up from the table. He and Bye look straight at each other from about 5 feet away, and have intense conversations. They have to sound passionate. They have to be fast – radio talkers speak at a faster pace than normal conversation.

They stare at each other almost all the time because they are giving signals with their eyes for when their partner should get ready to carry the ball and continue the conversation. They only sound like two guys shooting the breeze; this is two people performing, live, with the right voice inflections, the right topics (they hope), the right exchanges, the right intros and outros – for three hours a day, five days a week.

“He’s just real authentic,” Bye said of Stokley. “Sometimes he’ll zag when everyone else is zigging and just in terms of being able to say something that people don’t want to hear. As everyone was so fired up about the Broncos getting Russell Wilson and we were out at training camp and he’s like, ‘this does not look good’ and he was the only person on the station that had the Broncos having a losing record, and that was like heresy last summer.”

They know a lot of their listeners are entombed in cars on the local interstates. Like all their local radio competition, they are trying to be that lifeline. They’re competing against dozens of local shows airing at the same time – plus podcasts, streaming music, audio books and anything else that helps commuters stay sane.

Many athletes try to make the transition to regular work in the media – either video or audio. Few make it.

“It’s his work ethic,” said Drew Spevak, the show’s executive producer. “It’s a matter of knowing what you’re talking about, watching the games, reading up on things, and having an idea of what’s going on in the sports universe. There’s some guys out there who don’t want to take the time to do it – they think they can just come in and talk for three, four hours at a time…. He just works his butt off as far as knowing what is going on. It helps him on the air to do that. Yes, we all have a good team together; but it takes each individual to do their own homework to be successful. He’s great at it.”

On air, he regularly mention sports wagers he has made on obscure outcomes. During the Miami Heat v. Boston Celtics NBA Eastern Conference Finals, he talked about how he was guaranteed to make money on a bet that Kevin Love would have fewer than 5.5 rebounds during game 2. (He won; Love had five rebounds.)

Golf isn’t football, but it’s close

Back on the course, as a reporter and photographer are about the leave, Stokley snakes a long putt in for a par, pointing directly into the camera lens as his ball is still rolling. A few days later, while on the air, he let his listeners know how the round concluded: Not well.

He got to 18 with a fairly good round in hand. He swung hard. His ball landed about 100 yards to the right of where he wanted it to go. He said later that his friends were right – while a reporter and photographer were there watching, he played his best. When the limelight dimmed, so did his game.

But his search for new challenges continues. Son Cameron is in college and Carson is a sophomore in high school; he and Lana are not empty-nesters yet, but he says they know what’s coming. His son’s are at “the age where they don’t want Mom and Dad around as much as they used to.”

So in May they got out to the Kentucky Derby together. Stokley did bet on the winner, Mage, but had bets on ‘five or six’ other horses too. And he keeps working on his game, playing with friends, working on his radio career – endeavors that help give him a glimpse of what he had for 15 years.

“You don’t get that locker room feel doing much in life,” he says. “Doing radio is good – I got a great radio partner, so that’s a lot of fun. But you know, in the locker room when you have during the season 53 guys, you practice, and it’s just like a big brotherhood. You have so much fun. You have fun traveling and playing games and trying to accomplish winning the Super Bowl. You just can’t replace that. Nothing replaces that.”

My Favorite Moment

Brandon Stokley’s best golf shot came during a round at Augusta National with his friend, Peyton Manning. He drove over the trees on the left on the famous par 5 hole called Azalea. Then he delivered with a six-iron and ended up six feet from the cup. “The whole time in my mind I’m just telling myself ‘Don’t screw it up; at least get a birdie here and don’t three putt.’ He sank the putt for eagle. “That one felt good.”

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Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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