Gloria Miller always had a prime parking spot at the local football fields. Always. Because the extension cord had to reach from the trunk of her Suburban to the sideline.

“I would have his nebulizer in my truck and it had a D/C adapter so I could run it off the battery of my truck,” she explained. “It had a long extension cord and we just ran it out of the back of the truck.”

Battery-powered nebulizers cost upward of $400 back then, so Gloria had to get creative with her trusty electronic one to help out her son, Von, when his asthma flared up in the middle of games. His coaches would call timeout, Von would rush to the sideline and for a few minutes he would receive treatment from mom’s machine. And then he’d return to the field, good as new.

For the most part, the plan worked out swimmingly. Although there was that one time when it rained during practice and Gloria asked Von’s coaches to let him leave, despite the coaches’ insistence that the kid better get used to playing in the rain.

“‘I understand that but he doesn’t have to do it today because I guarantee you if I call either one of y’all at 2 in the morning saying I’m on my way to the hospital with my son, you’re not going to get up and meet me up there,'” she told them. “Thank God he was never hospitalized.”

Thank mom.

Gloria “Mom of the Millennium” Miller was always there. Every game, every sporting event, every level, (almost) every televised dance recital — she was there, hiding somewhere in the stands as Von got to be Von, winning titles and winning over fans.

Sebrina Johnson was there, too. Every game, every moment, all squeezed between multiple jobs and studying for multiple degrees to provide a life for her son, Broncos outside linebacker Shane Ray.

So was Barbara Marshall, who helped her son Brandon to a career in the NFL and a starring role with the Broncos, as their starting inside linebacker.

So were many other mothers, who have spent years in the background while guiding their now-Denver Bronco sons to fame and success and a life nearly all had dreamed of as kids.

“My mother always told me, ‘When you have kids, that’s 18-plus years of your life on hold because you have to cater more or less to that child,’” Gloria said. “Their life just became my life and that’s how we do it today.”

Being there for Von

There’s an inherent flaw with those ticketing websites that allow users to see their views from the stands before they spend big on a seat: They can show the field, but not your neighbors. They don’t warn you that those seemingly perfect Super Bowl 50 seats at Levi’s Stadium will be in the thick of Carolina Panthers fans.

They don’t tell you that — even if you’re Von Miller’s mother.

“Other than that,” Gloria said, “they were right at the goal line and every major play that he made was right at that goal line where we were.”

But what Gloria remembers most from that February 2016 week in San Francisco was not so much her son’s 2.5 sacks and pair of force fumbles, or the latest shiny trophies he received for his efforts, but the look in his eyes and the oddly calm demeanor he had before the biggest game of his career.

“Leading up into it, we kind of feed off each other,” Gloria said. “I try to stay calm and he’ll always say, ‘You good? You good?’ ‘I’m good, son. I’m good.’”

Von had mom and mom had Von, and since Von physically couldn’t do it two years earlier, because of a torn ACL ahead of Super Bowl XLVIII, he did it all in 2016.

And then he cried. He cried and he hugged his mom, who was wearing an orange-and-blue 58 jersey, and he cried as he hugged his dad.

They made it together. And together they embarked on a celebratory tour after the Super Bowl win. Gloria was there for many of the talk-show appearances and all but one of Von’s “Dancing With the Stars” performances.

“You know, he thinks he’s a dancer,” she said jokingly. “He does have rhythm, I have to give it to him.”

Gloria was there for the draft in New York in 2011: “That was probably one of the best days — other than him learning how to walk because he was a heavy kid,” she said.

She was there to watch Von bounce back from a six-game suspension for a substance-abuse policy violation in 2013, and there to be his temporary driver after knee surgery months later. She was there when he was a kid watching a Cowboys game with his father and Von told her: “I want my daddy to yell for me like that one day. I’m going to the NFL. I’m going to the National Football League. I’m going.’”

Gloria was there to nod and say, ‘OK.’

“You have some guys who say, ‘I’m going to the NFL’ and they don’t go as high as he did or have an immediate impact like he did,” she said. “I’m just proud him. I’m glad that he’s getting everything that he wants, finally. You sit back and you see it, from birth to where he is, and it’s just amazing.”

Always in Shane’s corner

In the spring of 1994, Sebrina Johnson made the honorary walk down Campanile Hill to accept her diploma from the University of Kansas with a 1-year-old attached to her hip. She didn’t have much choice, but she probably didn’t want one either.

“I had Shane one week after my finals and I went back to school that fall and graduated in May,” she recalled. “Everywhere I went, I took him. We just grew up together. We relied on each other a lot, and I promised him that I would give him the best life possible.”

So Johnson got her degree in graphic design, only to realize starting jobs paid pennies compared to the multiple part-time positions she had over the years. There was the IT job and pie-making business and, on the side, painting for her friend’s construction company, all of which she worked to fund Shane’s clothes and shoes and sports and $10,000-a-year private high school, where they had structure and religion and football and everything a kid could want or need to stay off the streets and avoid becoming another name that fails to make it out of Kansas City’s “Murder Factory.”

Johnson, a divorced single mother, saw the streets take the life of her nephew. They weren’t going to take her son, too. So she saved her money and then she saved Shane, sticking by his side when so many others didn’t, and leading him to a prolific college career at Missouri before a promising one as a pro in Denver.

The football part, she said, just happened. Her goals have always been simple.

“Every decision I made for him was so he could be a good person and he had an education,” she said. “When Shane was in college, even though he was on scholarship, I would still save money like he was going to (Bishop) Miege (High) because I never knew if he needed something, if something would happen with the car, if he needed clothes or needed food or that type of thing. So I would still save money and I would put it aside for him. He didn’t know I was still doing that.”

Like Gloria Miller, Johnson — now with two master’s degrees — was always there and still is. She travels back and forth between Denver and Kansas City and attends every game that Shane lets her attend; not Oakland, he said. Atmosphere is too violent.

“We went through a lot together,” she said. “His anger with his father not being around, and then I went through a divorce and it was really ugly. He lifted me up through that whole thing. He was like, ‘Mom, I got you. It’s just you and me.’”

Sacrificing for Brandon

Barbara Marshall knows people probably think she’s fibbing when she says this, but it’s true: She doesn’t get nervous for her son’s games.

“I really don’t,” she said. “I’ve been asked that question a lot and a lot of people may find it odd, a lot of moms. But I don’t. I know what it is and I know what he has to do and I just pray and then I just want to enjoy the game. I don’t try to stress over what could happen or anything like that.”

Maybe because the games are more like celebrations after a long and often-trying journey. It wasn’t always this way, with Brandon, now a multi-millionaire linebacker, and his brother, Marcus, now an up-and-coming singer and songwriter.

There were those days when they spent nights at shelters to avoid the abuse of her ex-husband. There were those times when Barbara worked multiple jobs to feed her sons. There were those days when Brandon, drafted by Jacksonville, believed he had a real opportunity with the Jaguars but was quickly cast aside.

But then there were those days like the one this past March, when Brandon, after months of receiving some support and a lot of backlash for his protests during the national anthem, was honored by Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

“It was overwhelming. It was validation,” Barbara said, echoing her son’s earlier comments. “It was all of his hard work and just watching him and listening to his speech, he didn’t make it about him even though this was his award. He made it about other people and what we can do next. It’s wonderful just to see how, as an adult, how he views the world. I was just so excited for him. That was such a great honor and I told him, ‘You’re a part of American history.’ ”

For months last year, Barbara lived with both fear and pride. Fear of her son’s safety after he received hate-filled and threatening messages, and after a man burned an orange shirt adorned with Marshall’s name outside the Broncos’ practice facility.

Pride in knowing that her son had the courage and conviction to take a stance — and a kneel. Pride that, together, they had overcome the latest obstacle in their journey. Related Articles September 17, 2020 Broncos’ Von Miller gives fans “Mile High Salute” while sharing photo of leg in cast

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After Brandon signed his $32 million contract extension last summer, he made two major purchases. He bought himself a house, because for the first time in a long time he could finally settle. And then he called his mom to reveal the other.

“He called me and told me that he wanted to buy me a house. He told me wherever I wanted to live just to let him know,” she said. “I decided that I wanted to move (to Colorado) because he went away to college at 17 and we have been gone all these years and I haven’t been in the same place with him for so long. This gives me an opportunity to attend all the games and I can do some community service here and help him with his foundation.”

Barbara Marshall — like Gloria Miller and Sebrina Johnson — is here. Always.