The afternoon of June 24, a line of black SUVs made its way to downtown Denver and wrapped around a two-block stretch of the North Capitol Hill neighborhood. Traffic stalled along the main thoroughfare as curious drivers slowed to watch dozens of former NFL players, coaches and team owners, most clad in dark suits and sunglasses, exit the cars and gather on the steps of the century-old Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.



Sometimes called “The Pinnacled Glory of the West,” the Gothic cathedral has a grandeur fitting of its history, with 210-foot twin bell spires that tower over Colfax Avenue, an interior blanketed in white marble and 75 elaborate stained-glass windows that cast colored beams onto its wooden pews.



There was perhaps no place more suitable to honor Pat Bowlen, the longtime owner of the Denver Broncos who died 11 days earlier at age 75. Bowlen owned the Broncos for 35 years and transformed a once-floundering franchise into...