Draw play.

• Author: Schley, Stewart
• Position: SPORTS biz

When the Denver Broncos played for the first time in 1960, players took the field in uniforms that were (with apologies to Pat Bowlen) predominantly mustard. The Broncos, one of eight ragamuffin teams in the newly formed American Football League, suited up in mud-colored pants topped with pale yellow jerseys and brown helmets

General manager Dean Griffing, a notorious cheapskate, bought them on the cheap from a defunct Arizona team, according to Broncos lore. The team would have looked perfectly ordinary, a nondescript collegiate team from the Midwest, if it wasn't for the strange fashion accessory that appeared below. Inexplicably, the lower legs of the Broncos players were swaddled in garish, vertically striped stockings. When 18,700 fans showed up for the first Broncos home game at the old Denver Bears stadium, they were confronted with an epic fashion disaster that has not been repeated since in Colorado sports, with the possible exception of Doug Moe.

The team was a laughingstock for years, but at least the fashion sensibilities improved. In the summer of 1962, Broncos players ceremoniously tossed the offending leggings into a bonfire at Bears Stadium as 8,000 fans cheered wildly. By 1962, the Broncos sported Tennessee Orange jerseys and a logo featuring a bucking horse - design motifs that would endure until 1997, when the Broncos jettisoned their signature color in favor of dark-blue home uniforms and a modernized logo designed by graphic artists from Nike Inc. (All of this is nicely chronicled by the fan website endzonesportscharities.org).

Now, 50 years after they kicked off their first season, the Broncos and the National Football League are celebrating the silver anniversary of the renegade AFL by suiting up the eight original AFL teams in their old uniforms for several games, and introducing a "Legacy" collection of retro-themed merchandise.

Wisely, the Broncos aren't trotting out the old striped socks to commemorate the team's 50th birthday. Instead, a new logo has been crafted to bridge the old and the new. The artwork is the creation of Adrenalin, a sports-focused marketing communications company with offices near 11th and Broadway. Adrenalin was co-founded in 1998 by a former Denver Nuggets marketing department employee, Dan Price. Since then, the shop has been in the business of devising graphic looks and "brand identity" programs for dozens of professional teams and leagues

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