DENVER — Just because Tony Boselli received football's ultimate individual honor with his 2022 induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame doesn't mean his induction Wednesday into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame was anticlimactic.
Boselli grew up in Boulder, and was all that for head coach Sam Pagano at Fairview High School in Boulder.
“It’s huge because like you said it’s where I grew up,'' Boselli said in an interview with 9NEWS prior to the Hall of Fame banquet at the Hilton Denver City Center. "To be honored by my home state ... my family will be here. A lot of my extended family. Coach Pagano, I give him a ton of credit. I would not be here in the Hall of Fame or anything else without him.
"So this is special to be included with so many great players who have been inducted in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.”
It was interesting that Boselli was inducted in the same class of 2024 as longtime Denver sports columnist Woody Paige.
The Broncos were 13-3 and the No. 1 AFC playoff seed in 1996 coming off a first-round bye when they met the wild card Jacksonville Jaguars — a second-year expansion team — on Jan. 4, 1997 in a second-round playoff game at old Mile High Stadium.
That morning, Paige's derisive piece on the Jaguars and the city of Jacksonville hit driveways and hotel rooms. Jacksonville behind a sensational performance by quarterback Mark Brunell and 140 yards rushing by Natrone Means — nice blocking, Tony Boselli — stunned the Broncos, 30-27.
“It was interesting,'' Boselli said. "It was a playoff game and I think we were 15-point dogs, nobody thought we would win and I remember waking up that morning before heading to the stadium and reading Woody Paige’s article and he called us the Jagwads and we were a bunch of jokes and we had no chance. We were already motivated. But that didn’t hurt.”
It was one of the two most heart-crushing defeats in Denver's NFL history, right there with the Flacco Fling that allowed Baltimore to eventually beat Peyton Manning and the heavily-favored Broncos in a second-round, 2012 season playoff game at Sports Authority Field.
“Growing up my dad and uncle had season tickets, sat in the fifth tier at old Mile High and they were the biggest Broncos fans 'til the day I got drafted by Jacksonville,'' Boselli said. "So to come back – I had 80 people. I bought 80 tickets. And funny thing after the game, I think 50% of them were happy for me but were mourning. Because they thought, 'Tony, it will be nice, we’ll show up. Broncos are going to the Super Bowl.'
"I found out that day that while my family loves me, they were rooting for the Broncos a little bit more than the Jaguars.”
Boselli showed mad respect to the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame by wearing his Pro Football Hall of Fame Gold Jacket to his induction ceremony Wednesday. Actually the Gold Jacket seemed to be wearing him. Boselli has dropped 60 pounds in the last 15 months and at 248 he's 77 down overall from his playing weight of 325. A new Gold Jacket has been ordered with his slimmed-down size but until it arrives, the original is hanging from him.
"It doesn’t fit right now,'' Boselli said. "I turned 50 right before I got inducted and I had just seen the doctor and said, 'You know, there’s not a lot of 300-pound-plus old people so it was time to take my health a little bit seriously.”
Boselli lives in the Jacksonville area with his family and serves as radio color commentator for preseason and regular season Jaguars games. He decided to step away from his national football commentator gigs as the traveling took too much time away from his family.
Besides Boselli and Paige, the HOF class of 2024 also included former Broncos defensive end Barney Chavous, legendary high school basketball coach Rudy Carey and longtime prep writer Scott Stocker.
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