Paul Klee: Steve Atwater, Pro Football Hall of Famer, the perfect Denver Bronco

Aug. 6—DENVER — The people who work with Steve Atwater — people who are not Pro Football Hall of Famers — believe they know why Steve loathed the COVID-19 pandemic the most.

No handshakes. No genuine conversations about their families. No hugs.

The Broncos legend — a term too often tossed around lightly, but here it's apt — returned to Colorado four years ago as something called a "Fan Development Manager." I guess the title "Perfect Bronco" was taken, by whom I don't know. And every morning without exception Atwater enters the Dove Valley offices with a "What's up!" and a car wash of good mornings.

His coworkers are a bunch of mes, teenagers of the 90s. They are grown adults with families who behave like astonished children because the football hero they adored is so ... delightful.

He's Steve Atwater, we're not, and why on earth does Steve Atwater care if little Johnny's walking yet?

"Watch Steve interact with people at training camp. He meets a Broncos fan and you can see the fan walk away, 'Oh, my God. I just met Steve Atwater," said ESPN.com's Jeff Legwold, the longtime NFL writer who presented Atwater's case to Hall of Fame voters throughout his eligibility. "And then they say, 'And he actually cared about meeting me.'"

The greatest defensive player in Broncos history goes into the Hall of Fame on Sunday, and here's an admission with which maybe you can relate: I could not possibly care less about Hall of Fame inductions. Twitter is more necessary. Wasn't it enough to idolize these guys as players, advertisers, Fatheads and millionaires? Now they require bronze busts? Gimme a break.

All that, and I absolutely can't wait for Steve Atwater to get his due. He is not only the perfect Bronco, he's a real-life role model, married 30 years and raising kids who went to Princeton, Georgetown and Stanford. I mean, come on. That's about the only way to make the Christian Okoye highlight a distant second. Actually, check that. The Christian Okoye highlight is still the coolest.

I am totally biased. I've lived by the Jay-Z rule that if you're over 30 you should not wear another's man jersey, and before that I owned only two jerseys: the No. 3 of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and the No. 27 of Steve Atwater. One never missed, the other never missed a tackle.

I miss watching Steve Atwater play football. Nuggets games were affordable. We could buy a $12 ticket and the ushers at McNichols looked the other way when you moved down against the Clippers. Broncos tickets were different, especially against the stupid Raiders, and most of our youthful fandom was Frank Gifford and Pat Summerall calling you in from the kitchen.

"Intercepted, Atwater! Steve Atwater!"

"He is popped by Steve Atwater!"

"He's listed as a safety but he plays like a linebacker."

"Who else, but Atwater?"

Who else, but Atwater.

His former teammates adore the man.

"I tell people all the time," ex-Bronco Alfred Williams told me. "My claim to fame is that I played with Steve Atwater."

"More importantly than (football) is the Hall of Fame person that you are," former Bronco Mark Schlereth said in a message at 104.3 The Fan. "I admire you as a husband, as a father. You are one of the great people that I've ever had the pleasure of calling (a) friend."

Then and now, the Broncos front office types who brought him to Colorado adore the man.

"He's been that way since Day 1," said Ron Hill, the chief scout most responsible for the Broncos drafting Atwater in 1989. "He's never changed."

Current Broncos adore the man.

"The thing about Steve is that he's just as interested in your personal life and what's going on with you off the field as he is about you on the field," Broncos safety Justin Simmons told me. "He's always been that way since I got here. I can go to him about anything that's going on in life."

The Hall of Fame voter who lobbied for Atwater's induction over a decade adores the man.

"My Dad worked on the railroad his whole life. You and I wouldn't last a day doing what he went through every day," Legwold said. "He would say, 'You're going to have your name your whole life, so make sure it means something.' From my work with Steve, that's how he lives."

Nice things, and things you might expect to hear from teammates and football folks whose careers intertwined with a Hall of Famer. But someone smart said a long time ago the true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him no good. Here that could be the Broncos coworkers he's worked with for these four years, out-of-the-spotlight, normal people.

"He begins or ends every conversation asking about my family. Always. Without exception," said Matt Boyer, the producer with the Broncos digital media team. "I don't know if I've ever had a coworker like that anywhere I've worked, let alone someone with his level of notoriety."

No. 27 won't change with a new gold jacket Sunday, and neither will this: the reason so many people care about Steve Atwater's Hall of Fame induction is that Steve Atwater cares about so many people.