It’s over.

It’s finally over.

It might be 35 years overdue, but the wait for one of football’s greatest linebackers, Champion alumnus Randy Gradishar, has finally come to an end.

The cynic in me wants to point out that if Gradishar were a Cowboy or a Steeler, he would have been enshrined in Canton a long time ago. Or how it took his fourth time as a finalist to be selected.

But this isn’t a moment for complaining about what should have been. I’ve complained each of the last few years.

I want to take this time to celebrate a local legend and someone who has played quite a role in my own personal sports journey.

As a fan, I owe a lot to Gradishar. So much of who I am as a person is tied to a man who retired from football a full 13 years before I was even born.

I was raised a Broncos fan. I knew no different. The Broncos surrounded me from the moment I entered the world. At risk of embarrassing myself, one of the first moments from my life I remember — mainly because the story has been told to me upwards of a million times — was sitting on a training toilet wearing a John Elway jersey and reading a Sports Illustrated. The Broncos have been a part of my life longer and have made a huge impact on my life, arguably more than most family members.

I’ve been ride or die before I even gained consciousness.

All of this traces back to Gradishar.

In 1976, my grandfather was a private pilot, and flew Gradishar’s father in law to a game. Also supposed to be on that plane and going to the game was my nine-year-old dad.

While the trip never happened, my dad received a package of autographed pictures of some of the Broncos roster, and a call from Gradishar himself.

After a brief conversation about spaghetti, a love affair was born, and it became the way of life I went on to be raised in.

I can’t remember a time in my life growing up where I didn’t share the same love for the Broncos. Just as the obsession grew with my dad back in the day, it grew with me. I studied the history of the game from a young age. At the age of five, odds are I could tell you the entire Broncos’ roster. For multiple Christmases a Broncos helmet sat atop the tree. I wore jerseys to school picture days. I pestered my parents for Madden and a system to play it on, and I collected as many jerseys as my younger self could get.

I’ve always credited the Youngstown SteelHounds as the reason I have this job, but my first bite at the apple of sports came with the Denver Broncos.

My love of sports cascaded and snowballed into falling for the other Denver teams, the city itself, and eventually working toward a job in the sports industry.

And it all ties back to Randy Gradishar, so to see him get his long overdue celebration is a special feeling.

Thank you to the committee for finally making the right decision. I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but I won’t say anything bad about the institution or your members for at least the next two weeks.

I’m glad this isn’t a fight I have to wage anymore. There’s only so many times you can mention his 2,049 career tackles, 19.5 sacks, 20 interceptions, and 13 fumble recoveries without coming off as a broken record.

And most of all, thank you Mr. Gradishar for helping a kid in 1976 fall in love with the Broncos so a kid in 1998 could do the same.

And now, albeit with much less of a platform as I’ve been afforded for the last few years, it’s on to another player for me to campaign for. The Broncos still aren’t represented well enough in Canton, so my job isn’t over.

Rod Smith, you’re up.