Off Beat: Previous Denver Broncos owner was a Vancouver native

This is 12th Man territory, so most local Super Bowl viewers Sunday were rooting for the Seattle Seahawks.

Despite the regional loyalties, there is one significant local link to the Denver Broncos. Their previous owner was a Vancouver native, and his birth was front-page news in The Columbian — right next to a story about American submarines sinking enemy ships.

He didn’t live here long, but a lot of local history is wrapped up in the years when Edgar Kaiser Jr. and his parents lived in Vancouver.

They were part of the industrial empire that transformed Vancouver during its World War II shipyard boom.

Kaiser bought the Broncos in 1981. Before selling the team to Pat Bowlen in 1984, Kaiser engineered the acquisition of quarterback John Elway.

Elway led Denver to two Super Bowl wins and now is the executive in charge of football operations — the guy who rebuilt the Broncos into Seattle’s Super Bowl opponent.

Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.