On April 8, 1976, Dave Logan was sitting in a psychology class at the University of Colorado when he was summoned to leave.

It was the first day of the two-day NFL draft in New York and Logan had been a top wide receiver for the Buffaloes. But the draft wasn’t televised in those days and obviously there was no internet to check.

“I was pulled out of class by an assistant coach who told me I needed to be back in my dorm room,’’ Logan said.

So Logan returned to his room and soon the phone rang.

“The call came in and the lady asked if this is me,’’ he said. “I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘Please stand by for Mr. Art Modell of the Cleveland Browns.’”

Logan was then informed by the Browns owner that they had selected him in the third round of the draft with the No. 65 overall pick. And so began what has been a 50-year odyssey of Logan being associated with the NFL.

Oakland Raiders cornerback Dwayne O’Steen (35) knocks the ball away from Cleveland Browns wide receiver Dave Logan (85) to break up a pass play in the end zone in the first half of AFC playoff game Jan. 4, 1981, in Cleveland. (AP Photo)

Logan played for the Browns from 1976-83 before finishing his playing career with a brief stint with the Broncos in 1984. He then went into broadcasting, and by 1990 had joined the Broncos’ radio team on KOA as an analyst. He has been the full-time play-by-play announcer since 1997.

“I’ve always said I’ve really considered myself blessed in so many ways,’’ Logan said of hitting the 50-year mark heading into the April 23-25 NFL draft. “And when you look back at it, football, and sports in general, but football specifically has played such a key role in my entire lifetime. I’ve been in the NFL almost that entire 50-year period as either a player or a broadcaster. So I have fond memories of teammates and games and certain plays that will stay with me forever.”

Logan also has had plenty of success over the years outside the NFL. He has been a high school head coach in the Denver area since 1993 and has won an astounding 13 Colorado state titles, including seven at Cherry Creek High School, where he has been since 2012.

Logan has had the company Team Dave Logan since 2009, where homeowners can go to a website (teamdavelogan.com) and find contractors that have been vetted and are recommended. Plastered on all sorts of trucks in the Denver area are notations of a business being a member of “Team Dave Logan.”

On Thursday night, Logan, a 2000 inductee into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, will serve as co-emcee with Broncos sideline reporter Susie Wargin at the Hilton Denver City Center when the class of 2026 is inducted. The two, in their 16th straight year in the role, will welcome a class that includes Broncos defensive back Steve Foley, Nuggets guard Lafayette “Fat” Lever, Colorado quarterback Kordell Stewart, tennis ace Beatriz “Gigi” Fernandez, Olympic runner Wendy Koenig and University of Denver basketball player Harry Hollines.

“When you look at (Logan’s) life, it reads like a storybook or a movie script,’’ said Rick Lewis, Logan’s analyst for Broncos games the past nine years. “To be able to be that successful on so many levels in so many different things, it’s just remarkable.”

Dave Logan and Susie Wargin on Thursday will co-emcee the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame banquet for the 16th consecutive year. (Photo courtesy of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame)

While Logan, 72, has been affiliated with the NFL for 50 years, he has been prominent in Colorado sports for going on 60 years. He grew up in Wheat Ridge, where he excelled in football, basketball and baseball at Wheat Ridge High School. Then it was on to Colorado, where he starred in football and basketball. The only reason he didn’t play baseball for the Buffaloes was because then-football coach Bill Mallory put the kibosh on that so Logan would be available for spring practice.

In basketball, the 6-foot-5 forward averaged 14.1 points and 6.3 rebounds in three Buffaloes seasons. In football, he caught 67 passes for 1,060 yards in three active seasons for teams that rarely threw the ball.

“Dave was incredible in college,’’ said fullback Jim Kelleher, who was Logan’s Colorado teammate and was taken by Minnesota with the last pick in the 12-round 1977 NFL draft. “He had the biggest hands I’d ever seen and he made the best catch I’d ever seen against Oklahoma (in 1975) when he caught the ball in the corner of the end zone (with one hand). … We lived next to each other in an athletic dorm for a while. A lot of us partied and Dave Logan just worked hard. … He was a great athlete.”

Logan was so good of an athlete that he is one of just five men to have been drafted by the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball. He was selected as a pitcher and infielder in the 19th round by the Cincinnati Reds in 1972 coming out of high school before he elected to enroll at Colorado. Two months after he was chosen by the Browns, he was taken in the ninth round of the 1976 NBA draft by the Kansas City Kings.

Dave Logan averaged 14.1 points per game over 51 games across three seasons as a basketball player at Colorado in the 1970s. (Photo courtesy of CU Athletics)

“I was appreciative of (being drafted in three sports),’’ said Logan, raised in modest means as the only child of Maury, in the insurance business, and Etha, an administrative assistant. “But honestly as a kid, it was what I did. I couldn’t wait to get to the next sport.”

After being drafted by two leagues in 1976, Logan had one year of eligibility left at Colorado in basketball due to having taken a medical redshirt year in 1974-75. He was considering at one point playing that extra year and then giving the NBA a try. But Logan, bogged down by a season-ending broken left ankle suffered in a February 1976 basketball practice, eventually decided that football was the way to go.

Logan didn’t play a lot in his first two Browns seasons, being mostly a reserve behind future Hall of Fame inductee Paul Warfield, who was playing his final two NFL years. But Logan learned plenty from Warfield.

“He wasn’t overly talkative but would get right to the point,’’ Logan said. “I remember him saying, ‘You’re going to play in the league a long time and you need to take advantage of your strengths.’ He said, ‘You’re 230 pounds. You ought to beat the heck out of defensive backs at the line of scrimmage’ and that ‘you’re quick for your size.’”

Logan put that advice to good use. By 1979, he had his best NFL season, having career highs of 59 receptions, 982 yards and seven touchdowns.

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Dave Logan lands head first after snatching a Brian Sipe pass in the second quarter of a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Oct. 26, 1980, in Cleveland. Logan was actually tripped by Steeler strong safety Donnie Shell, who is not visible. In the background is Steeler linebacker Dennis Winston. Logan made a first down on this play. (AP Photo/Drexler)

One of those touchdowns was a 13-yard grab in which he beat future Pittsburgh Hall of Fame cornerback Mel Blount. A picture of the catch was featured on the cover of the Sept. 8, 1980, Sports Illustrated NFL preview issue.

“Dave was elite,’’ said Reggie Rucker, a Browns receiver from 1975-82. “He had the athleticism and he was 6-5 and could jump and had great hands. When we got Dave and Ozzie Newsome (a future Hall of Fame tight end who played for Cleveland from 1978-90), those were the final pieces of our passing game.”

In 1980, with league MVP Brian Sipe leading the way at quarterback, the Browns became the first NFL team to have five players catch 50 or more passes. Running back Mike Pruitt led the parade with 62 while Rucker had 52, Logan 51 (for 822 yards), Newsome 51 and running back Greg Pruitt 50.

The Browns that season went 11-5 and were dubbed the “Kardiac Kids” for winning so many close games. In claiming the AFC Central Division title, they won nine games by seven points or less.

“It was unbelievable,’’ Logan said. “We won so many games in such dramatic fashion. It got to the point where you couldn’t go out (in Cleveland). I remember going to a movie, and you literally had to wait until the movie started before you went in because you were going to be signing autographs. The city was completely turned upside down.”

The season, though, ended in heartbreak on a frigid Jan. 4, 1981, day at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, with the temperature 2 degrees at kickoff and 21 mph winds making the wind chill minus-20. With the Browns trailing the Oakland Raiders 14-12 in an AFC divisional playoff game and already having botched two field goals and two extra points on the icy field, they were going for a touchdown rather than setting up for a possible game-winning field goal by Don Cockroft.

But on second-and-9 at the Oakland 13 with 49 seconds remaining, Sipe threw a pass intended for Newsome that was intercepted in the end zone by safety Mike Davis, who had been Logan’s teammate in Colorado. The Raiders then ran out the clock for the win.

“I will never forget that game,’’ Logan said. “I’ve been in a lot of stadiums as a player and a broadcaster and I’ve never heard a stadium go from that loud to completely silent almost like a light switch got flipped.”

Broncos coach Sean Payton presents Dave Logan a game ball for Logan’s 600th game as a Broncos radio analyst and play-by-play voice with 850 KOA. (Photo courtesy the Denver Broncos)

Making things more painful for Logan and the Browns, the Raiders, as a wild-card team, went on to win Super Bowl XV. Logan said that was “Cleveland’s best chance” to have won a Super Bowl in the long-starved history of the franchise.

After the Browns went a pedestrian 18-23 over the next three seasons, Logan was ready to move on. Even though he “loved those fans” in Cleveland, he asked the Browns to trade him to his hometown team.

The Browns complied, and Logan was sent to the Broncos before the 1984 season. But it didn’t go well. Logan, then 30, said he “probably had lost a step” after having broken his right ankle in a February 1984 charity basketball game. He didn’t catch a single pass in the first three games.

In a Week 4 game against Kansas City, Logan caught his first and what would be his only Broncos pass for 3 yards from John Elway. But he came up 1 yard short of a first down on third down, and Denver coach Dan Reeves was livid.

“I was raised that there’s going to be times in the heat of battle that the coach is going to say something to you and you’ve got to be prepared to stand there and take it,’’ Logan said. “He was letting me have it for 45 seconds. Then he paused and I thought he was done. So I went back to the bench and he came back to the bench and started again. I think my frustration boiled over and I said something that will assuredly get you cut.”

That’s what indeed happened two days later. Mike Shanahan, who was in his first year with the team as wide receivers coach and later as head coach led the Broncos to two Super Bowl wins, was assigned by Reeves to call Logan.

“Dan Reeves called me and told me Dave was going to be cut,’’ Shanahan said. “I was sick. Dan asked me to call him and tell him that Dan wanted to talk to him. I was disappointed because I liked coaching (Logan) so much. I didn’t believe he was getting a fair shot.”

Dave Logan was traded from the Cleveland Browns to the Broncos prior to the 1984 season. (Photo courtesy of the Denver Broncos)

Logan said he “was totally embarrassed” by being cut from his hometown team because “for the first time in my career I was told I wasn’t good enough to play.”

Logan received an offer to sign with Seattle but decided instead to retire, finishing his nine-year NFL career with 263 catches for 4,250 yards. He was preparing to take the New York Life test while considering entering the insurance business. Then he got a call from Irv Brown, the legendary broadcaster, college basketball official and sports coach who died in 2019.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you come in and talk about the Super Bowl for the preview show?’” Logan said of the invitation to join Brown and his co-host Joe Williams on their popular “Irv and Joe Show” radio show to discuss Super Bowl XIX in January 1985. “So I did.”

Being on the show ended up as a regular gig for Logan and he made a paltry $682 before taxes in his first six months at the station. Then he got a raise for the next year to $1,000 a month, still a meager sum for a receiver who had been under contract to make $200,000 in 1984 had he not been cut.

“I was supplementing it by doing freelance stuff with Channel 4 and started doing (Colorado) games on TV with Ron Zappolo and later with Les Shapiro,’’ Logan said. “Then I started hosting the Bill McCartney (Colorado football coach’s) show on Channel 4 and the basketball coach’s show. You can’t make a lot of money doing that, but that gave me a lot of valuable experience.”

Logan in the late 1980s also was an analyst for Western Athletic Conference football and basketball games and for Big 8 basketball games. Then in 1990, he got a call from then Broncos radio play-by-play announcer Larry Zimmer, who died in 2024.

“He called me at home and said, “Are you going to apply for this job?” Logan said of the Broncos radio analyst job being open. “It never even entered my mind. … So I thought about it and I did, and I got hired in June of ’90.”

Dave Logan began his time at 850 KOA as an analyst for Broncos games in 1990. He continues to host a daily radio show with the station and serve as the play-by-play voice of the Broncos, calling more than 600 games and three Super Bowl victories. (Chris Tomasson, The Denver Gazette)

Logan spent his first six seasons in the broadcast booth doing color while also during that period spending some time as the Nuggets’ radio analyst. Then in 1996, with Zimmer also being Colorado’s football and basketball play-by-play announcer and there being some concerns about travel, it was decided Logan would do play-by-play on road games and Zimmer would be the analyst. The roles were flip-flopped for home games.

In 1997, Zimmer left the Broncos’ booth to become exclusively the Buffaloes’ announcer. Logan took over full time on play-by-play.

“That opportunity just doesn’t happen for former players,’’ said Logan, currently one of just three former players serving as an NFL radio play-by-play announcer, the others being ex-receivers Jimmy Cefalo for Miami and Steve Raible for Seattle. “It just doesn’t. … To do color on a game is basically what you are trained to do if you played in the league. …. It’s like you’re watching film. … To do play-by-play, there’s a lot more going on and there are times when you feel like a miller moth in a stiff breeze. … But I am so blessed.”

Logan sure felt blessed in his first two seasons as the regular play-by-play announcer. The Broncos won Super Bowl XXXII 31-24 over Green Bay and then Super Bowl XXXIII 34-19 over Atlanta.

“It hit me like, ‘Wait, they’re two minutes away from winning the Super Bowl,” Logan said of when the clock was ticking down against the Packers. “It was such a surreal moment because I had grown up here. I went to games in the late ‘60s when they weren’t very good and then there were the Super Bowl disappointments (with the Broncos losing their first four Super Bowl appearances between 1977-89 by an average margin of 28.3 points). And there they were, just two minutes away, and they got the lead, so just the emotion of it really was overwhelming for me to the point there was a time late in the game, I had to turn the mic off to kind of bite through my lower lip just to regain my composure because I knew what it meant for this region.”

Logan ended up calling a third Broncos title when they defeated Carolina 24-10 in Super Bowl 50 in the 2015 season. Overall, he has called four Super Bowls and six AFC Championship Games, the latest being Denver’s 10-7 loss to New England in January.

Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, left, shakes hands with radio announcer Dave Logan, right, as linebacker DeMarcus Ware looks on at a rally following a parade through downtown Feb. 9, 2016, in Denver. Fans crowded into Denver’s downtown to salute the Broncos for the team’s victory over the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

“I don’t think there’s a better guy in the NFL in doing play-by-play than Dave,’’ Lewis said. “Dave is just incredible. There’s almost nothing I can say that he doesn’t have the perfect comeback for. … I’ll drop something in maybe twice a game that is kind of outside the box just for fun, and Dave will have the perfect comeback or the perfect line to bring everything around.”

Shanahan, who was Denver’s head coach from 1995-2008 and retired from the NFL in 2015, long has been appreciative of Logan and calls him “a very good friend.” Shanahan has continued to live in the Denver area and often watches Broncos games with the television sound turned down and Logan’s radio calls turned up.

“People don’t realize how hard it is do what Dave has done and the way he has done it,’’ Shanahan said. “What can you say? He’s been the best at it. He’s handled it with class. He’s one of the few guys I’ve ever been around who can handle any situation and never seems to piss anyone off. He’s very honest and very real. He’s humble. With Dave, it’s not about himself. He’s one of the most humble people you’ll ever want to be around.”

Kelleher agreed, saying the one word he would use to describe Logan is “humility.” Logan has been named Colorado Sportscaster of the Year five times and is the most decorated football coach in the state’s high school history but often prefers to pass the praise on to others.

Logan got into coaching with Arvada West High School from 1993-1999, winning his first state title in 1997. Then it was on to Chatfield from 2000-02, winning a championship in 2001. Then from 2004-11, he was at Mullen, where he claimed crowns in 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2010. He has been at Cherry Creek since 2012, winning titles in 2014, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2025.

Mullen head coach Dave Logan rallies his team during a time out in the second quarter as the played against Regis Jesuit during the Class 5A state championship high school football game in Denver, Dec. 4, 2010. Mullen won 37-6. (AP Photo/Barry Gutierrez)

“I’ve never looked at myself as anything special,’’ Logan said. “I don’t consider myself special. I wasn’t raised that way. I had really good parents and there was an importance in terms of how you treat people, being humble, not thinking you’re better than anybody.”

Logan was influenced to become a coach by his parents talking “about the importance of giving back to kids.” Maury Logan, who was his son’s youth coach in basketball and football, died in January 1993, five months before Logan took his first head-coaching job in June 1993. His mother died in January 2021, having never missed any of his high school games until the final year of her life.

Logan was offered by Shanahan, whom he calls a mentor and who has attended many of Logan’s high school games, the job as Broncos wide receivers coach in 2000. Northern Colorado offered its head position in 2011. But he turned both jobs down.

“I coach because I love the game and I love working with kids and I think there are so many lessons to teach kids,’’ said Logan, who calls himself a “football nerd.”

Logan each year donates his coaching salary to his assistant coaches. Eight of his former players have appeared in NFL regular-season games in Kevin McDougal and Brad Pyatt from Arvada West, Lendale White from Chatfield, Ryan Hewitt and J.K. Scott from Mullen and Jaeden Graham and Gunnar Helm from Cherry Creek.

At the 2025 NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, Helm called Logan a “legendary coach” and talked about the “way that he develops players and he knows what’s best for guys.” The tight end was selected in the fourth round of last year’s draft by Tennessee and caught 44 passes for 357 yards as a rookie.

“He’s a heck of a coach,” said Phillip Lindsay, a running back who played at Denver South High School and Colorado before starring for the Broncos from 2018-20 and who has served as a broadcast partner with Logan. “He has changed so many kids’ lives for the best, getting them to college and doing something with their lives. … And then you look at him as a broadcaster for the Broncos for as long as he has done it. The man has done so much for the state of Colorado.”

Ray Baker, third from left, chairman of the Metropolitan Football Stadium District, makes a point as Joe Ellis, chief executive officer and president of the Denver Broncos, left, and Edmund F. Murphy III, chief executive officer and president of Empower Retirement, second from left, look on during a news conference to announce Empower’s 21-year deal with the Broncos for the naming rights to the NFL football team’s stadium Sept. 5, 2019, in Denver. Empower, which is based in the Denver suburb of Greenwood Village, is the second-largest provider of retirement plans in the United States. Dave Logan, the team’s broadcast announcer, sits at right. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

In 2009, Logan began to help homeowners. His mother had called to ask for a recommendation for a plumber and Logan didn’t have an immediate answer.

At the time, Logan was having coffee with Lori Grey, who was in sales in Denver. The two talked about starting a website that would recommend vetted home contractors. When Grey suggested it be called “Team Dave Logan,’’ the modest Logan at first balked until she convinced him it only would work with his name on it.

“When we launched in June of ’09, we probably had five companies total that launched with us,’’ Logan said. “We have over 200 vendor partners now on the website.”

Logan bought out Grey in 2018 to become sole owner of Team Dave Logan. Companies, which pay to be recommended, must go through an 18-point vetting process to be accepted. The company that started out with just Logan and Grey now has 10 employees.

Logan’s broadcasting work also includes being on a KOA sports show from 3 to 6 p.m. on weekdays during the offseason and 3 to 3:50 p.m. during football season. He joins Lindsay for a Broncos preview show on Channel 9 on Sunday mornings during the season.

“Maybe he’s not really human,’’ Lewis joked about how many different things Logan does. “He’s almost like a robot in that sense.”

Dave Logan, who has served as the emcee for 16 consecutive years, is shown with Broncos star safety Steve Atwater at the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame annual banquet. (Photo courtesy the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame)

Logan said it all comes down to “being structured and disciplined with your time.” He said with pride that he’s never missed a Broncos or a high school game. But there have been some close calls.

After Chatfield won the state title game on Dec. 1, 2001, Logan missed the last flight of the night to Miami for a Broncos game there the next day against the Dolphins. Through a friend, Logan found a small private plane that would take him to Florida with a stop in Memphis, Tenn.

Logan was the only passenger on the second leg, sitting in the cockpit next to the pilot before the plane arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 4 a.m. EST for the 1 p.m. game. Logan admitted he was “a little spooked” because the pilot was an “older gentleman,” and he was wondering if he might have to take over the controls if anything happened to him.

Logan has been successful at so many things in life he probably would have been able to fly the plane had that been needed.