By James B. Meadow
Rocky Mountain News
DENVER — On a sprawling wedge of park jammed between the Platte River and a gritty industrial crust of the west side, a confluence of kids, cops, philanthropy and loyalty spills together to create a legacy to community caring and friendship.
And somewhere, looking down on all this, a guardian angel with a crooked nose probably is smiling and shaking his head, wondering what took so long for it to happen.
Sometime in March, on the southeast cusp of Valverde Park, workers will begin clearing the way for what will be the $6.6 million Jerry Kennedy Police Athletic League headquarters. The 9,000-square- foot building will house the offices of the Denver Police Athletic League, and several training and boxing gyms.
Three spiffy athletic fields with artificial turf will be set in place right outside the building. And when the project is completed sometime in 2010, the lives of a lot of at-risk kids may be a little less risky and a lot more fun.
The project comes courtesy of the late cable-TV pioneer Bill Daniels. But it’s not the first blessing he’s bestowed on the PAL.
“Without Bill Daniels, PAL would never have grown to be what it is now,” says Jake Schroeder, the organization’s deputy director.
Daniels died in 2000, but his philanthropy lives on through the Denver-based Daniels Fund. In fact, says Schroeder, “Mr. Daniels has always been our guardian angel.”
“Bill actually made one of the first donations that caused the formation of PAL. It was $25,000, I think, back in the early ‘60s,” adds Jerry Kennedy, a retired Denver police captain who spent 34 years on the force, overseeing everything from SWAT to narcotics to vice to detectives. “He understood the relationship between sports and kids, how it deterred them from crime. He loved kids. He loved cops, too.”
Kennedy had been a friend of Daniels since the 1960s, when a mutual love of boxing - both men fought; Daniels in the Golden Gloves, Kennedy at Holy Family High School - brought them together. The ex-cop knows a lot about Daniels’ generosity and kindness. You see, he’s the guy the PAL headquarters are named for. That was an iron-clad stipulation in Daniels’ will - along with $1.5 million to take care of the construction.
Over the years, as the PAL looked for an appropriate location for the building and the fields, that bequest proved insufficient. But only temporarily.
“The board knew that Bill had always believed in PAL,” says Linda Childears, CEO of the Daniels Fund, the philanthropic organization created by Daniels. “It offered a perfect combination: It gave kids something to do, and it allowed cops to be role models. He liked that kids left PAL admiring and respecting police officers.
“Bill wanted the PAL to have the new facilities.”
When they “looked at different scenarios and options and came to us with a plan, we were ready to help them.”
Most of the foundation’s board members knew, as did Childears, “Bill had great respect for police, fire and military people, the ones who defend and protect us. There were so many times I’d see him walk into a room of 500, and the first person he’d go up to would be a police officer. He’d shake his hand and say, ‘Thank you for what you do.’ ”
They also knew if a policeman was injured or killed in the line of duty, Daniels would offer his help. Quietly.
Aware of this, and laughing at the memory of “this force of nature,” Childears and the Daniels Fund board weren’t going to do anything to impede the project. In fact, laughing again, Childears explains, “Although Bill would be thrilled to know that PAL will be getting these facilities, if he were still here, I think he’d probably say, ‘What the hell took you so long?’ ”
For Kennedy, the question that formed in his mind when he learned in 2000 that his friend had decreed the building be named for him was somewhat shorter, more of a “What the hell . . . ?”
“It was a total surprise to me,” he recalls, sounding less like a guy once known as the “toughest cop in Denver” and more like a man still awed by a friend’s gesture.
“It’s still humbling, y’know?” he says, “When I found out, I was taken aback.” Then, quickly recovering a bit of the Irish wise-guy humor that endeared him to Daniels, he adds, “I mean, I’ve had my name put on outhouse walls, but on a building?”
Then, turning serious, “What an honor. But what makes me so proud is this is going to immortalize my friendship with Bill.”
Thinking of Daniels, Kennedy remembers him as “a guy who was the quintessential giver . . . one of a kind . . . an American hero. I miss him. Hell, anybody who knew Bill misses him.”
Someday, people who never knew Daniels might miss him, too. Boys and girls whose lives are tough will find a recreational haven, thanks to a guy who loved cops and kids and thought they should get to know each other. A guardian angel with a boxer’s nose who never forgot his friends.
Copyright 2009 Rocky Mountain News