Gather around, children. This is a tale of a time long, long ago.
In the year Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Three, Mel Kiper Jr. did not work for ESPN.
Yes, it is so. Mel signed on in 1984.
In this unenlightened era, there were only 10 hours of televised NFL draft coverage. All of it came on Day 1. On Day 2, we played with the dinosaurs in the backyard.
"It's funny how there was no way to keep track of what was going on," said Karl Mecklenburg, the former Gopher who became a Denver Bronco exactly 25 years ago on Sunday. "It wasn't on TV. There were no Sprint phones. No Internet. No crawler. I didn't even know what round it was."
Fortunately, Mecklenburg had a girlfriend named Kathi Northfield, who 24 years ago became Kathi Mecklenburg.
"She could see I was getting a little upset," Mecklenburg said. "So she made me a margarita."
A strong one. Good night, Karl.
The phone inside Mecklenburg's Minneapolis apartment finally rang late that night. It was the Broncos calling to say they had selected Mecklenburg in the 12th round with the 310th overall pick.