Whenever the Broncos were about to play, Kenneth "Kenny" Click had a running joke with his wife, Bobbi: "He'd say, 'I have to get taped up early in case the Broncos want me to play.' "

Back in the day, he could have been a contender. Mr. Click played college football for the University of Tulsa, making it as far as the Detroit Lions training camp. Although he didn't make the cut, he wasn't disappointed, said his daughter, Deborah Dix.

Instead, he turned his passion to a career as a sales representative for sporting goods, a perfect fit, said Dix. "He was charismatic, a people person, a magnet, and everybody loved him."

Mr. Click, 79, died March 15 in Denver of complications from intestinal surgery. He was the father of six - Dix, Dana Adams, Robyn Haas, Leslie Kropf, Paul Click and Suzanne Stillwagon - and one stepdaughter, Christina Frantz.

After many years in the sporting goods business, he started his own firm, Kenny Click and Associates, in Denver. "He was one of the first guys to strike out on his own as an independent sales representative," says Paul Click, who works for his father's company. Even in his final days, "He worked pretty much every day, and he was still very effective."

"He always said he was lucky because he never had to work a day in his life," Dix said.

After living in Tulsa for many years, Mr. Click was transferred to Denver in 1964. Divorced in 1978, he married his second wife, Bobbi, in 1986 after only three dates. "He never met a stranger," Bobbi Click said. "Everyone always said he was a friend. He was a very generous person with his time and very protective of his family."

Inevitably, when the family talks about him, the conversation turns to his skill with a grill. While she was growing up in Tulsa, said Dix, on one occasion the family had to run for the storm cellar to escape a tornado threat. "My dad was grilling a roast, and he would not leave the roast. It poured, the wind blew, and he just stood there under an umbrella. My mother was hopping mad.

"We came out of the storm cellar and he was drenched, but we had roast that night."

Later in life, he fell in love with The Green Egg brand of smoker, which makes everyone in the family chuckle. "He was so proud of it," said Mrs. Click.

He also was known for the affectionate nicknames he bestowed on his family.

"He called my mother the Skinny Redneck, because she was from Freeport, La.," said Bobbi Click. "No one else could have gotten away with that."

He called Adams "Super" because she always ordered the super ice cream cone at Dapper Dan's in Arvada.

But daughter Haas says her favorite memory of her father was the time he took her to college at Adams State. On the way there, her father, an "easy listening" radio fan, engaged her in a friendly game of "Name That Tune" to keep her from changing the channel. "He'd say, 'I can name that tune in five notes,' " she says, "and he'd mostly win."

In addition to his wife and children, all of Denver except Adams, Mr. Click leaves 16 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and two brothers, Russ, of Boerne, Texas, and Richard, of Tempe, Ariz.

Donations in his memory may be made to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

meitusm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5229