Attending the final game at Mile High Stadium on Saturday will be a bittersweet experience. It will be bitter because you hate to see these great, old institutions of football get torn down. But it will also be sweet because the Denver Broncos have been successful enough to deserve a new state-of-the-art facility.

There's no doubt in my mind that the Broncos will be a better organization in the future for having a new facility, especially in this era of free agency. It will make them a more attractive team. And even though I'll never play in the new building and because I only played for the Broncos and my heart is tied to that team, I feel like I had something to do with the new stadium being built and the success they've had over the decades. All of the former Broncos feel that way.

But Mile High Stadium has a certain aura about it. I used to live in an area east of the stadium. Until my last four years when I had moved to the mountains, I always had the mountains as a backdrop when I would drive to Mile High Stadium. When I retired, that was the thing I missed the most -- that drive into the stadium, that quiet time in the car coming to the stadium and then kind of getting out and letting the atmosphere just kind of flow over me.

I remember the first game I played at Mile High Stadium in 1973. When I was at Louisville, I had never played in front of crowd larger than 40,000 people. But the first time I entered Mile High for a regular-season game, the sheer numbers of people overwhelmed me. After being at little Louisville, here I was, starting for the Denver Broncos in front of 75,000 avid football fans. I thought, "My goodness, what a crowd."

My favorite Mile High moment came after we won our first AFC championship game against the Oakland Raiders on Jan. 1, 1978. The crowd came on the field and tore the goalposts down in the south end of the stadium and literally covered the field. I took a look from the little locker-room opening onto the field, which is elevated about 10 feet over the fans. I was looking out on this sea of people who were having a party -- and we were the cause.

Closely matching that moment was a game we played earlier more than a month earlier against the Baltimore Colts. We were 9-1 and looking to get home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs when the Colts came to Mile High. We played a solid game, and in the end I returned an interception 73 yards for a touchdown. That sealed home field for us, and the interception return was my greatest individual moment in football. The championship game, though, ranks first and foremost.

I'll miss the fans the most at Mile High Stadium. All stadiums have a certain character, especially the ones that have been around the longest. But I've always believed the fans can really enhance your opportunity to win. And the Broncos fans did that along, adding to the mystique about altitude and people being a mile up in the air. It all begins with the fans, though.

The fans found out they could move the stadium. If they pounded and stomped their feet hard enough and banged their chairs loud enough, Mile High would vibrate. The fans did that more often than not when we needed them to. It was a great advantage to have the crowd noise and the movement to shake up your opponent. I doubt if the fans could make the new structure move.

Saturday will be one final moment in a special place. The new stadium will build its own character and have its own share of great moments. But those initial moments at Mile High -- the victories, the playoff games, the championship games -- will never be repeated.