On days like these, Garett Bolles still remembers the top of the stairs. Sitting there as his teenage years waned, in a home in Utah he wasn’t sure how much longer would be his, conditioned towards abandonment. Hearing his adopted mother Emily Freeman say the words that gave him purpose.
I’m going to be there when you get married. I’m going to be there when you have kids. I’m going to be there.
On days like these, Bolles only needs a slight push to remember where he’s come from. A reporter asked the Broncos left tackle Thursday about Greg and Emily Freeman, the family that picked up Bolles on the side of the road and took him in after he’d been kicked out.
“Now you’re trying to get me emotional,” Bolles said, successfully holding back the tears as he launched into a three-minute soliloquy on life and humanity itself.
“If we love everyone truly — doesn’t matter what color, race you are, where you come from, religion, background, how tall you are, how small you are – like, if you truly love somebody and look for their greatness,” Bolles said a minute in, “you’ll be able to find greatness in anybody.”
This is where his story began, the Freemans seeing greatness in an 18-year-old who now, at 33, goes through life looking for greatness in others around him. Bolles is in the midst of the best professional year of his life: an $82 million extension last December, a career-best season in pass protection this fall, the elder statesman on a legitimate Super Bowl contender after enduring years of misery. And the most impactful honor came Thursday, the left tackle honored as the organization’s nominee for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award for the second time in the past three years.
“I’m super grateful,” Bolles said Thursday. “It’s truly a blessing for me and my family. Obviously there are so many great people in this building that deserve it with our community, and what we do here as players and [how] the Broncos organization gives us a voice and a platform — for them selecting me the second time, I don’t take it very lightly.”
One day, Bolles thinks, he will write a book on his life. And that autobiography could contain far more reflection on society and humanity as a whole than on his life in the game of football.
His first Man of the Year nomination in 2023 came as a nod to his work in the Arapahoe County juvenile system, a constant presence meeting with and mentoring kids who he sees his younger self in. His second in 2025 comes as a nod to that continued work — but also an expansion of his activism for speech therapy and learning disabilities, after opening the Bjorem & Bolles Apraxia Education Initiative in August in Parker as a new learning center for speech pathologists and families.
Bolles’ son Kingston was diagnosed with apraxia of speech at three years old, a motor disorder that makes it difficult for children to speak. Bolles’ idea for the center, as he explained Thursday, was to create a place that could educate experts on apraxia and bring knowledge of the disorder back to schools across the country.
This summer, Bolles said, he and the staff will travel to share news of their center at a national apraxia conference. The center plans to create a widespread resource platform that can help families across the country locate the nearest apraxia specialist. And Bolles said they’re aiming to launch their first training session in July, with the curriculum finalized by the start of 2026.
The decided name of that curriculum? “I Am King,” after Bolles’ son.
“This has been something I’ve always wanted to do as a kid – kids that have struggled with learning disabilities, and people that don’t have a voice like I used to not have,” Bolles said. “So now that I have one, I want to use it, use my platform, and be able to help as many kids as possible.”
Bolles still remembers full well how low of a score he got on the Wonderlic, a test formerly used by the NFL to measure cognitive abilities for pre-draft prospects.
“He was always told, ‘You’re too dumb to play in this league,’ ” uncle McKinley Oswald recalled to The Post, back in August. “‘You’ve got a learning disability. It’s never going to happen.’
“And so, he still — even that, drives him.”
Bolles thanked everyone in a press conference Thursday for how far he’d come, a journey that only continues to blossom. He expressed love for the Freemans, and wife Natalie, and kids Kingston, Ariyah and Zayah. He thanked local reporters for highlighting him. He thanked his old Broncos teammates that had taught him how to create an influence: Von Miller, Derek Wolfe, Aqib Talib, Chris Harris Jr., and the late Demaryius Thomas. He thanked Liz Jeralds, Allie Engelken and Olivia Irving, members of the Broncos’ community engagement team.
And he went plenty deeper, inside the organization that he’s now seeing rise to prominence. Football has given him a platform, Bolles feels. His platform only continues to grow as the Broncos do, a franchise sitting at 10-2, the kind of success the nine-year veteran has been waiting for.
“It’s the thinking, it’s the culture, it’s the attitude, it’s the love that you have for your teammates,” Bolles said Thursday. “It’s the people that clean our buildings, it’s the people that come and wash our cars. It’s the weight room, it’s the community team, it’s the front office. It’s like all of the above. The analytic department.
“And then obviously, when you have great owners, you see this building behind us,” Bolles continued, gesturing at the Broncos’ new practice facility, “this is what it takes to build an empire. And that’s what we want.”
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