School Superintendent Is Nuggets Superfan With Decades-Old Pepsi Can Collection

When Chris Gdowski was ten, the Denver Nuggets won the 1976-1977 NBA Midwest Division crown. Pepsi issued a set of limited-edition cans with images of the players and coaching staff, along with their signatures, emblazoned on a white background.

Gdowski didn't know it at the time, but the soda release would stick with him until the Nuggets finally made it to the NBA finals in 2023.

Gdowski grew up next to Jaycee Park in Northglenn and often spent his time collecting aluminum cans left behind at the softball field as a way to make extra cash.

“Most days of the week, people would be out there playing softball until late at night and drinking lots of pop and beer,” he remembers. “I'd get up each morning early, like six o'clock in the morning, before the Parks and Rec crew got over there to clean the site up.”

As a kid, Gdowski's initial goal was to collect as much aluminum as possible to take to recycling centers as a way to earn money for baseball cards. But in 1977, his mission changed: He wanted to find all seventeen of the 1976-1977 Nuggets cans.

“All summer long, I remember going there and digging through and just being so excited when I found one that I hadn't had before,” he says. He kept the empty cans on a shelf in his room through college, and still has them today.

Now the superintendent of Adams 12 Five Star Schools, Gdowski is thrilled to have the vintage collection to help celebrate the occasion of the Nuggets making it to their first NBA finals.

“It has brought back lots of great memories of my childhood, for sure,” he says. “I’m enjoying the Nuggets so much right now, and I hope they can get over the hump and keep the trophy here in Denver for a year.”

Gdowski started watching the team when it was part of the American Basketball Association. He played basketball himself growing up, and even had the chance to compete for a youth championship at McNichols Arena before a Nuggets game one night.

“I was able to go sit courtside and meet some of the players, get autographs,” he recalls. “Just so many touches with the Nuggets when I was a kid that made me a hard-core fan and love the team and love the game.”

He remembers David Thompson as a key player on the 1996-1997 squad, along with Dan Issel, who would later coach the team. One of his personal favorites was Bobby Jones, who wore number 24.

“I was born on Christmas Eve, so 24 has always been a number I gravitated toward,” Gdowski says, noting that it was also the number he wore when he played as a youth.

“[Jones] was somebody who just worked really hard playing defense and was pretty scrappy and not necessarily a great scorer, but somebody who went out there and did his role the very best he could," he reflects. "That was the way I think I often played the game, too.”

Thompson was at Ball Arena for game two of the finals on June 4, where he interacted with fans and showed support for the current team. Alex English, one of the best Nuggets players ever, was also at the game, and a welcome sight for Gdowski.

“It's been fun to see the faces from the past,” he says.

On this current Nuggets team, Gdowski loves Nikola Jokic, of course. But he also admires the team’s guard play and has been enjoying Christian Braun’s rookie season. "He's out there coming in and hustling and not a big name, not a big reputation, but he's playing his role really highly effectively,” he says.

The former can collector is not panicking about the Miami Heat evening the series 1-1, but he plans to keep the Pepsi collection around for good luck. He is a bit superstitious, having also hung on to a lucky rabbit’s foot he got in Yellowstone when he was around seven or eight.

But getting to show people the Nuggets can collection is more about the fun than good luck, Gdowski says. “I just want as many people as possible to have some fun with the Nuggets season right now. Certainly the can collection is my way of doing it with my team here at Adams 12.”

He's noticed that people in Adams County and other metro Denver suburbs are feeling the Nuggets fever just as much as those who live near Ball Arena. At Adams 12’s principal-administrator meeting last week, numerous people were sporting Nuggets gear.

“I've not seen that,” he says. “The Avs have that going on every once in a while more intensely. I fairly consistently see Broncos stuff and Rockies…but the Nuggets stuff just hasn't been out there very much.”

Over the years, he adds, being a Nuggets fan has felt a bit like how he imagines it would have been to be a fan of the Chicago Cubs before they finally won a World Series in 2016, or what it might be like to root for the New York Jets right now.

He’s loving the energy around the team as it competes for a championship for the first time.

“Now that they're there, I really hope they go all the way and win it, because it is fleeting for most teams to have a chance to play in the finals,” Gdowski says.

If they bring home the championship, he thinks it would be cool to see another batch of customized Pepsi cans celebrating them.

“I'd be stoked to start a collection again,” he says.