ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Garett and Natalie Bolles were frantically searching for answers as winter turned to spring in 2021. Their 3-year-old son Kingston, at an age when his peers were forming sentences, could only communicate a syllable or two at a time. The family, living at their offseason home in California at the time, traveled to Utah to meet with a speech pathologist who was recommended by Bolles’ sister, a special education teacher in the state.

A 45-minute session with the pathologist revealed that Kingston had childhood apraxia of speech, a motor speech disorder that creates difficulty in planning and coordinating the muscle movements required to speak. It’s a disorder that impacts roughly one in 1,000 children, but Garett and Natalie quickly realized they were in a perfect position to help their son.

The pathologist told the couple that the world’s most renowned expert in childhood apraxia of speech had recently moved to Colorado.

“We were like, ‘Where in Colorado?’” Garett Bolles, the longtime left tackle for the Denver Broncos, said. “She’s like, ‘Castle Rock.’ I said, ‘Castle Rock?! That’s like 15 or 20 minutes from my house!’”

Garett, Natalie and Garett’s mother immediately began inundating Jennifer Bjorem with emails and text messages. The reply took time. Bjorem’s schedule was packed with intensive therapy appointments, speaking engagements and worldwide travel. Finally, though, a meeting with the family was scheduled. Garett Bolles was thrilled — until he pulled into Bjorem’s driveway.

“Of course, the very first time he ever came to my house, I had a Chiefs flag flying,” Bjorem (pronounced BEE-your-UM) said with a laugh. “He was like, ‘We’ve got to fix something about this here.’”

Garett Bolles and Jennifer Bjorem talk to a visitor at the opening of the Bjorem & Bolles Apraxia Training Center. (Courtesy of Excel Sports Management)

More than four years later, as the Broncos and Chiefs prepare to meet in a pivotal AFC West matchup in Denver on Sunday, the partnership between the Chiefs fan and the Broncos star has turned into a unique “powerhouse,” as Bjorem calls it. In late August, she and the Broncos veteran celebrated the opening of the Bjorem & Bolles Apraxia Training Center in Parker, Colo., just outside Denver. The center will train speech pathologists how to diagnose and treat the often misunderstood disorder, which requires specialized intervention. The training curriculum is called “I Am King.” It’s a nod to Kingston, who has made massive strides through his weekly work with Bjorem — therapy that Bolles wants more families to have access to.

“He’s probably one of the — it makes me emotional — the hardest-working people I’ve ever met,” Bolles said of his son, who is now 8. “The stuff he does in school and just trying to be able to speak and seeing him transform from where he was to where he is now, it’s amazing.”

Bjorem ran a private practice in Kansas City that specialized in childhood apraxia of speech for 21 years before moving to Colorado in 2020. She describes the disorder by conjuring the image of a plug that has come unplugged from its socket. Plugging it back in requires an individualized education plan (IEP) between the child, his family and the speech expert.

“The brain is communicating with all the parts we need in order to speak,” Bjorem said. “So we use our diaphragm for breath. We use our vocal cords, which lengthen and shorten for our pitch. We also use them to voice or devoice sounds. We use our soft palate, which is the back of our mouth, to open that passage to do nasal sounds like, ‘mmmm’ and ‘nnnn.’ So all these are motor plans. When you’re trying to do all these things at once, children with childhood apraxia can’t motor plan them together. So it makes their speech so inconsistent.”

Restoring the plug requires endless repetition, Bjorem said, repeating words and sounds thousands of times to create the motor pathways necessary to speak. She often uses sports to explain the process of addressing the disorder.

“As a football player, you go to practice and you practice the same skill over and over and over again to get really good at it,” Bjorem said. “It’s the same way with childhood apraxia of speech. It was so funny because we were at Kingston’s IEP meeting (recently) and every time Garett says, ‘Do you see me? Every time I get up to the line (of scrimmage), I do this shuffle and then I go like this and go like this,’ and I’m like, ‘I know, Garett. I watch you, and your son does that in therapy.’ It’s a motor plan for you. You go and you just do it. Those are the ways I can talk to Garett so he understands what Kingston is going through.”

That Bolles wanted to use his own family’s experience with childhood apraxia of speech to help others wasn’t a surprise, given his history of community outreach. The 33-year-old was named the Broncos’ Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2023 as recognition of his widespread work mentoring youth in the Arapahoe County juvenile justice system. Bolles, as a teenager, went through some of the same experiences as the youth he counsels. He was kicked out of his house and “grew up going through the different law systems, getting caught up in different things, and serving my consequences.”

He has turned his own story into a vehicle to help others.

“I was just like, ‘What can we do to help these kids so that they don’t have to go live on the street or be in and out of foster care?’” Bolles said. “‘What can we do? Can we give them a vision and give them some light?’ That’s exactly what my family did. They gave me light and they gave me love. I’m where I’m at because of them. … Being able to contribute to that society of children and even young, single adults and being there for them and loving them and giving them courage and giving them guidance and direction, they bless my life. I know they always say I bless theirs, but they bless me way more than I feel like I do for them.”

The growing impact Bolles has made in the community has mirrored his growth as a player. The left tackle is playing some of the best football of his career in his ninth NFL season. He hasn’t allowed a single sack in 382 pass-block snaps, according to Pro Football Focus. He has surrendered only eight pressures and has been an anchor as a run blocker while working next to three different starters at left guard.

“We’re right across from each other in the locker room, so he’s the first person I see every day, and it’s just how professional he is,” said Alex Palczewski, who stepped in as the starter at left guard after injuries to Ben Powers and Matt Peart. “He just takes care of himself in all facets, mentally and physically. He puts himself in the best positions to succeed, and I’ve just tried to learn from that as much as possible.”

Garett Bolles says his son Kingston, now 8, has made big strides with his speech thanks to his work with Jennifer Bjorem. (Courtesy of Excel Sports Management)

Bolles quickly learned through his work with Bjorem that there was a need for more educational resources in the apraxia community. The idea was to create a space where more speech pathologists could be trained in how to diagnose and assess childhood apraxia of speech, which isn’t covered extensively in traditional speech therapy degree programs. The learning center will also be a place where family members can gain a better understanding of their roles in helping children with the disorder.

“Finding someone who, No. 1, will stick with the family and, No. 2, has the experience to treat the disorder correctly, I think that’s the hardest part,” Bjorem said. “I don’t have the capability to do it (for every family), but we do have the capability through a not-for-profit to give back everything we’ve learned and everything we’re doing to give back to the speech therapy community and give back to the apraxia community. We can really help effectively educate speech pathologists so they can go back and really start making a difference.”

When Bolles and Bjorem aren’t talking about Kingston’s progress or how to grow support in the apraxia community, they are talking about football. Bjorem has been a guest in Bolles’ family suite during every Chiefs-Broncos game in Denver the past four seasons. That included the matchup in 2022, when Bolles joined his family and friends as a spectator while rehabbing a broken leg he suffered earlier that season.

“He and I bantered back and forth, and that was tons of fun,” Bjorem said. “We love the banter and the football talk, especially about the Broncos and Chiefs. He loves that I love football. He likes that I love the Chiefs because it challenges him to make me more of a Broncos fan.”

Bolles is certainly making headway in that department. When Bjorem arrived at Empower Field at Mile High in Week 18 last week to watch the Broncos ultimately secure their first playoff berth in nine years by beating the Chiefs, she left her beloved Patrick Mahomes socks at home. She wore orange and blue, her allegiance to the “powerhouse” partnership with Denver’s hulking left tackle winning out.

“I’m getting you there, Jen,” Bolles told Bjorem. “I’m getting you there.”