While vacationing in the Colorado mountains recently, I drove to Denver for the express purpose of watching Spencer Larsen practice at the Denver Broncos’ Dove Valley headquarters.

I wanted to see how the heart and soul of Arizona’s 2006-07 defenses looked in an NFL uniform. Does he clearly have NFL size? I wanted to see if the Broncos split his time between linebacker and fullback, which has been mentioned since they drafted him in April. I wanted to see if Spencer passed the eye-test.

But Spencer wasn’t there. He missed his first four days as a Bronco.

He returned to the Phoenix area to be with his family after his 2 1/2-year old niece, Kamber Ann Larsen, died tragically on July 25. Her funeral is scheduled Aug. 1 in Chandler.

I sat with the fans at Denver’s practice facility, beneath some shade trees on a hill overlooking the workout. Five security people monitored the fans (probably about 500 of them) and repeatedly told onlookers not to use cell phones.

What? It was noisy to the point that Broncos players and coaches couldn’t possibly hear a nearby phone conversation. So I asked a security guy who no cell phones.

“We don’t want anyone filming practice,’‘ he said. “We want to avoid what happened to the Jets and the Patriots last year.’‘

And this was late July, more than a month before the Broncos’ first regular season game.

Serious business, indeed, but nothing compared to that being experienced by Spencer’s brother, Ethan Larsen, and his extended family.