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Seven on 7

Elway's ease with meddlesome media types was handed down from the father

Issue date: February 10, 1999 Special Collector's Edition: 1998 Denver Broncos

Grace under press-ure

Elway's ease with meddlesome media types was handed down from the father

By Austin Murphy

Who was this buffoon interrupting the Elways? On a gray November day at Mile High Stadium in 1984, the Broncos beat the New England Patriots 26-19. Afterward in the players' parking lot, John Elway, his father, Jack, and other members of their clan stood chatting in a circle. It was obviously a private party, so why was this oaf crashing it?

Under different circumstances, I would have left them alone. But I'd had a long day. In my capacity as a lowly rookie reporter for SI, I had spent the afternoon shagging quotes and refreshments for Paul Zimmerman, the magazine's football maven, who was writing the game story. Leaving the stadium, I was feeling a bit down. I hadn't been much help to Dr. Z. I'd only been at SI for a few months and didn't know a single NFL player. But here in the parking lot was someone I did know. The previous January, Jack Elway--now the Broncos' director of pro scouting but then the head coach at Stanford--had come knocking on the door of my parents' house in Glen Ellyn, Ill. He was recruiting my brother Mark, who would end up going to Boston College. It was a tribute to the elder Elway's skills as a thespian that he smiled throughout that afternoon, despite being subjected to several hours of my father's jokes and my mother's chili.

That's not all the poor man endured. At my mother's prompting, I handed him a sheaf of sports articles I'd written for my college newspaper. He assured me, after perusing my work, that the fact that I was unemployed and living with my parents was a fluke, a complete miscarriage of justice that would soon be corrected. And here, lo and behold, 10 months later, was my chance to show the man that his faith in me had been justified! As I launched into my spiel in the parking lot--"Mr. Elway, you won't remember this, but"--Jack had the good manners not to say, "You're right, I have no recollection of that. Please leave us alone." Instead, the Elways were uncommonly gracious; Jack congratulated me on getting a job, John expressed interest in what my brother was doing. I walked a little taller the rest of the way to my rental car.

On the field that day, Elway had directed a fourth-quarter comeback for the second time in his pro career. As the years went by and the term "fourth-quarter comeback" became Elway's registered trademark, it was impossible not to be impressed by his poise in trying circumstances. As good as he was with the game on the line, Elway was even better with a thicket of microphones in his face. I remember joining a scrum of reporters around his locker after Denver's 1997 opener, a homely, humdrum 19-3 win over the Kansas City Chiefs. About three minutes into the Q and A, a local TV reporter asked Elway to react to the tragic news about Princess Diana, who had been killed in a car accident the night before in Paris. "A lot of people forget that athletes have rights too," said the talking head, his eyes pools of compassion and concern. "How suffocating is it?"

Elway did not say, as well he might have, "It'd be a lot less suffocating if you'd get that mike out of my face." Instead, he politely dismissed any notion of similarity between himself and the late Princess of Wales by saying, "We don't have to deal with paparazzi. We just have to deal with nice guys like you."

Five months later, the Broncos beat Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXII. Jack Elway came into the Broncos' locker room, and as I looked on, he caught up his son in a titanic embrace. That hug is my favorite moment as a sportswriter. This time I did not interrupt the Elways. This time I left them alone.