No Plan B

by Mark Kiszla

  Elway was walking into a mess, the result of perhaps the most embarrassing stretch for a proud franchise, caused by the mistakes of inexperienced coach Josh McDaniels, who had been fired in December 2010 after a videotaping scandal had shamed the Broncos as bungling cheaters. Elway did not have a head coach. In the wake of a 4-12 season, it might have been kind to say the Denver roster stunk. Was Elway in over his head?

  Rather than try to bluff, Elway smartly admitted two things, from his first day on the job: (1) competitiveness was far and away his greatest asset; and (2) he was smart enough to realize there was a lot for him to learn about operating an NFL team, and he would show no reluctance to ask for help.

  It is a gross simplification to suggest, but everything Elway needed to know about the slim difference between winning a lot and winning it all he learned the hard way from Dan Reeves.

  Reeves was the coach in Denver when Elway entered the NFL in 1983. Many Broncos fans, not to mention Elway himself, chafed at the harness Reeves put on Elway’s talent with conservative play calling.

  It would be folly, however, to deny that Reeves also taught Elway how a football gunslinger who saves a few bullets for the fourth quarter can survive and become the triumphant hero in the end. “Anytime you have John Elway,” Reeves was fond of saying, “you have a chance.”

  The Broncos Ring of Fame honors the most essential contributors to the franchise. How can the Ring of Fame exist without Reeves, with his 110 regular-season victories and three AFC championships, as a member? That is a cruel joke. Not funny, not funny at all.

  But there is also no denying: Reeves graduated from a school as old, traditional, and stuffy as that Stetson fedora his mentor, Tom Landry, wore on the sideline for the Dallas Cowboys. In Denver, Reeves erected a thick wall between his office and the locker room. Coaches gave orders. Players listened. Elway grew sick of it. Somebody had to go. The superstar won.

  At training camp in 1993, months after Reeves had been fired and departed town for a job with the New York Giants, Elway ripped his former coach: “The last three years have been hell. I know that I would not have been back if Dan Reeves had been here. It wasn’t worth it to me. I didn’t enjoy it. It wasn’t any fun, and I got tired of working with him.”

  At the time, at the ugly height of the feud, Reeves snapped back: “Just tell him it wasn’t exactly heaven for me, either. One of these days, I hope he grows up.”

  Time wounds all heels. Nevertheless, realizing bitterness makes for a lousy partner during the long walk through life, Elway has buried the hatchet with Reeves.

  His clashes with Reeves made it crystal clear to Elway: In football matters, he would never be a dictator. Elway would surround himself with smart people willing to challenge his ideas. A football executive might be at the top of the team’s organizational chart, but his job is to serve.

  “The most important people in football are the ones who play,” Elway said. “The players are the ones who make it happen on the field. I’m just trying to put the puzzle together outside the lines. Front-office people and coaches who have success in the NFL understand it’s the players who make everything happen.”

  The instant I heard Elway tell me his basic management philosophy, his words sent my mind racing back to informal chats I was blessed to enjoy with UCLA’s legendary Wooden through the years at the Final Four. He was the Wizard of Westwood. The magic was in his humility, which prompted an important piece of sports wisdom that stuck. “The better the players I had on the basketball floor,” Wooden told me, “the smarter the coach I became.”

  Elway instinctively understands what Wooden figured out decades ago.

  General managers draft, sign, and trade for talent. Coaches draw X’s and O’s. But only players can turn all the hours of planning into a championship.

  For most Broncomaniacs, the most indelible image from Elway’s first run to the Super Bowl was a damn-the-torpedoes play now simply known as “The Helicopter.”

  If you are unable to recite every detail of that famous Elway scramble by heart, your Broncos Country citizenship card can be revoked. It was the defining moment of Denver’s 31–24 upset of Green Bay. Needing six yards to keep a drive alive in the red zone, Elway threw caution and his body to the wind, spinning like helicopter blades through hits by three defenders to gain a first down.

  It, however, was neither the most crucial play along the long road to that Super Bowl victory, nor the fondest photograph I have kept from the first championship season in Broncos history.

  Two weeks before Elway and running back Terrell Davis shocked Green Bay, a berth in the Super Bowl was on the line January 11, 1998. As Denver battled Pittsburgh down by the river in Pennsylvania, the unofficial but extremely emotional play-by-play description of the action on the field was provided to me by Jack Elway and Jerry Frei, two former coaches whose vast knowledge of the game benefited the Broncos. Elway was the team’s director of pro scouting, while Frei oversaw the college scouting department.

  Frei was a spry 73 years old at the time, seven years older than Elway. They sat a row behind me in the Steelers’ press box. It was a bigger hoot than watching an episode of The Muppets from the balcony alongside Statler and Waldorf.

  Late in the fourth quarter, after the Steelers had pulled to within 24–21 on a touchdown pass from Kordell Stewart to Charles Johnson, the stadium was rocking, as terrible towels waved. Denver was pinned back at its own 15-yard line, needing six yards to retain possession of the ball. Sometimes you can feel a momentum shift, and other times it rumbles louder than an oncoming avalanche.

  A punt at this point would have been akin to punching Pittsburgh’s ticket to the Super Bowl. With two minutes remaining in the final period, the Broncos broke the huddle on third down. Make or break time. Elway’s favorite time.

  Before Shannon Sharpe trotted to the line of scrimmage and took his upright stance in the left slot, the tight end spun quickly, and excitedly asked Elway: “What route do I run?”

  Elway replied: “Just get open!”

  Sharpe ran a deep curl. In the instant he turned back to catch his quarterback’s attention, a pass arrived like a wrecking ball intent on knocking a hole in Sharpe’s massive chest. Somehow, the tight end held on to the football for an 18-yard gain. The most important play in franchise history could not have been more improvised if it had been drawn in the dirt.

  Great players can make a coach look like a genius.

  Up in the press box, my head swiveled away from the spot on the field where Sharpe made the most clutch catch in team history. From the second row of the press box, Jack Elway looked at Jerry Frei and with pure unbridled joy exclaimed: “You know where we’re going, don’t you?”

  The Super Bowl.

  Then, the two old football coaches hugged as if their winning lotto numbers had hit.

  Manning was born to play quarterback.

  Jack Elway raised his son to never surrender.

  During the late 1990s, as his golden years coincided with the Broncos’ glory years, the elder Elway would often cross my path in the hallway at team headquarters. He would nod hello, and if there was an educational message to convey to a Denver Post sportswriter, the legendary QB’s father would grab my elbow and talk in a voice as hushed as a police informant.

  “John really did not like that column you wrote for today’s paper,” Jack Elway might tell me, his words accompanied by an impish grin that tickled him all the way to the funny bone. “Don’t tell John. But I thought what you wrote was great . . . even if I didn’t agree with a word of it. Bad press gets his competitive juices flowing. Keep it up.”

  Most NFL players are thankful if they have one game of a lifetime. Elway had 50. At least.

  But perhaps the most telling Elway performance occurred during his rookie season. Not as a ballyhooed rookie draft with the Broncos, but as a peewee player in Montana.

  Although I was far from the first to hear the story, Jack Elway’s eyes twinkled when he introduced me t
o the tale. Once upon a time, in a faraway land, where the deer and the antelope play . . .

  Young Elway was a fourth grader. His favorite team was the Dallas Cowboys. His hero was Calvin Hill. So the kid wanted to be a running back when he joined a youth football league in Missoula, Montana, where his father was an assistant football coach at the local university.

  The schedules of the University of Montana Grizzlies of father Jack and the Little Grizzlies of young John were often in conflict during the autumn. So Jack did the smart thing. He enlisted a set of trained and trusted eyes to keep notes on his young running back.

  The trusty scout in question? A Montana basketball coach named Jud Heathcote, whose nose for talent would be undeniably confirmed years later, when he would recruit Earvin “Magic” Johnson to Michigan State.

  Now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, you are about to learn where the Elway legend began, with a competitive ball of fire that could not be contained.

  Fresh off work, Jack Elway arrived at halftime for a Little Grizzlies game. He went straight to Heathcote in search of a quick synopsis of the opening two quarters of football.

  “Well, there are two possibilities here,” Heathcote said. “Number one: Most 10-year-old boys in this state can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Or . . . number 2: Your son is the greatest football player I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  What had Dad missed? Oh, nothing much.

  Unless, of course, you think the four touchdowns scored by his kid in the first half were worth mentioning.

  At age 52, with his eyes on the prize and No Plan B, Elway is still running as fast as he can.

  Know what?

  They ain’t gonna catch Elway before he scores.

  Chapter 8

  The Brothers Orange

  OK, it is time to test your sports knowledge with a trivia quiz.

  Question No. 1: Name the athlete who has hit a home run in Wrigley Field, thrown a pass in the Rose Bowl, and shot a duck with Peyton Manning.

  “Todd Helton,” said Manning.

  Yep, Helton. We are talking about the same Helton who crafted a .320 lifetime batting average through 16 major-league seasons as a first baseman for the Colorado Rockies.

  Question No. 2: Who was the quarterback ahead of Manning on the depth chart when the University of Tennessee Volunteers opened the 1994 college football season against UCLA in the Rose Bowl?

  Helton.

  Question No. 3: And who was the first receiver to catch a pass from Manning in Denver?

  Helton.

  Notice a pattern?

  “Helton?” said Manning, pausing to assess how they came to be best friends forever. “We both love the University of Tennessee. We both played quarterback there. We’re kind of the same age and have been playing sports at a high level for a long time. We know how much work it takes, and how much time you put into it.”

  Helton and Manning are the classic rockers of Colorado sports. They are the Brothers Orange, twin legends born on Rocky Top, Tennessee. Of all the reasons Manning chose to start chapter 2 of his NFL career with the Broncos, it would be unwise to underestimate the friendship of Helton.

  Amid the dog days of the 2011 NFL lockout, when Manning was hurting and unable to use the training facilities in Indianapolis during the labor dispute, he needed a place to test his throwing arm, left weak from surgery on his neck. Helton invited Manning to Denver. Long before the veteran quarterback ever imagined he would need a place to play football after the Colts, Manning made himself at home in Colorado with an old college buddy.

  “I came out to Denver for a week during the lockout, and he opened the Rockies clubhouse to me. There’s no way I could’ve let a baseball player in our facility for a week during the NFL season. And Todd said: “Here, have at it.’ For the friend he was to me on that, I’m grateful,” Manning told me on the day he signed with the Broncos.

  You will hear it from everybody who knows Manning well, from his father to former Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy to a graduate assistant who met him nearly 20 years ago at Tennessee. They all say familiarity is what the quarterback craves, seeks, and needs to succeed.

  When Manning could not throw a pass 20 yards without risking major embarrassment in June 2011, where did he find the desired privacy? Well hidden from public view, at the last place anybody would think to look: inside the indoor batting cages at Coors Field. And who was trusted to catch those humbling passes?

  “The first pass I threw in Denver was to Helton,” Manning told Judy Battista, who covers pro football superbly for the New York Times.

  It would be more than 20 months after the wobblers caught by Helton that the Broncos would haul in the most high-profile catch in the history of NFL free agency. What was among the first major sporting events Manning attended after signing a contract with Denver?

  By much more than coincidence, it was a Rockies baseball game at Coors Field. Manning sat alongside new Broncos teammate Eric Decker that April afternoon, as the home team fell behind 4–0 against the New York Mets.

  Down to their last six outs, Colorado loaded the bases in the eighth inning. It was rally cap time. Getting in the spirit, Decker wore his cap with the bill pointing straight up from the middle of his noggin. Left-handed reliever Tim Byrdak was summoned from the bullpen to face Helton. The veteran Rockies slugger, often criticized in recent years for declining statistics and a hefty salary, worked the count to two balls and two strikes. Byrdak tried to sneak a slider past Helton.

  Big mistake. Helton crushed the 84 miles-per-hour pitch, sending the baseball soaring off his bat, until a home run smacked the facing of the second deck in right field. Helton’s grand slam tied the game. Befitting a bad team that lost 98 times in 2012, the Rockies would waste Helton’s heroics and get beat in extra innings. But the shot off Helton’s bat was a big, beautiful blast, and nobody had a bigger blast witnessing the homer than Manning. He pointed his right index finger to the sky as the ballpark rocked with the Rocky Mountain thunder for which local fans are famous.

  The cheers honored Helton’s fourth dinger of the young season’s opening month. The 38-year-old first baseman flipped his bat as he briefly admired the shot, and as he circled the bases it was like watching a home movie from a happier time. Helton is the greatest player in Rockies history. Or at least he used to be.

  If the baseball gods are keeping score, Helton will be the first player in franchise history enshrined in Cooperstown, New York, alongside Babe Ruth, Bob Gibson, and the game’s other legends. But Helton’s record of greatness has gathered dust in recent seasons. He led the National League with a .372 batting average in 2000. He pumped fists to the sky, framing the iconic photograph of a city’s euphoria, when the Rockies beat the Arizona Diamondbacks to clinch a berth in the 2007 World Series that the baseball world never saw coming.

  But chronic back pain sapped his power and tested his confidence, forcing him to seriously contemplate retirement, and that was before his hip gave out on him in 2012. Helton walked tall through it all. Thanks, in no small part, to a longtime friend he could lean on.

  “What Todd went through with his back a couple years ago was real. Everybody realizes how hard it was,” Manning said. “And I could tell he wasn’t sure there for a while.”

  Helton and Manning understand each other’s pain, and have stared down the fears that could have pushed either one of them to go sit on the porch forever. The trust they share required nearly two decades to build. Way back in 1994, in Knoxville, Tennessee, the skinny son of a famous quarterback stuck out his hand and said: “Good to meet you, I’m Peyton Manning.” It is a greeting Manning offers new acquaintances to this day, never assuming fame precedes him or excuses a lack of proper manners.

  “Yeah, his parents raised him right,” Helton told me, his voice ringing with admiration. Then, with the comedic timing that would do the late, great John Belushi proud, Helton raised an eyebrow. There was something more that needed to be said about Manning.

  �
��But as soon as you turn your back, he will give you grief,” Helton deadpanned.

  According to the unofficial book of guys, that pretty much is the very definition of a true friend: He is a person who can rip you in a way that might get a stranger punched in the mouth, but instead has you rolling on the floor with laughter.

  “We’ve lived similar lives, so we can relate to each other. And we’re both obsessive about our jobs,” Helton said.

  As Helton talked about Manning, he kept taking a peek at the batting cage on a back diamond on the Rockies’ perfectly manicured spring training campus in Scottsdale, Arizona. The hint was obvious. Helton was aching to take a few more hacks before the season began. Hall of Fame hitters all have the eye of a hawk and the processing speeds of a supercomputer. But that is seldom enough. Helton is obsessed with the minute details of his swing; he is a teeth-grinder who chews the furniture over every hitless game at the plate.

  “I’m a guy who has never been sure of myself, and that’s what drives me,” said Helton, making a confession that sounded a little odd, coming from a five-time National League all star.

  But blessed to do a job that has taken me into the workplaces of Cal Ripken Jr. and Lance Armstrong alike, watching Helton’s never-ending desire to improve makes perfect sense. The great ones do not need a push. They are driven 24/7.

  Then, Helton said something that startled me.

  “Peyton Manning is way more driven than I am,” he said.

  “Way more?” I stammered. It did not seem humanly possible, to tell the truth. “Are you kidding?”

  Helton’s eyes narrowed. “Way more,” he repeated, as if Manning’s intensity also was capable of startling him. “We’re not even in the same universe.”

  Helton, who hates talking about himself, certainly will not say it.