From Steptoe Butte To The Super Bowl
SICK of heavy Super Bowl hype? How about a little light trivia you won't read anywhere else about Denver quarterback John Elway's Washington roots?
Score 5 points for each correct answer in this 12-question quiz. If you score a perfect 60 points, you are probably an Elway.
Q. What does Steptoe Butte have to do with the Super Bowl?
A. If my Washington State University roommate, Jack Elway, and I hadn't escaped when we were taken on a midwinter ``senior ride'' to Whitman County's Godforsaken Steptoe Butte, we'd have frozen to death and there'd have been no John Elway.
Is John's cousin, pollster Stuart Elway, upset about the lopsided odds against Denver beating the seemingly invincible Forty-Niners?
Q. How many Elways were born in Port Angeles on the same day when their father, Jack, was coach of the Roughriders football team?
A. Two. John and his twin sister, Jana, onetime tennis star at San Jose State University and now a San Jose tennis pro.
Q. Which Elway once threw an unnecessary last-second touchdown pass, knocking my father off his numbers on a football pool?
A. Jack - great late-'40s Hoquiam High School quarterback, basketball guard, and no-hit, no-run pitcher who was denied a college and pro career because of a knee injury. My dad never forgave him for that salt-in-the-wound pass against Aberdeen. Neither did I.
Q. How many Super Bowls have Elways lost?
A. If you answered two, you're wrong. Jack, former Stanford University coach, took a Milan team to the Italian Super Bowl last year and lost by 3 points. He'll be coaching a pro football team in London next season.
Q. How many Washington state hamburgers have been named to honor Elways?
A. At least two. John's Uncle Harry, ex-Hoquiam mayor and former state senator, once operated a restaurant in Tumwater that served Broncoburgers to honor his nephew, and Cardinalburgers to honor his brother.
Q. If a flood were to hit the New Orleans Superdome Sunday, could Joe Montana beat Elway?
A. Not Janet Elway, John's wife. As Janet Buchan, the former Tacoma swim star led Stanford to the national collegiate championship in 1980, winning the 200-yard and 400-yard individual medley. She briefly held the American record for the latter, and also was the gold medalist in the 400-meter individual medley at the University World Games in Mexico City in 1979.
Q. When John Elway was the quarterback at Stanford, why was he always going to swimming meets?
A. He had dated a girl on the swimming team, but his eyes were on the star swimmer, Janet Buchan. Her parents, Al and Gwen Buchan, who now live in Anacortes, confirm he was too shy to ask her out.
Q. Did John Elway's wife play football at one time? The catch she makes in the Nestles Crunch commercial is a great grab.
A. No. She was so busy with swimming that she never went to a high-school football game. John had to give her a football handbook to understand the game when they were dating at Stanford.
Q. Did Elway know anything about swimming?
A. He should have. When I was coaching our Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity team in the Washington State University intramural swimming championships in the early '50s, I noticed that no one was entered in the 200-yard freestyle. John's dad was a great athlete, but could barely swim. I entered him. He almost drowned, but finished a winner - as always.
Q. Here's a tough one: Why did John and Janet Elway, parents of two girls and a boy, name their second daughter Jordan?
A. It was a three-generation flip-flop. John's mother Jan's mother's name was Marie Jordan. Hence, a 2-year-old girl named Jordan Marie.
Q. Is John's cousin, Seattle pollster Stuart Elway of Elway Research, upset about the lopsided odds against Denver beating the seemingly invincible San Francisco Forty-Niners?
A. ``I'm no dummy,'' answers cousin Stuart. ``I'll be there wearing the (Denver) colors, but I'm taking the points.''
Q. Why is the man pictured in this column laughing?
A. That's John's dad, Jack. He's chuckling about what the odds for Super Bowl XXIV might be if we had never made it off Steptoe Butte.