Elway And Wife Cope With Their Denver Strife -- Proposed Trade Was One More Hit For Family That Had Endured Many

DENVER - There is no escape here, so the newspapers had reports of Janet Elway's first pregnancy about the time a young John Elway learned. A few days later, Elway was throwing footballs for the Denver Broncos, and the Kansas City Chiefs were catching them.

The Denver faithful were booing Elway, as they did so often during those early years, and after a fifth interception, a fan stood and let Janet Elway's husband really have it.

"You can get your . . . wife pregnant, but you can't . . . do anything else, ya bum."

Janet Elway popped the guy. Slapped him right in the face before a number of Elway's college buddies jumped in to save the heckler's life.

"I remember the first time the radio talk shows went after me," says Janet, mother of four little Elways now and wife of a 36-year-old Denver icon. "I was so hurt and upset, and John's just rolling his eyes: `Every day of my life,' he says.

" `But you're the quarterback,' I said, `and I'm not.' "

As suffocating as the media attention is here, one event never made the headlines: Six years ago the unhappy Elways believed they were on their way to Washington in a trade.

"The Duke of Denver," as he is called around here, felt as if he had been handcuffed professionally by Coach Dan Reeves since arriving as the game's next superstar in 1983, and now in a shocking move, Reeves was working on a hush-hush deal to get rid of him.

Reeves insists today it was all Washington Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs' idea, but for Janet Elway, who was willing recently to offer a rare glimpse of life behind the scenes of a superstar in the making, it was one more emotional hit for a family that supposedly has had everything going its way.

"We heard about it and we were told it's a real deal and maybe it was going to happen," she says. "Our agent looked into it, and sure enough it was something being considered, and you know what, we wanted to go.

"I wanted the fresh start to get away from all the negative things. The Redskins had a great team, our kids were young enough, but then as it turned out (Bronco owner) Pat Bowlen never pulled the trigger."

A troubling trek to stardom

These are the best of times now, a 4-1 start for the Denver Broncos and recognition for Janet Elway's husband as one of the game's greatest players, but this trek to stardom has been 14 troubling years in the making. What has it been like to be John Elway, the man who determines Denver's psyche each week during football season? To be both loved and hated? To be John Elway for a day?

"I'm signing autographs when I go to buy gas," he says. "I know that. Instead of letting it bother me, I know it's going to happen. What I try to do is frequent the same gas station until the guy gets tired of asking for my autograph and then I don't have to do it anymore. Or, I have someone else get gas for me."

What has it been like for Janet Elway, an Olympic-caliber swimmer in her own right, to live with the most scrutinized athlete in Denver? To raise four children in such an atmosphere? Some days, she says, her husband has been hit harder than any tackle on the field, and yet, he has always gotten up.

"There have been times when it scared me how low he could get," Janet says. "He wouldn't talk about it for weeks on end, but you could feel it, see it, and then one night he would break, and it would almost be like a dam bursting with all these emotions spilling out. He was holding so much in, but once he talked to his dad or to me and he would get it out, then he would pick himself up and go on.

"I don't know how he did it. A lot of things happened with Dan (Reeves), and not that they weren't difficult for Dan too, but it was a bad situation for the both of them. I can't tell you how many times John decided to quit on Friday only to get up and go in to work Saturday."

It is difficult to comprehend today after more than 45,000 passing yards and more games played as a Bronco (195) than any other player in team history, but those early years on the job were a test of survival for the Elway family.

"John was such a standout at Stanford and then to come here and just regress," Janet says. "Nothing was going his way, and it was just awful. There was all this talk about him being the first pick in the draft, so where was all this greatness?"

Before he had thrown a pass in a regular-season game, he was the Sports Illustrated cover boy, and as the headline said, "Looking like a million." Met by expectations that might overwhelm some, he embraced the challenge only to be embarrassed by Reeves' inability to patiently develop immature talent.

He was pulled from his first start, and then his second, and before season's end Elway was so confused he was seen lining up behind his guard, mistaking him for the center.

"I was a bust at 23," Elway says with his characteristic self-deprecating sense of humor. "Well, I was on my way to being a bust, and it was everything in my life not to be a bust because I started so slowly."

There were almost daily phone calls to Jack Elway, John's father, and now his best friend. There was so much pressure, so much scrutiny that when Elway went to get a haircut, he required a police escort to avoid the media and autograph seekers.

"The memories are a nightmare," Elway says. "I just wanted to go home. They could keep their money; I just didn't want to be here. It was miserable. I didn't know what I was doing, and I know I brought a lot on myself, but I began to doubt myself. I was wondering, `Oh man, this is a different level, can I make it here?'

"I wouldn't change anything that's happened, but if you asked me if you could go back and be 22 again, would you do it? I'm not sure I'd do it, because it wasn't easy. People don't realize what a boo makes a young kid feel like. It's like taking a big dagger to a 23-, 24-year-old kid. People expect you to grow up just like that. In the business world, you get a chance to grow."

Janet Elway had the American record in the 400 individual medley, she was ranked fourth in the world in her event while dating her future husband, and only a U.S. boycott kept her from competing in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

"Understand now," she says, "I was no Amy Van Dyken."

For nine years - almost a decade of prime time in his athletic life - Elway played for a very restrictive Reeves. Reeves, who came from the Dallas Cowboys, believed in the Dallas system, and the system was more important than any individual player.

"His talent was suppressed," Janet says. "We never got to see John go out there and just play. What was it - nine, 10 years under that system? It's too bad his younger years are gone now."

Both have taken their shots

Reeves has taken shots at John Elway, and Elway has fired back, although both have tried to move on. Reeves went to three Super Bowls with less-than-super talent, but he had Elway. Elway went to three Super Bowls, and probably because he was playing for one of the game's great coaches. They were tied together by success, yet they could not have been farther apart.

Elway has talked about his days of handing the ball off on first and second downs and then having to throw on third. He has criticized Reeves in praising new Coach Mike Shanahan, but he has only gone so far. One of the reasons he declines to write a book is because he refuses to tell the truth and hurt Reeves' feelings.

"The only time Dan would let him go and play like he's really capable would be when he finally gave up on the running game in the fourth quarter and took the reins off John," says Janet, who has not missed a game her husband has played. "That's when we saw the real John Elway, the fire in his eyes; you can read it in his face when he gets that extra step in his walk and that excitement of making things happen."

The 38 fourth-quarter comebacks during his career provide documentation of just how successful an unfettered Elway might have been.

In the Reeves era, Elway averaged 3,172 yards and almost 17 touchdowns a season; since then he has averaged 3,830 yards a year and more than 22 touchdowns.

"John honestly says he wishes the best for Dan, and that's all behind him," Janet says. "And I know John was his own worst enemy for a time carrying the weight of the whole team on his shoulders, but I'm not sure he would still be playing today if that had continued. The change that was made (Reeves' departure to the New York Giants in January 1993) has given him a few more years."

From the time Elway and Dan Marino entered the league in 1983, Marino has prospered with the green light to throw behind an offensive line retooled every four years with a bevy of top-round draft picks. Elway, his hands tied, has played behind a workmanlike group of free agents, and when was the last time the Broncos started two quality wide receivers?

"There were times when John felt like quitting, and I would get all riled up and wouldn't want to hear any of that," Janet says. "I'm sure he just wanted me to agree, but I believed in him too much to put up with that.

"I know some people might think its sickening how much I love my husband, but it's not only being his mate, I respect the heck out of what he's done with his life. He has been such a survivor, and I idolize him."

Elway has already suggested he will play only two seasons beyond this one, and there are young, spoiled adults who have grown up knowing nothing else but Elway on Sunday for much of their lives.

"It's going to be very strange when he's done playing," says Janet. "The day's coming when he will have done all he can do, but it will be a bittersweet day. I will be happy for him giving it up, but I will miss seeing what he can do. It really is something to watch."

The years have whizzed past, and the young couple who supposedly had it going all their way knew better and were not overwhelmed.

"Looking back now, we were so young," says Janet. "So much money, so much fame, everyone in Denver was looking at us and expecting so much, our parents were not in town and we were very much alone and not sure how to handle ourselves.

"Golly, there were some hard times, and we were just so young. But, my, how we have been blessed."