The glory years were history.
For 16 years as the Denver Broncos quarterback, John Elway, '83, had won the acclaim and admiration of the entire state of Colorado. The first overall pick in the 1983 NFL draft, he was adored for his on-field heroics—he led Denver to five Super Bowls, winning two, and was voted Most Valuable Player in the league in 1987. By the time he retired in 1999, he had secured his place as one of the game's all-time greats.
But in late 2002, his life had gone all to hell.
He had lost his sense of mission. His father, Jack, his best friend, had died of a heart attack a year earlier. His twin sister, Jana, had recently succumbed to lung cancer. And his marriage to Janet Buchan, '84, his Stanford sweetheart, was crumbling.
Then, as he had done so many times as a player, rallying late in games to pull out improbable victories, John Elway made a comeback.
He made business investments that prospered. He remarried. In 2011, he rejoined the Broncos as executive vice president for football operations.
"After reaching that pinnacle, there's no question it was a tough period," says Elway, leaning back in a black leather chair in his Denver office overlooking the Broncos practice field. Thanks in part to Elway bringing aboard another superstar quarterback, Peyton Manning, the Broncos are one of the NFL's top teams.
Elway's resilience doesn't surprise Dennis Engel, who protected Elway as a lineman at Stanford and has been his closest friend in Denver.
"He approaches life the same way as football," says Engel, '83. "You get up and dust yourself off. You learn from your mistakes. Regardless of whether it's business or sports or your dad or sister dying or your marriage not working out. You're going forward. There's no quit in the guy."
The competitiveness at the heart of his ability to bounce back was immediately evident to Elway's freshman-year buddies at Stanford. Mostly football and baseball players, they competed ferociously with Elway at everything they did. Elway usually won. One night, they were playing Ping-pong at Branner, the all-freshman dorm. Elway vanquished his friends, one by one. A crowd gathered, and someone rousted the dorm's Ping-pong champ, who arrived with his own paddle. "He got beat by Elway," said Mike Aldrete, '83, a baseball player who is now the bench coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. "I remember sitting back and saying, 'Wow!' "
Sophomore year, Elway roomed with three football players in the Manzanita trailers. They drank Coors Light and played cards or board games most nights. Nobody—least of all Elway—wanted to go to bed a loser. As a result, the games regularly extended past midnight, recalls Don Lonsinger, '83, a roommate and wide receiver.
"I couldn't go to sleep if I lost," Elway remembers.
It's not as if Elway has never known disappointment on the playing field. He broke virtually every passing record at Stanford but never played in a bowl game. In the 1982 Big Game, his last game as a collegian, Elway led the Cardinal on a desperation drive—highlighted by a 29-yard pass completion on fourth-and-17 from his own 13-yardline—to set up a field goal that put Stanford ahead 20-19 with four seconds remaining. A few moments later, a stirring victory became a haunting defeat when Cal executed five laterals and navigated the final few yards to the end zone through the Stanford Band in what became known simply as The Play. It probably cost Elway the Heisman Trophy.
Six months later, the Broncos obtained Elway, and he signed a five-year, $5 million contract. He returned to Stanford to complete his studies—by now he was living in the Delta Tau Delta fraternity house—and graduate with a degree in economics. But the relative anonymity of campus life was over.
When Elway arrived in Denver, fans hailed the rookie quarterback as their savior. The Broncos had won only two games the year before. Denver newspapers published a daily "Elway Watch" that described his life in detail, including what he ate for lunch and what candy he gave out on Halloween.
He won over his teammates by arriving early to lift weights and being one of the guys when they went out drinking at night. "He was such a great friend to everyone, and that made everyone play harder," says Steve Watson, a wide receiver during Elway's early years. "There were no airs, no pretense."
During the 1986, 1987 and 1989 seasons, Elway led the Broncos to the Super Bowl. They were pummeled each time. Critics said he would never be considered a great quarterback. In the locker room after the third Super Bowl defeat, 55-10 to the San Francisco 49ers, a disconsolate Elway lamented to wide receiver Michael Young, "They're never going to let me live this down."
"Dude, we would never be here but for you," Young replied.
Redemption for Elway came eight years later at Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego. Against the heavily favored Green Bay Packers, the Broncos triumphed 31-24. They won the Super Bowl again the following year, Elway was chosen MVP, and he retired at 38 in a ceremony carried live on ESPN.
He seemed on top of the world. But he had trouble adjusting to what he calls "real life." An online merchandising business that he started with Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky went under. A chain of upscale laundromats failed.
Young recalls sitting in a car with Elway late in 2002 as the former quarterback aired his frustrations. When the conversation turned to the deaths of Elway's father and sister and his impending divorce, tears welled in both men's eyes.
They were interrupted. Passing fans recognized Elway and excitedly began pounding on the car window. Young tried to shoo them away, to no avail. Elway stepped out, signed autographs and posed for photos.
"Why did you do that?" Young asked.
"I hope it would have made those people's day," Elway replied. "Besides, it would have taken longer to tell them to go away."
Around this time, Elway became part owner of an Arena Football franchise, the Colorado Crush. The team went 2-14 in its first season but two years later won the league championship and helped Elway turn around his life.
"People would say [the Arena League] was below me," Elway says. "I looked at it like it was a chance to learn [about the management side of football]. It was my MBA. . . . It cost me a lot of money, but I got some good experience."
Elway says he had always planned to have a second career after football. In fact, he had already enjoyed enormous success in business before his playing days ended. In 1997, he and a partner sold several car dealerships to Auto Nation for $82 million.
In 2003, he decided to get back into the car business. A dealership became available in California and Elway flew there to check it out. Back in Denver, he analyzed the income statements, tapping into accounting skills he had learned at Stanford.
"He did his due diligence," says Mitchell Pierce, his partner in the dealerships. "At the end of the day, he was the guy who made the decision. He felt the reward outweighed the risk."
During the 2007-09 recession, auto sales plummeted. "A lot of guys either went out of business or tried to get out of the business," Pierce says. "John has this ability to stay calm, stay clear and find solutions. The building's on fire, everyone's running out of the building, and he's thinking it might be a good time to run into the building."
He and Pierce bought three Denver dealerships during the recession and have five today. "Every one of them makes money," Pierce says.
The retired quarterback also opened Elway's, a steakhouse in Denver. Skeptics noted that other sports star's steakhouses had floundered. Tim Schmidt, his partner, was confident. "I was tying myself with the most iconic brand in the history of the state," Schmidt says. He, too, saw Elway's attention to detail. Elway sat through long meetings discussing the restaurant's menu and design, as well as revenue and expense projections.
"People thought he would be a figurehead with cars and with the restaurants," says Schmidt. "He's not a figurehead. He's a worker. That's where his success comes from. People can't believe that. He puts in the hours."
As a quarterback, Elway took charge on the field and raised everyone's play with his phenomenal abilities and sparkling confidence. In business, he showed a different side. As a rule, Elway spoke sparingly in the meetings, which surprised those who expected the larger-than-life figure to dominate. "I can't learn if I'm talking," he says. "The only way I can get better is to hear other people's opinions and find out why. . . . To be a great leader, you have to be willing to do what everyone else is going to do, too."
So many superstar athletes are content to glide through life after their playing days end. Why wasn't it enough for Elway to be simply a Hall of Fame quarterback?
"I wanted to prove I could be as good at something else, other than an athlete," he offers. "I've tried to prove it in the business world. I don't want to get pigeonholed as just a guy who's God-given with athletic ability, who was a great athlete and nothing else in the world."
Tyler Bridges, '82, is an investigative reporter for The Lens, a non-profit, digital newsroom based in New Orleans. Twice a member of Pulitzer Prize winning teams, he was a 2012 Neiman Fellow at Harvard University.
