John Elway
Biography
Early life
Professional football player John Elway was born June 28th, 1960. In Port Angel's, Washington. John was also a star baseball [player in high school. He went to stand ford university . Even though his farther, jack was the head football coach at San Jose university. The talented quarterback went on to throw more then 9,000 yards and set five major NCAA records during his four years at stand ford. Elway also continued to show promise in baseball,. briefly playing for the new York Yankees minor league team in 1982, but he was clearly suited for gridiron. He was selected with the number one overall pick in 1983 national football league, drafted by the Baltimore Colts and traded to the Denver Broncos shortly afterwards.
Accomplishments
In 1983, He was the first player chosen in the NFL collage draft. In 1986 during an NFL game in Cleveland, Ohio VS Cleveland Browns pulled there score up at the end of the game, making a 20-20 tie. In the last 39 seconds of the game, he completed passes of 22 & 28 yards to put Karl's in position to kick the winning 33 yard field goal. Ended the game 23-20. Broncos made it to the Superbowl. Elway was known for his "drive" that made his team win at games. In his first 7 years John Elway took his team, The Denver Broncos to the Superbowl 3 times. The Broncos made the plays 5 times and won four division titles. They never had a losing record, Also 4 straight years they had won ten or more games. Denver coaches admitted, " It would be lucky to win half our h=games without John Elway as quarterback. He entered his fifth season with a new six-year contract worth more then 12 million( which made him the highest paid player at the time.)
Here are some pictures of John Elway Playing for the Broncos.
Broncos
An interception
Broncos
John telling someone to get ready for a pass
Yankees
This is a picture of John playing baseball.
Personal Life
John Elway had to work hard to be a great athlete, but you could say that he was born to be a good one. His Grandfather played quarterback for a team in Pennsylvania. His mother played sports in high school. And his farther was an outstanding Athlete in high school.He played quarterback too. which makes John the third in his generation to play that position. johns farther, Jack was good enough to play sports in collage. He's not very tall, but he was given a scholarship to play basketball as well as football at Washington State University. Injuries, however prevented him from becoming a star. But he loved sports so he became a coach.Today Mr. Elway doesn't look like a former athlete. He even jokes about his height and being kind of "dumpy". Young John takes after his mother's side of the family when it comes to size. His mother is tall and so were her parents and grandparents. But from his farther, he got his burning desire to complete and to win.
Challenges
John Elway was faced with some major decisions during his years at Granada Hills High School. The first choice was easy, selection football over his other sports. He gave up basketball because it was too hard on his knees. And even though he continued in baseball, he never pitched full time because he wanted to save his powerful arm for throwing passes in football. His choice of a lifestyle was more serious. There wasn't any, " Just say no" programs back in the days. John remember very vividly the peer pressure to be " one of the gang.".... " Drugs and drinking where really big in high school. And a lot of guys where doing this and doing that and there was always a lot of pressure to do that too." Elway says. " but i always felt i was a better person than someone doing drugs and i never wanted to be lowered to there level. Even thought they where my friends i didn't respect people who did that sort of thing. I didn't want to get caught in that. I wanted to be known as a straight arrow. That was something i was proud of, and I think if more kids took pride in being that way we wouldn't have the problems that we've got now."
Career
With his strong arms and scrambling ability, Elway immediately boosted a team that won only 2 games the year before he arrived. He lead Denver Broncos to the super bowl in 1987 and 1988 a season in which he was also called the NFL MVP. After 16 long years he announced his outstanding career a few weeks later. Elway completed 51,475 career passing yards, second in the NFL history at the time of his retirement, and 300 touchdowns which ranked him third. He earned a well deserved hert in the pro football Hall Of Fame.