When John Elway admits that his secret dream job is not to be an ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor but to own an NFL franchise in Los Angeles, the Granada Hills (Calif.) High gym full of students, current players, band members, alumni, friends and even Elway’s mom, Janet, erupts in applause so loud that . . .
Oops, it’s probably not such a secret anymore.
It’s Rick Reilly’s fault.
Those who weren’t up to speed on the Pro Football Hall of Famer, who already co-owns the Colorado Crush of the Arena Football League, now know what doesn’t have to be whispered.
As part of the soft launch of Reilly’s newest project called “Homecoming,” this one-hour sit-down with Elway (6 p.m. tonight, ESPN2) was taped in October on the campus where the greatest member of the Granada Hills’ class of 1979 spent his sophomore through senior years.
The full launch of the TV series won’t be until April, when Reilly has more time to line up more athletes willing to return to their athletic roots, be surrounded by those who helped them along the way, and share revealing and sometimes emotional stories of the ups and downs of their personal and professional journeys.
A “Homecoming” episode Reilly did with Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton aired last week.
Reilly calls it a sports version of the old Ralph Edwards show, “This Is Your Life,” with a touch of “Inside the Actors Studio.”
“It’s exactly the way I’d go about doing a 10-page story for Sports Illustrated — researching for two weeks, talking to maybe 40 people on everything they knew about the person, and then going through his life stage by stage,” said Reilly, who launched his multipurpose ESPN career last June after 22 years at Sports Illustrated and a run before that as a beat reporter and columnist for The Denver Post and the Los Angeles Times. “It comes out like a magazine piece in front of a TV audience, and hopefully it reaches people.”
Here, former Granada Hills High teammates such as receivers Chris Sutton and Scott Marshall explained how Elway — this “twerp” — ended up as one of their best friends for life.
Elway’s high school coach for football and baseball, Darrell Stroh, drove in from Arizona to add perspective. So did former Stanford coach Paul Wiggin, making it here from Northern California.
“John Elway never lost a game (at Stanford); we just ran out of time,” Wiggin said.
Elway’s high school career began in Pullman, Wash., as a quarterback in a single-wing offense. The family moved to the Valley when Elway’s father, Jack, landed the head football coaching job at Cal State Northridge.
John Elway admits on the show that as he was trying to choose a college, one coach tried to bribe him with a car and said he would “have an affair with my mom.”
The crowded gym comes to a hushed silence, until Elway admits it was his late dad, who would become the San Jose State coach, making that offer.
But Elway was ultimately swayed by the chance at getting a Stanford education and playing against Pac-10 Conference opponents.
During this “Homecoming” episode, Reilly also takes Elway back to the Granada Hills football field to see if he could still do things like hit the crossbar in the end zone with a pass from about 20 yards out (he used to be able to do it from a much farther distance), or re- create a drop kick like the one he did in a blowout victory over Birmingham High some 30 years ago.
They also visit his old family home, only to find a man living there who, oddly, isn’t too keen on letting them enter.
Instead, they go around to the back, where Elway revisits the sliding glass door where he used to sneak in late at night and explains how he used to dive into the pool.
Reilly, who lives both in Denver and Hermosa Beach, Calif., and has known Elway for about 25 years, also discovered one thing that didn’t make the show: As a kid, Elway used to hide behind the brick wall in the backyard with his friends and pelt moving objects with oranges off a nearby tree.
“Can you imagine getting pumped with an orange thrown by John Elway?” Reilly said. “How big would the dent in your car be? You’d have immediately fresh-squeezed O.J.”
And more joke fodder comparing him to a slow-moving white Bronco.
