If you’re like me, then professional sports have always helped define the decades. The accomplishments of athletes like Mickey Mantle, Wayne Gretzky, Tom Brady, LeBron James, and Simone Biles provide a sort of soundtrack that flavors their respective time periods. For example, it’s difficult to think about the 1990s without remembering the feats of Michael Jordan. I can still recall laying sick on the sofa and watching Jordan dominate the Utah Jazz while also covered in sweat from the flu. Although we don’t know athletes like Jordan personally, they are important to us, serving as markers for many of our lives’ events.
For those who watched NFL football in the late ‘90s, John Elway’s back-to-back Super Bowl championships are certainly an iconic marker of that time. I never knew much about the football star, but a new documentary titled simply Elway pulls back the curtain on this complicated figure. It’s rare that a sports documentary can grapple with something profound. Too often, they only flatten individuals into an identity based on their achievements. There has been a shift, though, in the type of sports films produced in recent years. The Last Dance about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, for example, provided a well-nuanced view of the biggest sports star of the ‘90s. Elway follows the same path, providing a complicated picture of the famous quarterback.
Winning at Any Cost
We need to see more sports stories like Elway’s, stories that reveal how the ways of glory and sin are not always what they seem.
The Netflix documentary details the former Denver Bronco’s two-decade-long search for a Super Bowl title. While this campaign culminated in back-to-back wins in 1997 and 1998, he faced fierce criticism and devastating losses along the way. And because the movie is so well done in telling his story, the saddest part occurs when he finally does win.
As Elway stands on the podium in 1997 and looks out over the crowd, the scene cuts to his now-grown son remarking on the moment: “That was the happiest he had ever been in his life.” Elway’s son, however, looks more like someone reminiscing about trauma than his father’s incredible achievement. This moment comes after the film details how difficult it was for Elway’s children to connect with him. The same things that made John Elway such a great football player—stoicism, ambition, talent—made him a below-average father and led to his downfall at home.
Elway’s son puts his finger on something that humans have wrestled with since the beginning: our greatest gifts often destroy the most important things in our lives. The Bible is full of such stories. Without self-control, Samson’s strength causes pain rather than Israel’s deliverance. King David, Jacob, and many others in the Scriptures were gifted men whose talents caused as much pain as glory. The lesson is clear: gifts amplify a person’s impact, but this impact is not always what we hope for.
Sin and Glory
While most modern people accept this as the cost of success, Christians have been wrestling with this for centuries. Augustine famously wrote about this inward battle in his Confessions in the late 4th century. As he chronicles his journey of tasting all that the world has to offer, Augustine comes to a truth that still helps us make sense of ourselves today. His conclusion about humanity is offered in prayer form to the Lord: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Our restlessness often leaves a trail of disaster. Our glory needs strong guardrails.
The most frustrating part of human existence isn’t that our glory evaporates, but rather, that it becomes misdirected and warped by our fallen nature. As Martin Luther wrote: “Our nature, by the corruption of the first sin, is so deeply curved in on itself that it not only bends the best gifts of God toward itself but also uses God himself for its own sake.” In other words, sin causes our glory in bearing God’s image to bend like a bow curved back on ourselves. For those with tremendous gifts, there is always the possibility of a lethal arrow pointing back at them. Perhaps this is why the Scriptures so often beg us to gain wisdom above all else.
The world of sports is an interesting microcosm of this struggle. The main currency of this world is glory and we search for ways to partake in that glory. There are no forty-year-old men walking around wearing the jersey of their favorite accountant, but you can find thousands of these men wearing their favorite player’s jersey every Sunday in the fall.
Elway was, of course, a glorious figure. A two-sport star in high school and college, he was good enough at baseball to be drafted by the New York Yankees. His college career at Stanford was impressive enough that he was drafted first overall in the 1983 NFL draft. Elway had speed, a cannon for an arm, and a toughness that was reminiscent of old-school NFL. As we see throughout the documentary, Elway took hits that caused him to flop over defenders like a pancake, only to get back up and throw another long ball to a receiver. He also had charisma; he was a big, strong, blond guy from California who people liked to rally around.
For all of Elway’s gifts, though, he comes off in the documentary as a bit of a prima donna. When the Broncos’ longtime coach wasn’t calling the plays he wanted, Elway pushed him out. When he was drafted in 1983 by the lackluster Baltimore Colts, Elway threatened to go play pro baseball instead, forcing a trade to the Denver Broncos. And even though he takes heat for losing multiple times in the Super Bowl throughout the ‘80s, he wasn’t afraid to publicly criticize Broncos leadership.
At home, the picture of Elway is distant. His daughter recollects just how big of an impact winning and losing had on their home. When Elway didn’t win, everyone suffered. Throughout his career, his marriage withered away; his wife describes the weight of his career “crushing” their relationship. In a theme that is all too common, Elway’s drive for success was largely aimed towards his own glory.
Despite struggles with his family through his career and in the years after, the end of the film shows Elway with restored relationships all around. His kids now love spending time with him and even his ex-wife seems genuinely happy that he has a new lease on family life. Many of the film’s final moments show Elway and his grandkids enjoying the large Idaho lake estate where he now lives. It’s a redemptive story, though not in the way sports films usually depict.
The high point of Michael Jordan’s story is his time in the NBA. The ultimate glory of Babe Ruth’s life was found in his home run dominance, while his latter years saw him struggle to create a post-baseball identity. Baseball legend Barry Bonds now spends much of his time isolated from the world that rejected him for his steroid use. By contrast, the high point in Elway’s story is his redeemed relationships, while his on-field success comes during his life’s darker periods.
We need to see more sports stories like Elway’s, stories that reveal how the ways of glory and sin are not always what they seem. Elway doesn’t appear to be a Christian, but those of us who are believers can still find much to appreciate. Certainly, there is a hint of the Gospel in the return of a wayward father. Ultimately, stories like Elway’s provide opportunities to point to Christ and his gospel in every area of our lives. It takes work, but this does two important things: it helps us evangelize by showing how God’s narrative really is the best story and it shows unbelievers the ways in which God’s kindness touches them through his general revelation.
Van Tillian Apologetics
While I love many things about Timothy Keller’s New York ministry, perhaps my favorite was the way he used apologetics. Keller was a Van Tillian apologist, a type of faith-defending work named after the famous theologian Cornelius Van Till of Westminster Seminary. One of the main tenets of what Van Till called “presuppositional apologetics” was that there are only two ways to see the world: we can acknowledge the truth of God or suppress it. But even for those who suppress God’s truth, the glory of that truth still leaks into the culture. Whenever a story has someone dying for others, biblical truth has made its way into the imagination. When our society wants to see justice for an oppressed group, that further reflects God’s ultimate values.
The John Elway documentary is powerful because it is God’s truth highlighted by those who don’t even realize what they’re doing. Why does the film celebrate Elway’s family over his accomplishments in football? We know that isn’t how the world works. If anything, the world celebrates success in our careers. Not so with Elway, and as a result, morality and redemption are highlighted because a greater story is being told.
For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, Elway reminds us that God actually does use the “foolish” of the world to “shame the wise” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). John Elway’s ultimate happiness was not found in the things the world told him to seek. Football gave him joy even as it destroyed his family. He gave his body and talent to entertain the city of Denver, which cared little about what that all cost him. In the end, it’s God’s beautiful creation at that Idaho lake and the blessings of his family that make John Elway smile the longest. And perhaps someday, we’ll hear about him calling on the name of Jesus and entering everlasting joy.
