SUPER BOWL XXII : THE THREE AMIGOS : It’s Better to Receive, for These Broncos

It’s a hard world to get a break in. Ask the Three Amigos, the Denver Broncos’ receiving trio of Vance Johnson, Mark Jackson and Ricky Nattiel, who have risen to stardom, only to find that it was easier being anonymous.

Si, they could tell you a thing or two about fame.

One moment they were lovable muppets. The next, they were Three Friends, Inc. This is 1988, remember, there’s a world to be won and the Vance was involved.

The next, they were selling a full line of Amigo accessories: the Amigo poster, $5; the Vance poster, $6; the orange-sequined sombrero, $10; T-shirts, baseball caps, sweat shirts and a video, not to mention the coming Amigo tour package to Cancun at $700 a person, based on double occupancy. Honest.

And the next, they were on everybody’s hit list.

Denver reporters passed around an underground nickname of their own: the Three Big Egos.

Opposing cornerbacks passed around worse than that. In the first round of the playoffs, the Vance announced an Amigo group goal of 250 yards--”without a conference, by the way,” said Jackson, laughing.

Said the Oilers’ Patrick Allen, when he found out about it: “We’ll see if they can walk that walk. We already know they can talk that talk.”

The Amigos settled for 112, 105 of them by the Vance, who was then speared after a play by a Houston linebacker, knocking him out of action for two weeks.

“I don’t think he was trying to hurt me,” Johnson said. “I think the guy was just trying to stop his momentum. Unfortunately, he stopped it on me.”

Coach Dan Reeves could have been happier. When Johnson was released from the hospital and failed to report for treatment, Reeves fined him $500. Vance had been off with the Amigos that day, spending 14 hours shooting their video, “The Touchdown Banditos” (MTV debut slated for Feb. 4, with the Amigos making guest appearances as VJs).

Ricky Nattiel could have been happier. The shyest of the Amigos, he keeps having to swear he isn’t resigning his commission.

Mark Jackson found the going a little thick, himself.

“Anybody ask an Amigos question yet?” someone said to him during a media break last week in Denver.

“Who’re they?” said Jackson.

But the Vance?

He’s home, such as it is.

EL PRESIDENTE

Don’t believe anything Vance says. About half of what he says isn’t true.

--MARK JACKSON

Actually, the Amigos complement each other nicely.

The Vance does the heavy promotion work. Nattiel acts becomingly modest to prove there’s a conscience in this group somewhere. And Jackson busts everybody’s chops.

It was in last year’s Super Bowl that Johnson became this monster known as the Vance, christening himself while holding court at great length about his earring, his hairdo, his paintings.

Not that he made any secret of his motives.

“I want to be famous,” he said. “I want to be famous as hell. I can’t tell you how famous I want to be.”

Fate and another Super Bowl have provided a suitable vehicle. All that remained was to follow current merchandising trends for Super Bowl participants: One day your teammates nickname you. The next, you’re filing articles of incorporation. The third, you’re a cliche.

Why should anyone begrudge them? Look around, it’s a mad circus. The media exploit the event, the participants exploit the media. Everyone gets what they want, unless there’s someone out there holding out for good taste.

In Denver, a woman named Linda Kirchner painted herself blue, her horse orange and rode nude through a downtown plaza on a 25-degree day. She got her picture on the front page of the Denver Post, suitably masked for family perusal.

A man ate worms and goldfish.

The spectacle was sponsored by a Denver radio station, which was offering free tickets for the American Football Conference final to the fans who’d do the craziest stunts to earn them. So what did anyone expect?

Against that backdrop, what’s so offensive about a little crass publicity seeking?

“I like fame,” says Johnson. “I’m not really into money that much. I mean, if it’s there, it’s there. That’s how I’ve always been about money.

“What do I like about fame? (Pause) Nobody’s ever asked me that before.”

And he never did come up with an answer.

“Vance likes being in the spotlight,” said Jackson. “Sometimes he gets disappointed when someone doesn’t know who he is, or doesn’t recognize him. And that’s great. Whatever turns you on.”

Johnson was born in New Jersey. His family moved back and forth between Newark and Tucson, Ariz., for 10 years, by which time Vance had few friends and little skill at making any.

“I was very shy,” he said. “People thought I was stuck up. I wasn’t. I was just shy.

“When I went to college, same way. And I was like ‘Dang, I’m hating this ‘cause I’m really upset and lonely.’ I really didn’t have too many friends on the team at the U. of A. (Arizona).

“My first girlfriend, I was about 19 years old. She was shy, too. We were a perfect match.

“When I came to the NFL, I said, ‘I’d better open up.’ It was overnight, really. When I got up here, I decided I was just going to be the Vance.

“I bought a Porsche, a motorcycle and drove ‘em both up to the training facility at Greeley my rookie year.

“At first, it was kind of a negative thing because everybody looked at me kind of crazy. We had a rule you weren’t supposed to drive motorcycles anyway and I drove one right up to camp. I pulled up to the front of the camp and I think Coach (Reeves) was pulling up right behind me. That was when I found out it was against the rules.”

A second-round draft pick with great speed but no experience as a receiver--he had been a halfback at Arizona--he showed a lot as a rookie, was slowed by a knee injury last season but took off in the playoffs.

When he came back this season, there was Jackson, a sixth-round pick who had stuck the year before, and the new No. 1 pick, Nattiel. They were about the same size, 5 feet 11 inches and 180 pounds; speed, 4.3-4.4 seconds in the 40-yard dash, and age, 22-24. They were single and liked to mingle.

Johnson says John Elway started calling them the Three Amigos after the movie, or the three midgets, or the Three Stooges. Johnson picked Amigos and began training his little troupe in self-promotion techniques: Little messages on the bottom of their cleats--”By-By”--Amigo end-zone spikes, Amigo football twirls at the feet of a beaten cornerback.

Away from the spotlight, Johnson seems to be a nice enough young man. An airline flight attendant tells of seeing Johnson during a flight. On the plane was a youngster who wanted his autograph but was afraid to ask. Johnson sat down next to the boy and talked to him for the entire trip.

The boy tried to buy Vance a drink but was told he couldn’t. When the flight ended, the attendant says, Johnson gave him the autograph--on a $20 bill.

Now, Johnson is the charter Amigo, and 10 times as controversial as he has ever been.

“People don’t think about what it means,” he said. “They think we’re milking the public. It’s just three friends. And if we can make a dime off it, so be it.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t want friends. I didn’t want to feel like I needed anyone. I didn’t want anyone to let me down.

“Now I have my Amigos. Hopefully, they won’t leave me.”

Doesn’t he find the hype out of hand?

“Well, that depends. If Taco Bell contacts me for a national commercial, then it won’t be too big.

“But if we don’t get that, I just might wind the whole thing down. I have my reasons for all things.”

THE RELUCTANT AMIGO

Jackson: Who says Ricky’s reluctant?

Writer: He does.

Jackson: He’s playing a role.

Reluctant? To keep him in line, the other two just about have to tie up Nattiel, stuff a sock in his mouth and pull him around in a wagon.

Johnson is vocal, Jackson is comfortable talking, but Nattiel is just plain, unreconstructedly shy.

He comes from tiny Archer, Fla., 18 miles down the road from Gainesville, where he attended the University of Florida. That made it possible for him to come home for dinner, often.

“He had an answering machine (at college),” said former Gator receiver coach Mike Heimerding. “When you’d call him, it said, ‘This is Ricky the Rocket. I’ve just blasted off and I’ll be blasting back another time. Leave your name and phone number.’

“One time his mother tried it twice without getting him so she left a message: ‘This is the Rocket’s mother and you better blast yourself home. She needs him.’ ”

With strangers, though, Nattiel came out of himself slowly. Heimerding’s first impression was that the downcast look meant surliness.

“He was just so intense,” Heimerding said. “He didn’t smile a lot and joke a lot until he had something down.

“Later, we found out he was a great kid. We liked to have him come over for supper, to play with our children.”

The Gators were then a probation-trussed, unknown powerhouse with a backfield of Kerwin Bell, Neal Anderson and John L. Williams. Nattiel became a full-time starter as a sophomore and left as a No. 1 draft choice.

He is still adjusting to the fast lane in Denver. His friends joke that he asks to be picked up all the time because he hasn’t learned his way around the city.

He doesn’t know if he’s ever going to adjust to Amigo-hood.

“When it started off, the Denver Post took a picture of us with sombreros on,” Nattiel said. “I figured, ‘No big deal.’

“Next thing I know, every week something was coming up. I thought, ‘Aw, they’ll run the story, you’ll read about it, throw the paper away, that’s it.’

“If I had to do it all over again--I really don’t know, to be honest. It’s great publicity, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but you kinda want to back away from it some time.”

Doesn’t he want to cash in?

“I’m in the position, ah, whatever happens happens. It doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other.

“This is a great job. This is a great team to play for, and you can make a good living out of it. That’s what I’m concentrating on. If I can play 10 years, that’s famous enough for me.

“I can make a comfortable living, same as a famous person could, so what’s the difference?”

The Amigos have been together for only a football season. Nattiel wants to see what happens when they’re not obliged by the Bronco schedule to be together every day.

“I think that’s gonna be what tells how close we really are,” he said.

SENOR DUDE

Everyone plays a role. I’m playing a role right now--I’m Mr. Football Player.

Who’d believe it if I walked down the street in New York that I was a football player? No one. But, like I’m here now, I’m the Dude.”

--MARK JACKSON

A scout calls Jackson “really a smart guy” and rates him the most reliable of the Amigos for reading coverages and being where he’s supposed to be.

Off the field, Jackson combines Johnson’s ease in interviews with a levelheadedness that Vance is still striving for, or isn’t interested in.

The world almost never found out, though. For most of Jackson’s life, he was Senor Nowhere.

He wasn’t a high school star.

He wasn’t a college star.

He was the Broncos’ second of two sixth-round draft picks in 1986.

After making the team and catching two passes in the 98-yard drive at Cleveland--the 20-yarder on third and 18 and the touchdown pass--he became a starter this season, and caught 26 passes, or 12 fewer than he had as a rookie sub.

“I guess it’s a pretty good story,” he said.

“I went to three different high schools. I moved to Terre Haute (Ind.) my junior year. They weren’t too impressed to see a guy 5-6 walk in from nowhere. My senior year, I had a good year, got some recognition but not too many scholarship offers.”

He walked on at Purdue but didn’t start until his senior season.

He ran 4.75 in the 40 at the scouting combine workout, which would have been fast for an offensive tackle.

“What I did, I was trying to impress everyone,” Jackson said. “Someone gave me this apparatus to help you run faster. So I was out working outside and it was snowing and I caught a real bad cold. And I was popping the drugs to try to get rid of my cold.”

So he became a Cinderella story and finally an Amigo, the second in command.

When Johnson was forced into the hospital with a bleeding vein in one thigh after the Oiler hit, the Broncos had to face the Browns in the AFC championship game with only dos Amigos. Jackson and Nattiel wore towels with Johnson’s No. 82 on them and wrote “Vance” on the bottoms of their shoes.

More to the point, Jackson caught 4 passes for 134 yards, including the 80-yard scoring play that he and Elway created out of a scramble and a broken field. Nattiel caught 5 for 95, including the rising rifle shot from Elway that he snagged for the first touchdown. The legend soared.

“I think the excitement helps Vance to play,” Jackson said. “I think the more pressure you put on him, the better he plays. He tries to put his head in a vise every week with some of the things he says.

“I have other ways of motivating myself than being in front of a camera or tape recorder, saying something crazy.

“But I like it. It’s a long season. We were in London this year (for an exhibition against the Rams), and it seems like forever since we started out in Greeley. Anything that can bring some excitement and keep your interest up, I think it helps.”

What do they really add up to?

Opposing defensive backs like to say they’re overrated, a loudmouthed product of Reeves’ game plans and Elway’s arm. A respected National Football League scout, however, calls the trio exceptional.

And so, the sun sets on our heroes, with only Super Bowl XXII, itself, left to determine their place in history and the nation’s commercials, alongside the Four Horsemen, Seven Blocks of Granite, Fearsome Foursome, Purple People Eaters, Hogs, Smurfs and next year’s hype.

Those of you who just want off this merry-go-round, your time is coming. After Sunday, you’ll have a whole year to rest.