The Last Ride?

He has always been the single-minded competitor, Stanford-educated to talk about anything, but stubborn, defiant and resolved to focus on the next play, the next football game while everyone else wants to know if he will be playing his final game in Mile High Stadium on Sunday.

Maybe the final game of his career anywhere.

“I have blocked it out--don’t know,” Elway says. “Next question.”

But John Elway is also a father, and when his youngest daughter approached him recently and told him she was going to watch the game on TV at a friend’s house, Dad said, “I think it would be a better idea if you went to the game. . . . This could be the last one. The last game.”

It is Wednesday, four days until the AFC championship game against the New York Jets and less than two hours after Michael Jordan has stepped to the microphone to announce his retirement, and now Elway has the same opportunity.

“No matter when he went out, he was going out on top,” Elway says.

Surrounded by the media, as he has been since May 2, 1983, the night he arrived to a scrutinized hero’s welcome in Denver, he bobs, weaves and scrambles, as good at avoiding direct questions as blitzing linebackers.

“Not even thinking about it. The game is bigger than that,” he says, his disinterested voice trying to put an end to the conversation. “This is what I came back for--to enjoy these situations.”

Later, in a private moment, relaxed and swinging a golf club, he says, “Michael Jordan’s situation is different than mine. He’s not playing still. He’s not going for a championship game.

“I’m sure if he was in my situation he wouldn’t want to be talking about retirement going into the biggest game of the year.”

Jordan didn’t, the competitor playing his last game, taking the last shot for his team and winning, months later making it official he would play no more.

Elway had the opportunity a year ago, his picture bigger than life everywhere in Denver with the Lombardi Trophy raised in his right hand, his mouth open shouting in jubilation after winning a Super Bowl.

Columnists across the country urged him to go out on top and make his retirement official, and although he had made the decision to end his career, he reconsidered when he realized his return would go a long way to helping the Broncos win a referendum for a new stadium.

“Why retire at the top?” Elway said before this season began. “The thing I came to--you got a lot of life yet, another 30 or 40 years to live, and leaving a year early, something you’ve always enjoyed doing, why would anyone do that? Who knows, maybe we’ll go back and win another one, and then I can get on the horse and still ride off.”

And now here he is--two games away from hopping on that horse, although he might need a boost. The legs hurt, the shoulder stings and there are bumps and bruises, maybe enough to tell a 38-year-old man enough is enough.

“I kind of leave it at what John has said--a 90 to 95% chance he will retire,” Bronco Coach Mike Shanahan says. “I would be surprised if he came back next year, but I do know there’s a possibility [of returning].”

Shanahan, who brought the system to Denver that enhanced Elway’s stats late in his career, could not pass on the opportunity to gain the competitive edge on the Jets, urging Mile High fans to yell louder if they believe this will be Elway’s final home game.

“It’s going to be very emotional. . . . No one wants No. 7 to go out [a loser],” Denver tight end Shannon Sharpe says. “I think he has it in his mind what direction he’s going to go in. . . . With John I think he would rather go out knowing he had one more year left in him than staying around too long.”

The Jets have let it be known this week that they will try to stop running back Terrell Davis, the NFL’s MVP, and force Elway to beat them.

“We can live with that,” Sharpe says. “We’ll take our chances with No. 7 back there. Once a great football player, I don’t think you forget how to be great.”

For the past 16 years, Elway has been unable to do anything without generating headlines in this city. As he prepares for his sixth AFC championship game, the spotlight remains uncompromising.

“I don’t even want to be thinking about retirement,” Elway says. “I say one thing and that would become the focus and it would take the focus away from this game. The focus is about winning football games--that’s what it is all about. There will be enough time for nostalgia.”

He announced before the season that this would be his last, but he realized later it was a mistake, becoming uncomfortable with all the attention, fearing it might become a distraction.

“I didn’t want a farewell tour,” he said, and so he let it be known maybe this was not his final season, although telling friends he remained 99.9% committed to retirement at season’s end.

But what about the fans, driving around here with “Elway For President” bumper stickers, who would like the chance to give him his due: one last standing ovation, one last Mile High roar.

“I don’t think people owe me anything,” he says. “If this was a regular-season game and we were out of the playoffs and I was retiring, then I would come out and say I was playing my last game. But the whole reason we play this game is for the chance to play in these kind of games, and that’s all that matters right now.”

On Sunday, he will take the field for the 128th time as starter at home for the Broncos in regular-season and postseason play. So many memories, but as much those, an incredible 102 victories and only 25 defeats in 16 years in Mile High Stadium.

“Not many losses, I knew that,” says Elway, the winningest quarterback in NFL history with 148 regular-season wins, but 58-64-1 in regular-season and postseason games away from Mile High.

Home sweet home indeed. “I remember it all,” he says. “But I don’t want to get nostalgic now. . . . When I retire all that stuff will be more fun to talk about.”

There was lightning in the sky when he trotted onto the Mile High field for the first time for an exhibition game against Seattle in the summer of 1983. The first of 47 fourth-quarter comebacks came later in December with three touchdowns to beat Baltimore, the team that originally drafted him and which he subsequently forced to trade him to Denver.

There were three Super Bowl losses under Dan Reeves, an unfriendly parting, and finally vindication last year in Qualcomm Stadium with a Super Bowl win over Green Bay.

“It’s kind of funny,” says Davis, his own arrival providing Elway with some of his best moments. “I was watching some old Super Bowls and there was John in something like 1987. I thought to myself, look how far back John was playing.

“All good things have to come to an end some day, and if this is his last game in Mile High, the thing to do is end on a positive note.”

It won’t be surprising to hear rumors before Sunday’s game that Elway will announce afterward that he has played his final game in Mile High. It’s possible, but just as probable that he will wait a few weeks.

He likes telling the story about talking to Johnny Bench, who advised him to leave the game only if comfortable in having no regrets at some later time. And a well-meaning Bronco official, relaying advice passed on by Joe Montana, told Elway, “When it’s over, it’s over. There’s no coming back.”

Ask him now if he has made up his mind, and he swears he has not given it a thought, although those who know him best believe he knows he will not be back.

“I hope he doesn’t retire,” joked backup quarterback Bubby Brister, “because Mike [Shanahan] will have us in meetings from daylight until dark.”

But Brister, as close as anyone on this team to Elway, says it will be difficult for Elway to return, his body paying the toll with 533 sacks and 825 runs.

“I think he’s hurting a lot,” Brister says. “He wakes up sore. It’s miserable waking up like that every day. . . . I know he wants to do other things.”

He has four children and there are soccer games to attend. He wants to play golf, maybe more seriously as part of the Professional Celebrity Tour.

He sold his Denver-area automobile dealerships for more than $80 million, but he continues to work for the new owners. He doesn’t rule out the possibility of running for political office, but his dream is to own a professional sports franchise, such as the Colorado Rockies.

“I have things I want to do, but I can honestly say I’m not thinking about anything right now except the next game,” he says. “It’s what is in front of me and not behind. There will be time later on. . . .”

But if this is it, his final Sunday in Mile High. . . .

“It’s going to be special,” admits Elway, his guard down for a moment before catching himself with his own sense of humor. “Really special years from now when Mile High has been torn down, the new stadium built and I can tell my grandchildren I once played in that parking lot.”

Sunday

NFC Final

Atlanta (15-2) at Minnesota (16-1)

9:30 a.m.

Fox

AFC Final

N.Y. Jets (13-4) at Denver (15-2)

1 p.m.

CBS