By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

"Remember," his parents had repeatedly counseled their impressionable 17-year old son, "you're just going out there to look around.'"

And each time Jason, the youngest of Ralph and Evelyn Elam's two sons, would nod his assent.

Flying from Snellville, Ga. on a football recruiting trip to the University of Hawai'i in 1988, his parents didn't want him to make an impulsive decision he might come to regret.

"Jason would have died if he had heard me say it, but he was our baby, 9 years younger than his brother, and and we didn't know about the idea of him going so far away," his mother recalled.

"So, they made me promise no matter how much I might like Hawai'i, I wouldn't make a commitment while I was there," Jason recalls. "They wanted me to come back, talk it over and really think about everything."

But that was before love at first sight. That was before he'd shed the 37 degree chill of home for a weekend in the sun and stood on the field at Aloha Stadium during the Pro Bowl.

"I sort of cheated," Jason said. "I told coach (Paul) Johnson, "I can't tell you officially, but ... I'm comin!'"

Not only was it a decision Elam never regretted, history tells us that next to the fateful choice of becoming a kicker, it might have been the best move of his career.

Today, 15 years to the month of his commitment to UH, he will be announced as an inductee to the school's Circle of Honor at a press conference at sponsoring Bank of Hawai'i. Installation is tomorrow night at the UH-San Jose State basketball game.

With a just-deposited $2.7 million bonus check, the largest ever given to a kicker in the NFL, and a five-year contract to remain with Denver, it has been quite a month and much more.

"I could have never imagined all that has happened to me," Elam says. "A Holiday Bowl, a WAC title, 10 years in the NFL, Super Bowls, a couple Pro Bowls ... Everything, the teammates I had at UH and all the friends I made here, it has been like a dream."

Along the way he'd tie the NFL record for the longest field goal (63 yards) and set the mark for the most consecutive extra points (371).

Not bad for somebody who wasn't even the top-ranked kicker in his elementary school. For much of Elam's early days, he kicked in the shadow of Chris Gardocki, a prep All-American. So overlooked was Elam that his college offers consisted of Jacksonville State, Appalachian State, Furman, East Carolina and UH.

"For me," Elam reflected, "UH turned out to be the beginning of a dream come true."