After he was selected in the second round of the 1982 NFL draft by the Houston Oilers, quarterback Oliver Luck rewarded himself with a sweet new ride. The Mazda RX-7 Luck chose was a sleek, silver coupe that had pop-up headlights, a powerful new-age rotary engine and, as Luck would have it, just one minor design flaw.
That season, the hapless Oilers traded for veteran quarterback Archie Manning, which meant Luck's role on the team in the strike-shortened season of 1982 was reduced to little more than designated rookie gopher. And, as such, it often fell to Luck to drive out to the Houston airport each week to pick up the starting quarterback's kids -- two boys you might have heard of before, once or twice, named Cooper and Peyton.
The only problem? The rook's cool RX-7 only had two seats.
"It was my job to pick them up and occupy them with ice cream or hamburgers so Arch could get treatment or run errands or just get a few things done before the boys arrived," said Luck, now the athletic director at West Virginia. "But the RX-7 was a hatchback and it only had two seats. So we had to squeeze both kids in or, sometimes, one went back into the hatchback. I'm guessing it was Peyton since he was younger. He would have been 6 at the time, I think. Looking back now, 30 years later, I realize how valuable the cargo was that I was carrying back there."
At some point, one would assume, Cooper let his little brother escape the hatchback, and the art of quarterbacking has never been the same. Now in his 15th season and widely regarded as the league's top passer (maybe ever), Peyton and his undefeated Denver Broncos return to Indianapolis on Sunday night to face his former team and their outstanding young passer, Andrew Luck.
The last time Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck shared a field was at the Pro Bowl in January. They'll face off in Indianapolis on Sunday.
Of course, the anticipated matchup of Manning versus Luck has garnered wall-to-wall coverage and, oh, just a tad bit of hype -- save for one tiny historical footnote.
