OLD FRIENDS RECALL ELWAY FROM HIS DAYS AT GRANADA.

Byline: VINCENT BONSIGNORE

John Elway retires from the National Football League today. You know this because the announcement will be televised around the country and because every newspaper in the country will run more tributes to Elway on Monday.

What you don't know is that Elway isn't the only one walking away.

When the greatest quarterback in NFL history steps aside, so will a handful of very fortunate San Fernando Valley friends who tagged along with Elway on the most majestic of sports rides.

You might not know their names, and you won't recognize their faces, but every time Elway threw a touchdown pass or guided his team on a last-second, game-winning drive, and each time he raised the Vince Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl triumph, a little piece of Chris Sutton, Darryl Stroh, Jack Neumeier and every teammate Elway ever played baseball or football with at Granada Hills High was there with him.

``I've told friends that it feels like a part of me is retiring,'' said Sutton, Elway's best friend from those splendid days at Granada Hills 20 years ago. ``I mean, it's one thing to have a friend from high school go on to play pro football and have a pretty good career. But it's a totally different thing to know somebody who went on to play in the Pro Bowl and win awards and somebody who, at one point, an entire country was rooting for to win the Super Bowl.

``To know somebody like that, and to be able to call them a good friend, well, there is no doubt I lived vicariously through him. And even if I had the talent and ability to play professional football myself, I still would have rather done it this way, through somebody like John. . . . He's been such a good friend, such a great guy who kept in touch and was nice enough to allow at least a few of his friends to be involved in his run.''

Elway made it easy to like him, forever preserving a good-guy attitude despite all the fame, money and praise that came his way over the years. He never stopped being the same carefree 16-year-old who arrived in the San Fernando Valley in 1976, and that's why friends like Stroh, Sutton and Neumeier feel connected to him all these years later.

``It's just such a breath of fresh air that somebody can come along and be so awesome on the playing field and be every bit as awesome as a human being,'' said Stroh, who coached Elway in football and baseball.

That is the John Elway his friends remember today. A star so bright that a whole country once stood behind him in victory, a friend so untouched by his celebrity that he has returned to Granada Hills to play in alumni baseball games and who always had time for his high school friends.

``John Elway has always been a special friend,'' said Neumeier, the Highlanders' head football coach when Elway played. ``And that's because John Elway is just a great person.''

Has it really been 21 years since Elway made the San Fernando Valley his personal playground, piling up touchdown completions and passing yardage at a rate only a calculator could compute?

It seems like yesterday that Elway turned the page on his high school career and left for Stanford University, and yet today he closes the final chapter on a Hall of Fame NFL career.

How is that possible?

``Time sure does fly,'' said Stroh. ``It makes you wonder where the last 20 years went.''

Elway moved to the area in the summer of 1976 from Pullman, Wash., when his father Jack was hired as the football coach at Cal State Northridge.

The lanky teen-ager made an immediate impression on his future football teammates at Granada Hills, showing up at a summer workout and instantly establishing himself as the starting quarterback. Elway's gift was his powerful right arm, which he used to launch rocket passes that could literally break, dislocate and sprain the fingers of his receivers.

As tall as a linebacker and with the speed and agility of a running back, Elway helped revolutionize the way quarterbacks play. He forever changed the belief that a quarterback should just stand in the pocket and throw. The powerful arm was threat enough, but the maneuverability to avoid the rush and the quickness to pick up yards as a runner made him a unique talent and altered what scouts look for and expect from their quarterbacks.

It helped that Elway had an innovative coach in Neumeier, whose creative passing game perfectly suited Elway's talents.

``I think the thing that stands out as I followed John's career from high school to college to the pros is how much influence he had on the game,'' Neumeier said. ``A lot of the things he learned in high school you see in the pros right now.''

Those game-winning drives that made Elway famous? They never surprised Neumeier.

``That was a big part of what we did every day in practice,'' Neumeier said. ``We'd line them up, tell John to go on audible, to change formations at the line of scrimmage and that he had two minutes to score. Even then, you saw John had the ability to handle that kind of thing.''

Elway threw for 3,039 yards as a junior and 5,701 yards over his two-year career with the Highlanders. In baseball, he was a starter on two City Section championship teams and was named the 1979 playoff MVP after collecting nine hits in 13 at-bats during the four-game postseason.

``I saw every practice he had in football and baseball and he never had a bad day,'' Stroh said. ``To me, the most remarkable thing about him is his attitude and his ability to give his best everyday and enjoy himself while doing it - more that anybody I've ever met.''

Selfishly, most of Elway's friends want him to stay on.

``I understand the decision, and there's never really a right or wrong time to do it,'' Stroh said. ``But from a personal standpoint I'm going to miss seeing him play on Sunday afternoons and being a small part of that.''

Sutton, though, agrees with his friend's decision and even tried talking Elway into retiring after last season. The two buddies spoke last week, with Elway promising to join Sutton on a surfing trip to Malibu.

``He said he was going to make me look silly,'' Sutton said. ``But he really sounded happy and excited. He wants to play a lot of golf, maybe get down to a plus one or two handicap. I'm very happy for him.''

As are we all.

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PHOTO Granada Hills graduate John Elway threw for 5,701 yards in his junior and senior years as a Highlander, and helped revolutionize the way pro quarterbacks play.

Daily News File Photo