Getting a read on Elam

With the release of his second football-action-adventure-religious thriller, kicker Jason Elam now owns an insurmountable two-novel lead over everyone else in the Falcons’ locker room.

And clear some room on the book jacket —- the reviews for his work are in from Elam’s peers:

“I couldn’t put it down. I stayed up too late a couple nights reading it.” —- punter Michael Koenen.

“I’m planning on reading one of his soon.” —- tackle Todd Weiner.

“He writes books?” —- fullback Ovie Mughelli.

Obviously, Elam hasn’t quite developed a Tom Clancy-esque following, but not for lack of effort. While teammates celebrated on the airplane ride home from beating San Diego last month, the man who contributed eight points to the effort was bent over his laptop working out the first chapter of another book.

Elam is involved in all kinds of intriguing plot lines these days. There are those he has imagined and those he has been living as part of the Falcons’ remarkable trip from despair to the joy of reaching the playoffs.

His body of work as a player is weighty. Brought home this season as a free agent, the former Brookwood star kicked the game-ending field goal to beat Tampa Bay in overtime on Dec. 14. A 16-year vet, Elam, 38, has hit on 28 of 30 field-goal attempts and is tied for seventh in the NFL in scoring this season. He shares the NFL record for longest field goal ever (63 yards with Denver, 1998).

As an author, Elam still is learning his way around the bookshelf.

His first novel, written with Denver buddy Steve Yohn, is titled “Monday Night Jihad.” Out for a year, the book has done fairly well around the Denver market, where Elam made his name in a Broncos-mad town. He’s seeking a wider marketplace now. His publisher, which specializes in Christian-themed books, released no sales numbers, but the figures were encouraging enough to lead to a four-book deal with Elam and Yohn.

“Monday Night Jihad” introduced fictional professional linebacker Riley Covington as the hard-hitting, clean-living protagonist. A former Air Force Special Ops guy, Covington finds himself immersed in one conflict after another, including, in book one, a bloody terrorist attack on a Monday night game between his Denver Mustangs and the Baltimore Predators. (The actual NFL nicknames were ever so slightly modified).

Why not a kicker for the hero?

“It had to be more plausible than that. It just didn’t fit —- a placekicker in special ops,” Elam laughed.

Interests merge

Writers, especially those of fiction, are rarer in the locker room than lace doilies. There, the work is normally limited to the Xs and Os, leaving the other 24 letters of the alphabet to fend for themselves.

Elam was set to thinking about the project by his older brother, a lieutenant colonel in Army intelligence now stationed in Georgia. You’ve got all these football stories you’re always telling, so why not commit them to print? his brother prodded.

“Then,” Elam said, “about three years ago, I had this idea to incorporate these stories in an action-adventure book combining current events and elements of my faith and the radical Islam-Christian contrast. I thought it could be very compelling.”

A confluence of interests led him naturally to this story line. The football aspect was obvious. Elam’s interest in the roots of religion is so acute that he has been to the Middle East nine times and plans a 10th trip in February. He is working on a master’s degree in global apologetics (a comparative study of religion) from Liberty University.

In both his published books —- the second is titled “Blown Coverage” —- the body count is high, but the sex, drugs and profanity are nonexistent. Covington is the main religious component, as various trials force him to constantly examine his faith. All the while, Elam tries to make the terrorists into something more than one-dimensional villains.

Elam supplies the experience and the expertise. It helps to have a brother in the military and friends in law enforcement.

“He’s the big picture guy. I fill in the sights and sounds,” Yohn said. He was a pastor at Elam’s old church in Denver, his writing experience mostly limited to the church bulletin.

As in any book, many of the characters in the Riley Covington series are borrowed from the writers’ lives. Such as the kicker in “Monday Night Jihad” who drops an abusive fan with a well-placed pregame punt (Elam once did that in Oakland).

Some of the characters or situations in future books may spring from this Falcons season. There is such a wealth of good experience from which to draw.

“What I’ve noticed about this team, after all the stuff that happened last year, how hungry everybody is,” Elam said. “… It’s fun to be on a team like that.”

Borrowing from this surprising Falcons season may be risky, though, with so much of it seeming to strain even the bounds of fiction.