A LOOK AT THIS WEEK’S RAM AND RAIDER OPPONENTS : NO IDLE CHATTER : Broncos’ Humphrey Is Making Good on Childhood Dream

Marlene Humphrey was in the kitchen when her son, Bobby, interrupted, tugging on her skirt.

“Mama, come here and look at this football game on TV,” Bobby said. “One day I’m going to be playing on TV.”

She paid scant attention, passing it off as the chatter of a small boy.

But last Monday night, 20 years later, Marlene Humphrey saw her son play for the Denver Broncos in a nationally televised game against the Buffalo Bills.

A 6-foot-1, 202-pound tailback, Humphrey is the leading rookie rusher in the American Football Conference going into Sunday’s game against the Raiders in Denver.

Some dreams do come true, but not always without a struggle.

Bobby Humphrey’s football career almost ended before it began.

When Humphrey was a freshman at Glenn High School in Birmingham, Ala., his mother feared that he would get hurt playing football.

“I bought him a trumpet because I wanted him to play in the band,” Marlene Humphrey said. “His older brother wanted to play football, too, and I bought him a trombone and it got his mind off sports. I thought, ‘It worked for my older boy, and it would work for Bobby.’ But he was mad every time he went to play it.”

And Humphrey joined the football team, anyway, trying, unsuccessfully, to keep it from his mom.

“One day I came home late after playing a game, and she wondered where I’d been,” he said. “But I showed her the MVP trophy that I’d gotten in the game.”

Although his mother relented, Humphrey faced another obstacle.

Wendell Jones, the varsity coach, thought that Humphrey, who weighed 145 pounds, was too small for the sport.

“After Bobby finished elementary school, his father brought him down to meet me,” Jones said. “I didn’t pay any attention because he was such a little skinny kid.

“I told them that the B team practice would be next week. They drove off and then his dad came back and told me that Bobby was good enough to play on the varsity.

“But one day in practice I put him in and, shucks, this kid could run the football. After the third ballgame, he was starting for us as a freshman.”

Humphrey blossomed into an extraordinary prep football player on a team that never won more than four games in any season he was there.

After rushing for more than 4,000 yards, Humphrey was recruited by 150 colleges before signing with Alabama.

Humphrey had dreamed of playing for the Crimson Tide. He had parked cars and sold soft drinks at Alabama games at Legion Field, which was across the street from the housing project where he lived.

“I’d sell Cokes for the first three quarters and then, if I’d made enough money, I’d watch the fourth quarter,” Humphrey said. “It was a way to see the game for free and make some money. I usually made about $50 from the games.”

Humphrey flourished at Alabama, where he became the school’s rushing leader with 3,420 yards and 45 touchdowns. He was touted as a Heisman Trophy candidate last season.

Alabama also promoted Humphrey’s All-American image. A social-work major, he said he wanted to return and help clean up the drug- and gang-infested neighborhood of his youth.

Humphrey was even in a gang--E Phi P--as a youngster, before his mother intervened.

“It wasn’t a gang like they have today, shooting and killing,” Marlene Humphrey said. “Compared to the gangs they have today, that was like a prayer meeting. But I didn’t want him involved in all of that stuff because I didn’t know where it would lead.”

Humphrey said the gang had been formed to protect the neighborhood from rival gangs.

“We were a territorial gang,” Humphrey said. “We didn’t go out seeking trouble, but if trouble came to us we got involved.”

Humphrey’s image took a beating during the summer of 1987. He suffered a broken jaw when he was hit with a crowbar in an altercation at a popular nightspot in Tuscaloosa. The attack, which officials said was unprovoked, was a case of mistaken identity.

Humphrey prefers not to discuss the incident.

“When you bring that up, it makes me out to be the wrong type of person,” Humphrey said. “I’m not the type of guy you read about in the paper who was out fighting somewhere.”

Despite that injury, Humphrey returned for his senior season, but it quickly turned into a nightmare.

After suffering a stress fracture in his left foot in spring practice, Humphrey broke a bone in the same foot in Alabama’s second game and sat out the rest of the season.

He wore a cast for six weeks and underwent two operations, having a pin inserted in his foot. He wasn’t able to run full speed until June.

He said the nine-month rehabilitation was depressing.

“But I was able to overcome that with the help of my mother,” Humphrey said. “I just sat back and prayed and hoped that everything was going to turn out all right.”

Although he received an extra year of eligibility because of the injury, Humphrey decided to forgo his senior season at Alabama to make himself eligible for the National Football League draft.

Why did he leave college early?

“I felt that after playing there for three years, it was time to move on,” Humphrey said. “Even though my heart was still there, I felt it was time for me to move on to bigger and better things and go on to become a successful man in life.

“I still have nightmares about leaving. In the back of my mind, I think that I could have been a competitor for the Heisman Trophy this year. But I had to move on and move ahead in life.”

After 16 teams had passed, the Broncos selected Humphrey in the supplemental draft. They had to give up their No. 1 pick in the 1990 draft to select him.

Why did so many teams pass him by?

One NFL player personnel director cited the foot injury and said that Humphrey had not run a particularly good time in a 40-yard dash at a workout where scouts were present.

The Broncos took a chance on Humphrey because they were desperate for a speedy running back to complement quarterback John Elway. Although Elway passed the Broncos to consecutive appearances in the Super Bowl, Denver has long lacked a good running attack.

The Broncos drafted Steve Sewell of Oklahoma in 1985, but he has been better at catching passes than running. Denver signed Tony Dorsett last season, but his best days were behind him, at 35. In the final four games, he rushed for only 125 yards. The Broncos brought Dorsett back to camp this season, but he suffered a knee injury.

After a 21-day holdout during training camp, the Broncos signed Humphrey to a four-year, $2.045-million contract that is heavy with incentive clauses.

He had a quiet opener, rushing six times for 15 yards against Kansas City, but gained 76 yards in 10 carries in the Broncos’ 28-14 victory over the Bills Monday night. He scored a touchdown and helped to set up another with a 33-yard run.

“Bobby Humphrey is an exceptional talent,” Denver Coach Dan Reeves said. “He’s got great explosion and great acceleration. He senses daylight very well and has that great instinct that natural runners have.”

Although Humphrey is playing behind Sammy Winder, Reeves has said privately that it’s only a matter of time before Humphrey is the starter.

The Denver media have already compared the rookie to the two leading rushers in Bronco history, Otis Armstrong and Floyd Little.

“It’s given me a thrill being compared to Armstrong and Little,” Humphrey said. “It gives me that extra incentive to go on and prove that I can be the best.”