Another Manning in the Wings

By MARY FOSTER

Nov. 30, 1997 12 AM PT

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The resemblance is striking: the same rangy build, maybe a tad skinnier at 185 pounds, stretched over a 6-foot-5 frame.

The long arms, the slow smile, the big hands, and most of all, the strong right arm, all proclaim that the kid in the green and white football uniform is another Manning.

Sixteen-year-old Eli is the youngest of Archie Manning’s three sons and appears certain to carry on the tradition of his father and older brother Peyton.

“He’s got everything Peyton had,” said New Orleans Newman High School football coach Frank Gendusa. “There’s every reason to believe he’ll have the same kind of college career and be as attractive to the pros.”

Eli led Newman--also Peyton’s high school--to a 9-1 record and the state playoffs this season. He completed 103 of 152 passes for 1,928 yards and 21 touchdowns. In some games he played only three quarters because Newman was so far ahead.

And like his older brother and father, the junior has attracted the attention of college coaches around the country.

“I guess he gets about 20 letters a week from various programs,” Gendusa said. “It’ll really crank up next year when he’s a senior. Right now he doesn’t pay much attention.”

But Eli is aware of the chaos ahead.

“It was really wild when Peyton was being recruited,” he said. “We had to put in an extra phone line and he spent a couple of nights a week just talking to coaches and answering letters.”

Eli still is not completely familiar with the bigger football picture he’ll soon face, said his oldest brother, Cooper, a receiver until a congenital neck problem ended his career at Ole Miss.

“He opened a letter from Joe Paterno and didn’t know who he was,” said Cooper, now an executive in the oil business. “He knows football but isn’t up on the programs and personalities the way Peyton and I were.”

Seven years younger than Cooper, five years younger than Peyton, Eli missed his father’s heyday as the New Orleans Saints’ quarterback. He knows about Archie’s glory days at Ole Miss because the family still attends games at the school and he hears the stories.

He’s also aware of the bitterness Rebel fans felt when Peyton went to Tennessee.

“I guess I’ll hear from both schools when I start picking,” Eli said. “I don’t have any idea about where I want to go.”

He often gets advice from big brother Peyton.

“I think, unfortunately, the pressure has already started, which is too bad. . . . I tell him just to enjoy school and playing, go to the prom, see his friends and don’t worry about college yet,” Peyton said.

“He has a lot more pressure than I had. I just had to deal with being Archie’s son and Cooper’s brother. Now he has all three of us.”

Although he tossed the football to them in the yard, Archie never urged his sons to play the game. Cooper, Peyton and Eli all played baseball and basketball before football.

Keeping their sons grounded amid the pressure was Archie and wife Olivia’s main goal.

“We told each one of them to have fun, just enjoy it or not play,” Archie said. “We made sure they stayed with a group and weren’t isolated. There’s nothing like friends to keep you down to earth.”

Eli is shaking off the shyness that left him tongue-tied and blushing in the past. His composure on the football field is mirrored by his poise off the field now.

Low key, Eli is not the verbal leader Peyton was, Gendusa said. He is a leader, however.

“Everyone likes him,” the coach said. “He’s like all the Manning kids--polite, nice, a good student.”

And for a few more months, Eli can be just another high school kid.

“I’m just having fun,” he said. “I’ll start worrying about the future when it gets here.”