For anybody who watched Jason Elam kick for the University of Hawai'i, the idea that he is entering a 14th NFL season takes a little getting used to.

OK, a lot.

It is hard to imagine so many seasons have passed since the kid with the Georgia accent, ah-shucks disposition and what would become the most celebrated right foot in school history showed up in Manoa in 1989. Can it really have been all the way back in 1992 that Elam helped the then-Rainbows to their only season-ending top 20 finish in the Western Athletic Conference and Holiday Bowl championship season?

Elam will tell you it is also hard to believe that, at age 36, he's the oldest and longest tenured player on the Denver Broncos' roster, too. "But I am."

In the NFL, which UH defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville has famously said, "stands for Not For Long..." Elam is an exception to the rule. Even among kickers, he rates as an enduring fixture in a transitory environment.

"There's no such thing as job security in the NFL," Elam said. "I have always prepared my family that, hey, this is the NFL and you never know what's going to happen. So, we've always been prepared to uproot and move somewhere. Even now, when they don't have anybody in camp (in competition) against me, you still want to be the best you can be. You know they are always watching you. I mean, I hope to keep playing, but you never know what they are thinking upstairs."

In Denver, where he has 19 game-winning or game-tying kicks, they have been thinking mile high of Elam for years. The man who holds most of the franchise kicking records and rates with the best at his position in NFL history is being rewarded at $1.3 million this year and is due for $2.25 million next year.

The fastest in NFL history to 1,500 points, Elam says his next statistical goal is to hit 2,000 points, a level reached by only Gary Anderson, Morten Andersen and George Blanda. But it's a goal Elam is on pace to clear in four more seasons.

"Those are guys who, when I first got in the league, I had looked up to forever," Elam said. "That I've been playing that long (to chase their statistics) is amazing. It doesn't seem like it."

Time does, indeed, fly. But, then, so, too, does Elam, who has had a commercial pilot's license for several years and owns a 1957 De Haviland he flies around Colorado.

At the beginning, Elam said he sought a commercial pilot's license as a post-career job opportunity, something to fall back upon when his football days ended. But that was, he admits, when he hoped to play "five, maybe six years" in the league.

These days the the idea of becoming a pilot for pay has largely been shelved by a football career in which the sky is still the limit for Elam.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.