Steve Young reached the pinnacle of his career when he led the Niners to the Super Bowl XXIX title. Peter Read Miller/SI

By Peter King

When I think of Dan Marino and Steve Young, I think of one man who should have won a championship and one man who, very emotionally, did. And I think of class. Two scenes -- 10 months apart, and, remarkably, only a few feet apart in the home locker room at the Dolphins' Joe Robbie Stadium -- come immediately to mind. They say everything about the two quarterbacks.

Covering Super Bowl XXIX in January 1995, I was in the 49ers' locker room minutes after their lopsided win over the Chargers. Young had thrown a Super Bowl-record six touchdown passes that night, and I swear he could have thrown 16 if coach George Seifert hadn't called off the dogs in the second half. Having played his career in the shadow of Joe Montana, Young was thrilled with the win, because he had finally silenced the critics who had wondered whether he could come up big when the stakes were high. So here he was, standing on the makeshift stage set up for TV, clutching the Lombardi Trophy. Young hugged the twofoot gridiron Holy Grail so hard I thought he would bend it. He rocked it back and forth and, with the veins in his neck popping, yelled, "No one (pause) can ever (pause) ever (pause) ever! (pause) take this away from us!" I had never seen a player in a winning locker room so happy, so fulfilled.

Eleven weeks into the following season Sports Illustrated dispatched me to Miami to report on Marino's attempt to set the NFL alltime record for passing yards. The Dolphins were playing New England that day, and it was only a matter of time before Marino surpassed Fran Tarkenton's record of 47,003. On a simple nineyard squareout to Irving Fryar, Marino got the record in the first quarter. The crowd stood as one, applauding the man with moviestar looks and the fastest arm the NFL has ever seen, and Marino waved the ball over his head in thanks. But New England would swamp the Dolphins, so despite the record the Miami locker room was not a happy one. A few of us waited for Marino by his locker, and when he got to his stool and sat down, he was handed the stat book from the game by Dolphins p.r. man Harvey Greene. "You'll want this," Greene said quietly.

Marino, seeing what it was, flung the packet into his locker at the same time he made a noise like "Pffffffft." Allow me to translate: "We lost this game, so screw the stats and the records. If you haven't noticed, I'm about winning, not about numbers."

I'm sure this year's other two Hall of Fame inductees -- Benny Friedman and Fritz Pollard -- wanted to win badly too, but they were a tad before my time. I know Young and Marino. And I know what was inside them.

They were different guys. Young had some politician in him. I got to know him well early in his career, caught between big money and collegedorm humility during his USFL days, and I loved what a real person he was, with feelings that got bruised easily. When I finish interviewing players I know well, I might say something stupid, like, "Have a good life." When we're finished talking, Young, to this day, says, "Hey, have a good life." He really cared what people thought of him, but he wasn't vengeful when he felt he'd been slighted. It's no secret that the competition between Young and Montana wasn't loveydovey, and they're not good friends. But I had been with Young into the wee hours after after his Super Bowl victory, when a family member full of himself blurted out, "Joe who?!" Rather than gloating, Young glared at the man and said, in effect, This isn't the night to be criticizing one of the best players ever. This is the night to be happy for what we did.

Marino was all player. Try to find a teammate who didn't like him. I bet you can't. But he cared little what the outside world thought of him, so he was always tough for the media to deal with. Not that he was a bad guy; he just felt that what happened in a locker room was private and that reporters didn't need to know any more about it than a coach was willing to let out.

I always wondered why his teammates liked Marino so much, because he seemed so, well, uninteresting. I found out when I joined his postfootball team in 2003, working for HBO's Inside the NFL. I could tell 15 stories about the Dan Marino I got to know in that setting, but consider this one: A physical therapist friend of mine with a patient in rapidly failing health told me that her client was a huge fan of Marino's and wondered if I could get Dan to shake the guy's hand one day in New York City. I asked, and Marino agreed. The day came, and the ill man and his family came to HBO. For 15 minutes Marino sat with the guy, reminiscing about games, posing for pictures and signing anything that was offered. The session only ended when I finally pulled Marino away. A couple of weeks later Marino said to me, "Hey, how's that guy doing?"

I can't always say that the players inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on a given year are Hall of Famers as people. But in the cases of Steve Young and Dan Marino, I certainly can.

Issue date: August 10, 2005