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Covering Montana
Peter King has been a Pro Football Hall of Fame selector for the past five years. He shares one of his fondest memories of watching Joe Montana at work. I want to start off by saying I really don't know Joe Montana. I know him well enough to say hello, and I've interviewed him five or six times at some length, but I'm not the guy to give you great insight into the man. I do, however, have a story I like to tell people about him and about my first memorable experience at Sports Illustrated. In my fourth month working for the magazine, early in the 1989 NFL season, I had a neat idea for my weekly column. The 49ers were famous for traveling in style --taking chefs on their charters to cook delicious meals, giving their players single rooms instead sticking them with roommates, traveling on Fridays instead of Saturdays to better acclimate themselves to opposing cities and time changes. The guys told me they thought it really helped them to win. So I thought when the Niners were in Philadelphia, I'd drive down from my north Jersey home and talk to a bunch of players about it. I met the team in Philadelphia on a Saturday morning and rode the bus with them from the hotel to Veterans Stadium for their walk-through practice. Montana and linebacker Charles Haley sat in the two seats in front of me. Silent, mostly. It was early for them, maybe 10:30 a.m. When the bus approached the stadium, Haley piped up and asked, "What's that place?'' Said Montana, "That's the place we're playing the game tomorrow, you dumb #%@&!'' I laughed, as did a few other earwitnesses. I did my interviews, gathered stories about the First-Class 49ers. And the next day, I settled in to watch the game, knowing that the outcome was meaningless because I was writing mostly about the Chateaubriand and crabcakes and fennel salad the team dined on Friday night during its coast-to-coast flight. You remember those Eagles, the second-best defensive team of this generation, just behind the '85 Bears. Reggie White, the late Jerome Brown, Seth Joyner, Dirty Waters, Clyde Simmons -- and the cantankerous Buddy Ryan whipping them all into a frenzy. This match with the defending Super Bowl champion 49ers was the game, Ryan told his players, that would launch them on a Super Bowl run. So I settled into my seat in the Veterans Stadium press box to watch a good game. At halftime, with Philadelphia leading 12-10 and beating Montana severely with five sacks and five or six other bell-ringers, I called my editor at the time, Peter Griffin. "We really ought to consider doing an Eagles story out of this game,'' I said. "We could be seeing a changing of the guard here today.'' He told me to call him at the end of the third quarter. Two more Philly field goals. Eagles, 18-10. "The Eagles are pulverizing Montana,'' I told Griffin. "He's hanging in there heroically, but they're throwing haymaker after haymaker.'' Now Griffin told Mark Mulvoy, the managing editor at the time, that maybe we ought to be thinking of doing a game story. Mulvoy started to fret because we didn't have a photographer at the game. Now, I have seen a lot of quarterbacks have a lot of good runs in a lot of games. But I have never seen -- and never will see again -- a quarter like Montana proceeded to play. He'd been leveled, by my count, 20 times in the first three quarters. He said later he had quite a ringing headache by the start of the fourth quarter. "But that's part of the game,'' he would say later. "Everyone gets hit in this league.'' Montana threw a 70-yard catch-and-run TD to John Taylor 90 seconds into the quarter. Randall Cunningham matched him five minutes later. Working quickly, Montana, nervy and throwing on short drops, led the Niners 75 yards downfield, finishing the drive with an eight-yard TD pass to fullback Tom Rathman. I called Griffin. "Montana's out of his mind,'' I reported. "This is one of the best games I've ever seen. The Eagles are up 28-24, but don't count Montana out. We've got to do a story.'' A few minutes later, with Montana charging again, the phone rang. "What's going on down there?'' said Mulvoy, but I could barely him him above the din. Now, I was new, and Mulvoy was the big kahuna, and I didn't know how forceful to be. "I know space is tight,'' I said, "but you've got to make room. Even two pages. Anything. We've got to get this game in the magazine.'' Another drive. Montana to Brent Jones, touchdown. Turnover. Another short drive. Montana to Jerry Rice, touchdown. I went downstairs. I saw Eddie DeBartolo, the owner, crying in the end zone. "I love these guys!'' he rasped. "I'm more proud of them today than the day they won the Super Bowl!'' Niners, 38-28. Montana's fourth quarter: 11 of 12, 227 yards, four touchdowns, no picks. I nosed around, took notes, watched Montana limp in major pain from locker to shower. As usual, Montana said nothing. That night, about 10:30, Mulvoy called me in my hotel room. "You've got the cover,'' he said. I got more than the cover. I got the chills. Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and appears each Sunday on CNN's "NFL Preview."
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