The Doggone Best

Here comes Miss Universe, in a slow jog, 5'8", 35-25-35, little shorts, ready to go 10 miles. "Do you want to run, Dwight?" she asks, and Clark, who is in his car, says no, as he always does because he hates to run. Miss Universe kisses him and disappears up the road, leaving in her absence the afterimage of legs.

Weatherly is a jock. She and Clark have been going together for four years, and in that time she has worked out at least as much as he has. She has even gone under the knife, having had a cartilage operation on each knee. The scars, it should be noted, affect her appearance about as much as two specks of dust on a Ferrari.

Weatherly and Clark make a stunning couple, tall, athletic, full of youth and teeth—perfect Californians, it seems. But they discovered each other back at Clemson when neither was particularly famous, just attractive. "Dwight was kind of a football star at Clemson, not because he was so good but because he was so handsome," says Weatherly. "They called him The Heartthrob Kid in the program. I'd seen him walking on campus with five girls on his arms, and I thought, 'How sickening!' " But before long they were dating steadily. They have been tight ever since—although for business reasons Weatherly now spends a lot of time in L.A.—and therein lies a lot of their current appeal on the fashion-show circuit.

"Shawn attracts people who aren't football fans, and Dwight is like a movie star," says Karen Firestone, the public relations manager for Macy's California, on a cool May day. Macy's hired the pair to model sportswear at a series of Bay Area fashion shows beginning this day. "But it's more than looks. I think everybody knows they're together. Everybody likes to see people in love."

Macy's also signed Montana for this outdoor gig in Union Square. He looks a little ill. This isn't his metier. Clark, too, is nervous at first but soon loosens up and begins to enjoy himself. Weatherly, of course, is the poised trouper, a smiling veteran of hundreds of these things, and she keeps the act together.

After the show the three sign posters of themselves for fans. Montana's picture is a standard football shot, but Clark's and Weatherly's are beefcake and cheesecake, respectively. Clark's shows him in gym shorts and ragged half T shirt, his body sprayed with oil and water, a girl-slaying grin on his face.

"I mean that has got to be the sexiest poster of a man I've ever seen," gushes Firestone. "Sexier than Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck, anybody!"

Clark is characteristically naive about what is going on. "I don't know why my shirt is all ripped," he says. "The photographer did that."

It's pretty clear now what's happening. The Super Bowl is being sold here, as are sex and innocence and real love and fame and.... And the price is right. During the off-season Clark nearly doubled his close-to-$100,000 income from the 49ers by doing ads and appearances like the Macy's gig. And Weatherly got a big boost in her modeling career. It has been suggested to Clark that financially he and Weatherly couldn't break up now even if they wanted to, and Clark says with a laugh that it's probably true.

It seems as if nothing can stop the good rolls Clark has been getting lately. He envies Winslow's skills and grace and what Clark feels is "a truly great football name, right up there with Joe Montana." But he knows he has something Winslow would trade all those things for. Call it timing. In the Super Bowl the Bengals, behind 26-21, tried an onside kick with 16 seconds left in the game. If Cincinnati had recovered the ball, it could have won on a long pass. But as the kick skipped down the carpet it seemed to search out Dwight Clark and then, like an obedient dog, hopped toward Clark's chest. Clark grabbed the ball and fell down. A few seconds later the clock ran out, and the Super Bowl came to a fitting end in his lucky hands.