For a long time, the knock on Steve Young was that he couldn't win the Super Bowl.
"Couldn't" really isn't the appropriate verb, though. He never had the opportunity to win or lose one until this day 20 years ago when he led the San Francisco 49ers into Super Bowl XXIX against the San Diego Chargers. It was to be his only opportunity to win a Super Bowl — and, boy, did he take advantage of it.
Young began his professional career 10 years earlier in the ill–fated United States Football League with the Los Angeles Express. In 1985, he signed with the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who traded him to San Francisco in 1987, and Young spent the next four seasons as Joe Montana's backup. In that role, he was a participant in Super Bowls XXIII and XXIV. But he didn't get to play in Super Bowl XXIII, and he came in for mop–up duty after Super Bowl XXIV was a foregone conclusion.
In Tampa Bay, he had been judged a failure, but he showed his potential when subbing for Montana. Young became the 49ers' starter when Montana went down with a season–ending elbow injury in 1991. He was the 49ers' starting QB for the rest of that season, and he started every game for the next three seasons as well.
But the 49ers did not return to the Super Bowl until January 1995.
They were huge favorites when the game began. If you were betting on the 49ers in that game, you had to give the Chargers 19 points — the widest spread in Super Bowl history.
The 49ers led by 18 points at halftime and went on to cover the spread in a 49–26 victory. Young completed 75% of his passes for 325 yards and six touchdowns. He was, of course, the game's MVP
It was a joyous scene on the 49ers' sideline as the final seconds ticked away, and sideline cameras brought it into America's living rooms. Young and his teammates engaged in some play acting in which Young invited them to pull the monkey from his back — a shot at those who had said and/or written that he couldn't win the big one.
There are two thoughts, really, that cross my mind when I think of that game two decades ago.
The first is that it was the last Super Bowl of my mother's life. I don't know if she was ever the football fan that my father and I are, but she enjoyed watching the Super Bowl — especially if the Dallas Cowboys were playing in it. I was living in Oklahoma at the time, and I remember calling my parents early on Super Sunday and chatting about the game. I had no way of knowing it would be the last football game of my mother's life. She would be gone in less than four months.
So when I think of that day, I think of the phone conversation I had with my parents. I really don't remember the specifics of the conversation, only that we had one. We talked for about 20 minutes, then we signed off. Mom and Dad did whatever they did during the game, and so did I.
My other thought is of San Diego's Junior Seau, one of the finest defensive players I have ever seen play the game. It was his only Super Bowl, and, considering that he ended up taking his own life, presumably because of head injuries he suffered during his playing days, I really regret that he couldn't have had the experience of winning an NFL championship once in his life.
Twenty–five years ago today, Joe Montana became the second quarterback to win four Super Bowls.
Terry Bradshaw is the only other quarterback to record that achievement — if Tom Brady beats the Seahawks this Sunday, he will become the third man to do it. And one suspects that Brady will have few, if any, additional chances. This will be his sixth Super Bowl; he will be 38 years old before next season begins.
The quarterbacks who faced each other in Super Bowl XXIV in New Orleans 25 years ago had been to five Super Bowls between them. Montana was 3–0; Denver's John Elway was 0–2.
The 49ers came into the game 12–point favorites. I guess the oddsmakers knew what they were doing because Super Bowl XXIV remains, 25 years later, the most lopsided Super Bowl ever played.
The 49ers never trailed. On their first possession, San Francisco marched 66 yards in 10 plays and scored their first touchdown on a familiar combo — Montana to Jerry Rice. San Francisco led, 7–0.
The Broncos kicked a field goal when they got the ball back, but San Francisco retaliated with another touchdown — and what was probably the 49ers' only mistake all evening, a botched point–after attempt.
After one quarter, San Francisco led, 13–3. Montana had already thrown two touchdown passes.
The 49ers scored two more touchdowns in the second quarter and took a 27–3 lead to the locker room.
At this point, I ought to mention that I was in graduate school, and I was working at the local newspaper on the sports side. We had an outdoor writer who was, essentially, a freelancer. He brought his copy in to the office on Fridays, and we published it on Sunday.
Anyway, this writer and I were chatting about the game, and he asked me if I would be willing to bet with him. He wanted to take the Broncos. I agreed to bet with him, and I'm sure he thought I was being generous when I told him he could have however many points were being offered; the truth is that I just believed the 49ers could win by a couple of touchdowns. In more than half of their wins all year (and the 49ers were 14–2 during the regular season), the 49ers could have covered a 12–point spread, and they won both of their previous playoff games by more — far more — than 12 points.
So he started with a 12–0 advantage. Obviously, though, that lead evaporated rather quickly. He was just narrowly holding on to the lead at the end of the first quarter, but he couldn't have been encouraged. The Broncos only had five first downs at halftime. By that time, of course, they trailed by 24 points.
The Broncos finally got a touchdown in the third quarter — but it was after the 49ers had added two more touchdowns to their total. It was 41–10 at the end of the third quarter, 55–10 when the final gun sounded.
The 49ers were sharp, precise, not to be denied. Punter Barry Helton only had to kick the ball away four times all day. That is how efficient the 49ers were, scoring on two–thirds of their possessions.
If you looked at the time of possession, though, and did not know the final score, you'd be convinced that Denver won the game. The Broncos held the ball twice as long as the 49ers — but the 49ers scored on long plays, four of their touchdowns coming on gains of 20 yards or more. When you can pick up big chunks of yards like that, time of possession becomes irrelevant. After all, the Broncos only had three gains of 20 yards or more all day, and none resulted in a touchdown.
Elway was the only Bronco who was really in the 49ers' league. The rest of the team simply didn't have what it took to compete with the 49ers.
San Francisco was the team of the decade. Of that, they left no doubt 25 years ago today.
On that day, it was probably hard to find someone who could conceive of a time when Elway would return to the Super Bowl — and not only play in it but actually win it. In fact, he did return to the Super Bowl eight years later, and he won, beating the Green Bay Packers.
I remember this day in 1985. I was working on the sports desk of the Arkansas Gazette on what is always the biggest day in sports every year — Super Bowl Sunday.
Everything else that would ordinarily demand our attention always took the night off on Super Bowl Sunday. They used to play the Super Bowl in the afternoon — until they discovered they could get a bigger TV audience by playing the game at night. So they moved it to nighttime, and since that time there have been some basketball games played in the afternoons of Super Bowl Sunday. Never very many, just a few, usually featuring big–name programs. Occasionally, sports fans have had the option of watching a hockey game or perhaps Olympic qualifying competition for skiers or skaters.
All that other stuff was usually over by the kickoff of the Super Bowl, though. We didn't have a TV in the newsroom in those days, but someone usually brought a portable TV to the office so we could watch the game. And it promised to be a good one.
It seems to me that maybe the worst thing that can happen to a professional athlete is to achieve great success very early in his career.
Because that tends to make the athlete believe that climbing that mountain is much easier than advertised, and the athlete expects to return to the championship level every year. Few athletes have made it to that level multiple times in their careers, let alone every year.
In truth, that is probably easier for athletes who participate in individual sports to accomplish than it is for those who compete in team sports.
That may have been what happened to Dan Marino, who came into the NFL as a first–round draft choice after the 1982 season. The Dolphins made it to the Super Bowl in 1982 and went 12–4 in Marino's rookie season but lost to Seattle in the divisional round of the playoffs.
In 1983, the Dolphins were 14–2 and crushed their opponents in the AFC playoffs. Waiting for them in Super Bowl XIX at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California, 30 years ago today were the Joe Montana–led San Francisco 49ers.
It is important to remember that Montana was not a sure bet to be in the Hall of Fame yet. The 49ers had won the Super Bowl three years earlier, but that had been their only appearance. They were not the juggernaut that they would become, and their performance 30 years ago had a lot to do with that transformation.
Going into the game that was played three decades ago today, the 49ers were favored — but only by 3½ points.
It was billed as a showdown between Marino and Montana. Marino was everyone's MVP, having completed more than 64% of his passes (he averaged almost three dozen attempts per game) for more than 5,000 yards and four dozen touchdowns.
Marino may have thought it was all incredibly easy when the gun sounded ending the first quarter. Miami led, 10–7, thanks to Uwe von Schamann's 37–yard field goal and Marino's two–yard touchdown pass to tight end Dan Johnson. But Marino, who averaged three touchdown passes per game during the regular season, would have no more touchdown passes on this day.
Montana and the 49ers seized the lead in the second quarter. Montana threw a touchdown pass to running back Roger Craig, then Montana ran in from six yards out, then Craig scored again.
Von Schamann kicked two field goals to cut the deficit to 28–16 at the intermission, but the Dolphins were done scoring for the day.
The 49ers got a field goal from Ray Wersching and Montana threw another touchdown pass to Craig, and it was over. The 49ers had won in convincing fashion, 38–16.
And Montana, who had not been named the MVP of the season, was named the MVP of the Super Bowl. As a two–time Super Bowl–winning quarterback, he joined an exclusive club. In a few years, he would win back–to–back Super Bowls and join an extremely exclusive club of four–time winners. So far, the only other member is Terry Bradshaw, who won his fourth Super Bowl 35 years ago today. New England's Tom Brady will be seeking to join that club a week from Sunday.
No doubt, many people believed on this day 30 years ago that Marino would soon win a Super Bowl. He might even win multiple Super Bowls in his career. He was, after all, only 23 years old, and, if he stayed healthy, he clearly had the skill.
But he never made it back to the Super Bowl. The closest he got was conference championship games following the 1985 and 1992 seasons. The Dolphins lost both.
Super Bowl XXIII is remembered for one thing — the magnificent game–winning touchdown drive engineered by quarterback Joe Montana in the closing minutes — even though it was noteworthy for other things, too.
San Francisco trailed Cincinnati by a field goal with a little more than three minutes to play. The 49ers had the ball at their own 8–yard line; Montana led the offense down the field and threw the winning touchdown pass to John Taylor with 34 seconds to play.
They called him "Joe Cool" during his playing career, and that really described his demeanor as he directed the 49ers on that game–winning drive.
Repeatedly that day, the Bengals' defenders made the plays they needed to make, but the 49ers won, anyway, 20–16, possibly securing Montana's induction into pro football's Hall of Fame. He entered the game already having won two Super Bowls. Four quarterbacks with at least two Super Bowl victories — Bart Starr, Bob Griese, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach — had been chosen for the Hall of Fame, and other two–time winners would follow.
Nearly every quarterback who has started for at least two Super Bowl winners has wound up in the Hall of Fame (although Jim Plunkett has never been selected for induction in spite of being a two–time winner). A pretty convincing case can be made that Montana would be in the Hall of Fame, regardless of what happened 25 years ago today.
There was every reason to believe that Montana, who had been MVP in his first two Super Bowls along with being a five–time Pro Bowler, would be inducted, too. And he was, in his first year of eligibility. The stirring game–winning drive simply added to his remarkable resume.
Super Bowl XXIII had a little something for everyone. For Montana, it was a third Super Bowl victory as starting quarterback — and the only one of the four Super Bowls in which he played that he was not named the MVP. For Taylor, it was a game–winning reception.
And for future Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, it was the Most Valuable Player award. He caught 11 passes for a record 215 yards against the Bengals.
The game itself was a rematch of Super Bowl XVI, the third such rematch in Super Bowl history. The score was 3–3 at halftime, the first time a Super Bowl was tied at intermission.
San Francisco coach Bill Walsh retired after the game. So far, he is the only man to end his pro football coaching career with a Super Bowl victory.
But "The Drive" is what fans remember 25 years later.
On that final drive, Montana completed eight of nine pass attempts. He was calm and cool as he completed three to Rice for 51 yards, but he covered the last 10 on a pass to Taylor.
That last play was probably the most astonishing play of the drive. As I say, Rice caught 11 passes in that game, three of them on the final drive (a fourth pass was thrown his way on that drive as well). Mere words aren't sufficient to describe the brilliance of his performance. He was clearly the game's most valuable player.
With the ball resting on the Cincinnati 10, everyone in the stadium probably expected Montana to throw to Rice. I was watching the game on TV with my parents, and I know the three of us expected Montana to look for Rice.
But, instead, he threw to Taylor for only the fourth time in the game. And Taylor, who nearly fumbled away a punt earlier in the quarter, made his only reception of the day.
It was a brilliant piece of strategy from the mind of a truly brilliant strategist, Bill Walsh, and it was executed flawlessly by his field general, Joe Montana.
Rice was the logical target. Taylor had been a non–factor all day, but "Joe Cool," calmly and confidently, threw the ball to Taylor and joined the exclusive club of football players who have won more than two Super Bowls.
The Montana legend was really born 25 years ago tonight. He was already regarded as one of the NFL's elite quarterbacks; "The Drive" made it official.
At least through 2009, it was the highest–rated Super Bowl of all time. I haven't seen the ratings numbers on the last two Super Bowls, but I'm pretty sure that, if either game had surpassed Super Bowl XVI in viewership ratings, someone would have mentioned it.
Last February's Super Bowl between Green Bay and Pittsburgh attracted the highest number of U.S. viewers of any Super Bowl — but that certainly was to be expected. I mean, considering the annual population growth rate, it would seem strange if the number of viewers did not increase as well.
Ratings, though, are something else. They are based on the share of viewers who watch at least part of the game at any given time while it is on.
In that category, I'm inclined to think Super Bowl XVI is still the undisputed champ — for a few reasons.
I was in college in those days, and I remember watching part of the game at a party at a classmate's home. My memory of that time is that it was unusually cold across much of the United States — it wasn't quite as cold as it had been two weeks earlier when the conference titles were decided, but it was cold enough — and many people were housebound by a blizzard. Consequently, lots of folks, even people who normally didn't watch football (or, perhaps, any sports event), may have had little choice.
If you're thinking that they would have had other TV options, you need to revisit the world of 1982. Cable TV did exist, but it was still limited in many ways, and the traditional networks still dominated. Likewise, video recorders existed, but they were still too expensive to be commonplace in most households.
The other networks virtually conceded the time slot to the Super Bowl, filling their schedules with reruns and B movies.
Let's cut to the chase here. Super Bowl XVI had a captive audience.
That was probably OK with most folks, though, because Super Bowl XVI was intriguing. It paired two teams who had never played in a Super Bowl before. That is an exceedingly rare occurrence. In fact, if you exclude the first Super Bowl, only one other prior game had been between two newcomers — and only one game since that time has been between two teams that had never been in a Super Bowl before.
Offensive–minded viewers probably figured Cincinnati would win. The Bengals' quarterback, Ken Anderson, was the league's MVP, engineering two impressive wins over the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose 1970s dynasty was showing unmistakable signs of aging but who still commanded a great deal of respect.
Among quarterbacks, Anderson's top rival in the AFC that season was San Diego's Dan Fouts — and Anderson beat him twice, once during the regular season and once on a frigid January afternoon to win the AFC title.
Statistically, Anderson's leading rival in the NFC probably was Minnesota's Tommy Kramer — who, like Fouts, completed more passes for more yards than Anderson did. But Kramer's Vikings failed to make the playoffs.
Next in line from the NFC was the man Anderson would face in the Super Bowl, San Francisco's Joe Montana. He had the highest passer rating in the conference, but most of his numbers that year weren't too gaudy — except for his team's won–lost record, which went up from 6–10 in 1980 to 13–3 in 1981.
Defensive–minded fans may have figured San Francisco would win. The 49ers were second in the NFC in team defense, third against the pass and had beaten the Bengals in the 14th week of the season, holding them to only a field goal.
As it turned out, San Francisco did win the Super Sunday rematch, but, for most of that afternoon, its defense did not shine.
People often forget that Super Bowl XVI was the first in which the team that got the most yards and scored the most touchdowns did not win the game.
The Bengals, however, turned the ball over five times, and the 49ers' defense did rise, memorably, to the occasion with a thrilling goal–line stand in the second half. It didn't seal the deal — Cincinnati scored two touchdowns in the final quarter, and San Francisco needed two Ray Wersching field goals to claim a 26–21 win — but it spoke volumes about the 49ers' team personality and desire to win.
And it turned out to be the dawn of a dynasty.
That desire to win carried the 49ers through the rest of the decade and into the next one. They added four more Super Bowl championships to their team resume in the next 13 years.
I have often wondered how different professional football would have been if the San Francisco 49ers had not won the NFC championship on this day 30 years ago.
I've been following sports since I was a child, and if there is one thing I have learned, it is that there really is such a thing as destiny — at least when it comes to sports teams.
Some franchises never overcome their initial reputations as losers, and some allow those reputations to continue to hinder their progress long after they have risen above those reputations.
Sometimes franchises that have been struggling surge to the top from nowhere, get close to grabbing the brass ring but come up short and then fall back into relative obscurity — after which you might hear from them again in another 10 or 15 years.
But sometimes those franchises that surge to the top break on through to the other side and win it all — and a dynasty is born.
I believe that's what happened with the San Francisco 49ers 30 years ago today.The 49ers weren't strangers to the playoffs, but they hadn't been participants in the postseason for nearly a decade.
Shoot, it had been five years since they had had a winning season.
In their memorable showdown with the Dallas Cowboys on that Sunday afternoon, the 49ers introduced the West Coast Offense to football fans, many of whom were seeing it for the first time. If it had failed, Joe Montana might never have enjoyed the career that he did — and the West Coast Offense might not have risen to the prominence it did.
At least, at that time.
It's safe to assume that, if Dallas had won the game, something else would have been the popular offense — and some other quarterback would have emerged as the NFL's top signal–caller — of the 1980s.
Failure on this day would have meant that the Cowboys would return to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in seven years. Success for the 49ers, however, brought the energy and excitement of a new team in the Super Bowl — and that is what the 49ers were in January 1982, first–timers in the Super Bowl (as were their opponents, the Cincinnati Bengals).
But it might never have happened if Montana hadn't completed a six–yard pass to Dwight Clark in the end zone, an iconic moment that was captured in photographs that appeared in newspapers across the country the next day.
It isn't hard for me to imagine Bill Walsh and his coaching staff abandoning the West Coast Offense if it failed to produce a conference championship on this day in 1982.
Walsh was kind of like football's version of Franklin D. Roosevelt. From the moment he became the 49ers' coach, his mission was to revive a foundering franchise, just as it was Roosevelt's mission to revive the nation. FDR's presidency in the 1930s was very experimental; if something didn't have the desired effect, it would be scrapped and something else would replace it.
If the 49ers had failed to win the NFC championship on this day 30 years ago, Walsh and his staff certainly would have re–evaluated their roster — and they might well have concluded that their personnel was better suited for a different strategy.
That doesn't mean that the West Coast Offense would have died three decades ago today, never to be seen on an NFL field again.
No, I'm sure someone would have resurrected it — and probably thrived with it — if it had gone unused for years following a 49ers defeat 30 years ago today because defensive coordinators would have spent little, if any, time planning for it.
But Montana completed that pass to Clark — and the 49ers went on to win four of the next nine Super Bowls.
And the West Coast Offense set the pace in professional football for the next two decades.
Since the Packers are going to play in this weekend's Super Bowl, it seems only fitting to reflect a little on the career of the only quarterback to defeat Green Bay in one — John Elway.
I was never really sure how I felt about Elway the football player, but I know I didn't care much for him as a person through most of his playing career.
In a way, I guess, I felt that he was an elitist, a pretty boy, that he had always had things handed to him — and, when it wasn't handed to him, he pitched a fit until he got his way.
Put it all together, I suppose my conclusion was that he was overrated.
That wasn't fair, but consider my reasoning:
He played his college ball for Stanford, one of the most prestigious private research universities in the nation.
He was the #1 draft pick in 1983, but he didn't want to play for the team that picked him — the Baltimore Colts — so he was traded to Denver.
He had lobbied for that trade, and the Colts capitulated.
Many players have to toil for years in the NFL before they make it to a Super Bowl. Some never make it at all.
Others are far more fortunate. They get that far early and often in their careers, and Elway was one of them. He played in three Super Bowls before he was 30.
But he lost all three, and each loss was more spectacular than the one before.
Elway's first Super Bowl was against the New York Giants after he had led the Broncos in "The Drive," an epic 98–yard, game–tying drive in the fourth quarter of the AFC Championship game.
The margin of that Super Bowl was crushing (19 points), but the truth was that, of the two starting quarterbacks who played in that game, Phil Simms of New York was much better than Elway. How could anyone conclude otherwise? Simms completed nearly 90% of his passes.
You could debate which one had the better career — but, on that day, it was no contest.
But that was nothing compared to what awaited Elway and the Broncos the following year.
Denver actually jumped to a 10–0 lead in the first quarter, but the wheels came off in the second quarter as the Washington Redskins scored five unanswered touchdowns and went on to win the game by 32 points.
Once again, it was another quarterback who had the better day by far — Doug Williams of the Redskins.
Denver didn't return to the Super Bowl the next year, but the Broncos were back the year after that. I remember thinking during those playoffs that, if Elway did return to the Super Bowl, it couldn't possibly be any worse for him on that day than it had been against the Giants and the Redskins.
But I was wrong — because waiting for Elway and the Broncos was none other than the juggernaut of the 1980s, the San Francisco 49ers and their all–everything quarterback, Joe Montana.
Montana surgically took apart the Broncos and handed them the worst Super Bowl setback ever.
I remember watching that game and actually admiring Elway's gumption.
Have you ever noticed how some players cease to become factors in the game when something goes wrong? On that day, I saw several Broncos who seemed to check out mentally as the avalanche began.
Many of them had been through those losses to the Giants and Redskins, and they were conditioned for defeat on the big stage. When signs of it seemed to be popping up, they accepted their fate.
That isn't how Elway was wired.
Long after it was clear to just about anyone who had eyes to see that the game was done, he was giving everything he had — as if the Broncos still had a chance to win.
By that time, I had mostly given up on the game and I remember watching the commercials with a lot more interest. An ongoing commercial theme that day centered on a small town in Alaska. The residents of the town, as I recall, had been divided into 49ers supporters and Broncos supporters by McDonald's, which had promised special prices on its hamburgers to the winners.
It was all a gimmick, of course, intended to promote temporary hamburger prices. But there was nothing temporary about the wandering in the wilderness that Elway and the Broncos did for the next eight years.
I am not a Broncos fan, and, I must admit, I seldom gave Elway much thought in those years. But, when I did, I tended to wonder if he would ever return to a Super Bowl.
He came close a few times. But he didn't return until Jan. 25, 1998, when he was 37 years old and everyone watching the game knew he was nearing the end of his career.
Elway had quite a challenge facing him that day — the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers, who were led by one of the younger breed of quarterbacks in the NFL.
Elway was part of the old guard, and this, many people felt, might be his last chance. He was determined not to waste it, and he showed his desire on a scamper near the end zone late in the game. He didn't score on the play, but he got the first down, and the Broncos went on to score shortly thereafter — and won the game.
(Ain't it funny how things turn out? That wasn't Elway's last Super Bowl after all. But it did turn out to be the last one for that young gunslinger for the Packers, Brett Favre.)
Elway returned to the Super Bowl the following year, leading Denver to another triumph, securing his only Super Bowl MVP Award and capping a memorable career. He retired a few months later, leaving behind a considerable legacy.
In addition to his many single–season and career achievements:
He is the only quarterback to start in five Super Bowls.
He is one of only two men to score rushing touchdowns in four different Super Bowls.
And Elway, who was 38 years old when he played in the 1999 Super Bowl, holds the record for being the oldest quarterback to win one.
I probably wouldn't have said this when he was still playing, but he showed me a lot during his career.
He showed me that he was more than a pretty boy. He was a talented quarterback who wanted to win but didn't always have all the weapons he needed.
I don't think Elway was the greatest quarterback ever to play the game. There are a few others I would pick before I would pick him.
But he deserves to be mentioned in the conversation.
This year's Super Bowl is a little more than a week away.
The Super Bowl has been played every year for nearly 50 years, usually in southerly, sun–splashed climes. It's been played often in California, New Orleans, Miami, and it is not a complete stranger to Texas. It was played in Houston twice.
This year, however, it will be played in Dallas — for the first time.
Lately, the folks in Irving and Dallas have been unrolling all their new facilities and vehicles and gadgets that are intended to accommodate the needs and desires of visitors in town for the big game — and earn local entrepreneurs a neat profit in the process.
Back in the summer and into the early fall, North Texans harbored hopes that the Dallas Cowboys might host their own Super Bowl, but those hopes were dashed rather rapidly.
I figure that, in the long run, that will be good news for local merchants, who are counting on the revenue from visitors from two cities. If the local team had made it to the Super Bowl, logic tells me that approximately half of the out–of–town visitors would have been eliminated.
So it's a good thing for all those folks who want to make money from this — especially the ones who run the hotels and the motels, who would have lost the income from all those out–of–towners who will need rooms for several days.
People are always going to have to eat, even if they're from a nearby community and only in town on the day of the game, so restaurateurs wouldn't have been affected quite as severely, but they, too, would have had to lower their expectations.
But the Cowboys went into a tailspin early. Between the Cowboys' and the Longhorns' declines, football dropped from sports fans' radars around here, and, remarkably, the sports talk in this area in October did not focus on football but on baseball, as the Rangers advanced to their first–ever World Series.
I grew up in Arkansas. I have lived in this area for most of the last 25 years. Until a few months ago, I never thought I would see a time during football season when baseball was the leading topic of conversation, but that is exactly what happened here.
It was gratifying for baseball fans, but it often felt, to me, as if the natural order of things had been disrupted.
There have been times when it's felt like one of those alternate reality episodes from the Twilight Zone. It was astonishing to witness the vacuum that was created when the Cowboys and the Longhorns crashed to earth. Talk about tumbling into a black hole.
Only recently, it seems, have people around here remembered that they were going to have a Super Bowl here in early February. It is almost as if the plan to host a Super Bowl locally depended upon whether the Cowboys would be in it — and, when it became clear that the Cowboys would not be in the playoffs, the right to host the Super Bowl defaulted to some other city.
It's probably going to be a good thing for the economy that Cowboys Stadium (known locally as Jerry World for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones) will host two cities, but I can't help thinking of what might have been.
Assuming that everything else would have been unchanged — if the Cowboys had been the NFC's representative in the Super Bowl, who would have been waiting for them from the AFC? None other than the Pittsburgh Steelers — and, if you've been following football as long as I have (or longer), you know what magic that matchup conjures up in one's mind.
There are all sorts of rivalries in football, but the Dallas–Pittsburgh rivalry in the Super Bowl is unique. I guess you could say it's been a rivalry of milestones.
It began 35 years ago, on Jan. 18, 1976, when the teams met in Super Bowl X. The Cowboys, as I mentioned earlier this week, became the first wild–card team to play in a Super Bowl on that day, but the Steelers won the game, 21–17.
Even if you aren't old enough to remember that day, if you've watched any Super Bowl highlights shows in the last 35 years, you're all but sure to have seen Lynn Swann's amazing acrobatic catch from that game.
Some folks will tell you it was the greatest catch ever made in pro football.
Then, three years later, on Jan. 21, 1979, the teams met in the first–ever Super Bowl rematch.
Superstitious people tend to be wary of the number 13, but Super Bowl XIII was far from unlucky for football fans. Not only was it the first rematch of a Super Bowl, but it would also mark the first time that a team won its third Super Bowl title, no matter who won the game.
Once again, the Steelers were victorious. The final score was 35–31, and, as one weekly newsmagazine declared in its headline on its game story, "This one really was Super."
Part of what made it super was a fantastic fourth–quarter comeback by Dallas that was brilliantly captured in NFL Films' wrapup, which can be seen above.
In hindsight, that game featured many of the greatest football players of my youth — Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Franco Harris, etc., etc. But the play that will always stand out in my memory is of Jackie Smith, a tight end who played much of his career for woeful St. Louis Cardinals teams, dropping a pass in the end zone that could have altered the outcome.
I think everyone watching the game, whether they were pulling for the Steelers or the Cowboys, felt bad for Smith, writhing in agony in the Orange Bowl end zone after dropping that pass.
"Bless his heart," I remember an announcer saying, "he's got to be the sickest man in America."
It took nearly 20 years, but the Cowboys finally got their revenge in Super Bowl XXX, which was played 15 years ago today. It really wasn't a surprise. Dallas went into that game favored by nearly two touchdowns.
With that victory, the Cowboys pulled even with the San Francisco 49ers in total Super Bowl victories with five. At that time, the Steelers had won only the Super Bowls in which they played in the 1970s — their two wins over Dallas along with wins over Minnesota and Los Angeles. Pittsburgh has won two Super Bowls since that time and now leads all other teams in that category with six Super Bowl titles.
It was also the first time that a football team won its third Super Bowl in four years. That's an accomplishment that has been matched only by the New England Patriots.
Steeler fans probably don't like to think about that game too much. Pittsburgh has been to seven Super Bowls, more than any other team, and the one they played in 15 years ago today was their only loss — so far.
As a Packer fan, I hope that will not still be the case a week from Sunday.
A "tomato can" is a fighter who is believed to be past his prime and an "easy" or "guaranteed" win for an up-and-coming fighter who wants to pad his record.
Sometimes, though, the "tomato can" doesn't cooperate. For example, in 1990, undefeated heavyweight champion Mike Tyson lost the title to a 42-to-1 underdog named Buster Douglas.
Another heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, almost lost his title to lightly regarded Chuck Wepner in 1975. Wepner nearly went the distance against Ali and inspired the original "Rocky" movie.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
