The Day I Stood Next to Joe Montana

"Joe," I called. 

The defense was on the field and he was taking a break near the bench, the greatest quarterback of his generation, captain of what would become the best professional football team of the 1980s, the San Francisco 49ers, the most storied in the history of the "city by the bay."

Between us, Hacksaw Reynolds ambled like a hungry gorilla, his torn-up body affecting his gait. They say he hacksawed an automobile for recreation, sliced it up with a saw blade like he sliced through opposing offenses with his flailing arms and legs.

I had media credentials as editor of The News, a weekly newspaper in Santa Cruz County. These were the days when a media pass could get you into press room interviews and on the sidelines of a professional football game. I took full advantage.

The sun was bright, the air thin with a San Francisco-in-December bite to it. The Niners were playing Tampa Bay at Candlestick, a forlorn stadium stuck on a wind-blown point on the water's edge. Home to both the 49ers and the San Francisco Giants, Candlestick on a good day was miserably uncomfortable. During its lifetime from 1960 to 2013 it gave fans a legacy of memories good, bad and inexplicable.

To whit:

SF Giants pitcher Stu Miller is blown off the mound by a nasty gust of wind during the All-Star Game on July 11, 1961.

A Giants fan becomes so inebriated that he tumbles to his death from the upper deck, 1984.

The amazing Willie Mays, the "Say Hey Kid," smashes home runs and sprints around the outfield performing his incredible and unique "basket catch," 1960-71.

That skinny quarterback from Notre Dame creates magic leading the Niners to four Super Bowl seasons: Joe Montana, 1979-90.

What a name! What a football player! A winner! Four Lombardi trophies!

Since its inception, football has anointed its heroes with nicknames: Red Grange was "The Galloping Ghost." There was Alan "The Horse" Ameche, "The Golden Boy" Paul Hornung, Dick "Night Train" Lane. And there was "Hacksaw" Reynolds. Who even knew his first name?

But Joe Montana?  How could you improve on that. The slight, blue-eyed, reddish-haired kid whose legerdemain overshadowed his physical presence, needed a nickname, or so they said. They said he was once a high-jumper.  He had played point-guard in basketball. Now this Super Bowl stuff, last minute passes to win the most important games. The Candlestick winds never affected Joe. He deflected the breezes the same way he eluded defensive linemen. If it came down to third- or fourth-and-one, Joe performed the "quarterback sneak."

A contest was called to give Joe a sobriquet, like all the other stellar football heroes. Fans were asked to send in their ideas, to immortalize the kid.

Herb Caen, San Francisco's famed three-dot-columnist who had admonished those who called his city, "Frisco" -- he made clear it was San Francisco" -- rallied in his column, calling for monikers for Montana.

"I like Joe Cool," pronounced the columnist.

Caen was right on. If Montana were to have a nickname, it had to be "Joe Cool." He personified coolness in the clutch, the proverbial chill cucumber, as fresh as the under-side of a pillow.

Was it the PR department or the Chamber of Commerce that came up with the winning epithet? They declared the quarterback would be called Joe "Big Sky" Montana. 

Wha?

If ever there was a dud winner, that was it. No one ever called Joe, "Big Sky." The name died a quick death, a pathetic PR failure, a dime-a-dozen dream that had no legs.

That day at Candlestick, December 4, 1983, when I saw him up close, Joe completed 21 passes out of 31 attempts for 227 yards, leading the team to a 31 to 25 victory over Tampa Bay. Although he did not throw a touchdown pass, Joe scrambled, in his own inimitable way, 12 yards for a broken play touchdown. It was classic Joe being Joe, drawing magic out of thin air.

Of course he didn't hear me when I called his name. The crowd was too loud and frenzied. I moved in as near as I could get to him, perhaps hoping that some of his coolness would rub off on me. In his red and gold uniform, Joe stood about my height, 6' 1". His legs and arms were thin, unremarkable. Standing on a corner in San Francisco in Levis and running shoes, he could have been mistaken for any Joe Schmo. 

But Joe was no Schmo, anything but.

Some guys are just too cool to be named.