My Favourite Story About Joe Montana

For reasons I don’t fully understand, I was a fan of American football in my teens. Not a huge fan, but if you’d asked me, I probably could have named the starting quarterbacks of most of the teams. My favourite, of course, was the incomparable Joe Montana.

Sports Illustrated recently ran this gallery of the top 10 clutch quarterbacks of all time. Rightfully, Montana is among them. The guy played in four Super Bowls, won them all and didn’t throw a single interception. They used to call him ‘Joe Cool’. From an ESPN article, here’s one example of why:

Take the 1989 Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals. The San Francisco 49ers were down by three points with 3:20 left when Montana spotted — no, not an open receiver — but a personality. “There, in the stands, standing near the exit ramp,” Montana said to tackle Harris Barton. “Isn’t that John Candy?” And then he led the 49ers 92 yards, throwing for the winning touchdown with 34 seconds left.

The writer doesn’t tell it very well, but you get the idea. The moment should be replicated in a football movie some time.