SUPER BOWL XXIII: CINCINNATI BENGALS vs. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS : The Bengal Mexican-American Flavor : Munoz and Montoya, Cross-Town Rivals, a Weighty Pair

For Cincinnati football players Anthony Munoz and Max Montoya, the USC-UCLA game played in Pasadena last Nov. 19 was of vital importance.

Munoz, the one-time Trojan lineman, and Montoya, formerly a Bruin lineman, were going out to dinner together that night but couldn’t choose their wardrobes until the game was over.

“They bet on it every year,” Montoya’s wife, Patti, said the other day. “The loser has to wear the other guy’s letterman jacket all evening.”

So, that night, after Munoz had cheered USC in, Montoya was a Trojan for a night.

“It could have been worse,” he said here the other day. “What if I’d had to go to SC!”

Shuddering, he murmured: “How awful.”

After the USC-UCLA games of recent years, Montoya has never had trouble climbing into Munoz’s clothes. Standing 6 feet 5 or 6 inches and weighing upward of 275 pounds, these are people who resemble super-heavyweight wrestlers.

Here for their second Super Bowl in 8 years, they have been teammates since 1980 in the Bengal line, the bulkiest and, some say, the best offensive line in the National Football League.

Munoz is the Bengals’ left tackle, Montoya their right guard.

“I still find that absolutely amazing,” Montoya said. “Two Mexicans from Los Angeles, one from SC, one from UCLA, winding up on the same NFL team--in Cincinnati, of all places--and playing pro football together all these years.”

They’ve already doubled the longevity of the average NFL player, 3 1/2 years, and the end is nowhere in sight.

Munoz, 30, a first-round draft choice in 1980, said that he and Montoya, 31, a seventh-round choice in 1979, are almost the league’s only Mexican-American players.

“The world has never had a whole lot of Mexican nose tackles,” he said. “There’s a few kickers, that’s all. There’s Lupe Sanchez at Pittsburgh, and a few with Mexican names, Ruben Rodriguez at Seattle, the Zendejas brothers.”

None of the others, though, is ever mistaken for a super-heavyweight wrestler.

“I don’t know how Maxie and I got so big,” Munoz said. “But as a guess, I’d say that Mexican food had something to do with it.”

Both men relish their college connections.

“I wouldn’t have been caught dead at UCLA,” said Munoz, who played for USC in the late ‘70s, when Montoya was at UCLA. “But I’ve found over the years that anyone you get to know, you like--even a Bruin.”

Of his early years in Cincinnati, Montoya said: “At first, it was hard for me to get used to playing in the same offensive line with a Trojan. To make it worse, they made us room together. That’s when I found out that Moon isn’t a bad sort at all--for a Trojan.”

Moon and Maxie.

“Enemies once, allies now,” Munoz said.

Indeed, on the NFL level, college affiliations tend to blur everywhere--regardless of whether an Oklahoma Sooner, say, is on the same club with a Nebraska Cornhusker or an opposing club.

Among pros, the rivalries that last are conference rivalries.

Trojans and Bruins typically close ranks to think of themselves as Pac-10 guys who wouldn’t give the time of day to Big Eight guys, not to mention the oafs from the deep South.

“When you play pro ball against all kinds of guys, you see how much better the football is up and down the Pacific Coast than it is anywhere in the Big Ten,” Munoz said, smiling as if he might or might not believe that.

The key now, plainly, is to bait the Big Ten instead of the Bruins.

Munoz continued: “Up here, you find that Maxie’s a whole lot better guy than any Buckeye.”

MEAN AND NASTY?

Munoz and Montoya rank with the finest blockers in pro football.

Munoz, in fact, after a long career as a Pro Bowl player, is usually identified as the NFL’s top offensive lineman.

“I think he’s probably the best that’s played in an offensive line in the ‘80s,” CBS analyst John Madden said.

Asked how he reacts to such praise, Munoz said: “First, I like to hear it. Who wouldn’t? Second, it drives me to keep improving.”

He is of the opinion that his pre-NFL life as a basketball player and baseball player--he pitched and played the infield for USC--made him what he is in football.

“I was the biggest third baseman in captivity,” he said. “That made me work very hard on my agility, to keep up with the little guys.

“In basketball, I was staggering around at 260 pounds trying to guard 180-pounders. That made me work hard on my quickness.

“You aren’t exactly born quick, you know. The things you need the most as an offensive linemen are quickness and agility, and you have to develop them yourself.

“I really doubt if I’d be the football player I am if I hadn’t liked basketball and baseball so much that I pushed myself to excel.”

Montoya, on the other hand, is often called football’s model offensive guard. He is a master pass blocker in a league that treasures the pass.

“For most of his career, Montoya has graded with or above the best (NFL) guards in pass blocking,” said Joel Buchsbaum, Pro Football Weekly’s personnel expert.

Although he has played in the Pro Bowl and won some all-pro distinction, Montoya would be more famous in the NFL, no doubt, if he weren’t on the same team with a player as celebrated as Munoz.

Those who choose honor teams often reason that one blocker or, say, one cornerback, per club, is enough. That’s unfair--but they aren’t going to leave Munoz off, which, most of the time, leaves Montoya out in the cold.

This doesn’t seem to bother him.

“I know how good I am,” Montoya said.

And, said Cincinnati offensive line coach Jim McNally: “We know how good he is. Max is nothing but a mean, nasty man.”

Of Munoz, McNally, who has coached his two Los Angeles players throughout their pro careers, said: “Anthony doesn’t blow people off the line like he did when he was younger. But he’s still mean. He’s the best athlete playing this game.”

More than that, Munoz is a living reminder of the talent that USC has had over the years in its offensive lines.

One day at USC, when Munoz went down with one of the three knee injuries that all but wrecked his college career, he was replaced by a freshman named Don Mosebar, who in time was to become the best player in the Raiders’ offensive line.

In a Trojan game a few weeks later when Mosebar also went down, he was replaced by Bruce Matthews, who was to become the best player in the Houston Oilers’ offensive line.

Said Montoya: “It’s tough sledding in L.A. for the gutty little Bruins. Everybody knows that.”

OR TEDDY BEARS?

The place to go for a night out in Ft. Mitchell, Ky., which is across the river from Cincinnati, is a Mexican restaurant called Montoya’s.

“Best Mexican food in the state,” Montoya said. “With one exception.”

Where’s that?

“In Covington, Ky.,” he said. “There’s a great Mexican restaurant there, too.”

That one is also known as Montoya’s, Montoya said. He plans to spend the rest of his life in the restaurant business, operating these and, he hopes, other places.

“We might need a few more,” his wife, Patti, said. “With only two, Maxie eats up most of the profits.”

Munoz, unlike Montoya, isn’t aiming for a business career, although he is a licensed realtor.

“Someday, I expect that Anthony will be in broadcasting, or maybe he’ll just stay in the community work that he loves so much,” said Munoz’s wife, Dede, an amateur painter and singer who was born in Germany when her soldier father was stationed there.

No one in the NFL is more widely involved in community projects than Dede’s husband, who is active in Athletes in Action, United Appeal, Cystic Fibrosis, the Salvation Army, and 12 or 14 other charitable organization.

Last month, Munoz spent Christmas Day waiting on tables at a Salvation Army dinner after persuading some of his teammates and coaches, including Sam Wyche, to join him there.

“Sam looks a little different in an apron,” he said.

On his vacations, Munoz likes to make missionary trips to Mexico, where, the last time, he worked as a dental technician.

“(The Munozes) are the only (Bengal) family in the Faith Evangelical Free Church of Milford, Ohio,” Munoz said. “I went to Mexico with a dentist from our church. We traveled around where some people hadn’t seen a dentist in 5 years.

“The thing that made the most impression on me is how warm they are--and how they wanted to give (the dentist) something when they couldn’t pay him anything.”

Munoz has heard, he said, that one of his forebears in Mexico stood 7 feet tall. All he knows for sure is that he was born in San Bernardino and grew up in a fatherless family in Ontario with 2 older brothers and 2 younger sisters.

He said he met Dede one day when, as opponents, they were playing softball, a pastime they still favor, men’s, women’s, or co-ed, any old way. They have a boy, Michael, 7, and a girl, Michelle, 6. They live in Cincinnati.

Max and Patti Lynn Montoya, who were introduced by mutual friends at UCLA, live in Villa Hills, Ky., 2 miles from one of their restaurants.

“Close enough to take out, I’m very happy to say,” he said.

They also have a boy and girl, Matthew and Alison, 6-year-old twins.

Maxie Montoya, son of a truck driver who is still on the road, was born in Montebello and grew up in La Puente with a sister who is now a postal worker and a brother who is a carpenter.

Traditionally, persons of Mexican descent have strong family ties and neither Munoz nor Montoya is an exception.

Moon and Maxie, in fact, each have two close families--their own and the Bengal offensive line.

“On any football team, the offensive line is always a little team in itself,” Patti Montoya said. “And you can imagine what the Bengal line is like with two warm-hearted (Mexican-Americans) in there.

“Maxie and Anthony and the other fellows in the (Bengal) offensive line are just a bunch of big Teddy bears. I’ve never known anyone as gentle as Maxie.”

Hey, Patti, his coach says he’s nasty and mean.

“I’m sorry, Maxie is kind and gentle,” she said. “The things he loves the most are his family, the (Bengal) offensive line, and Mexican food, not necessarily in that order.”