SUPER BOWL XXIV : DENVER BRONCOS vs. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS : 49er Holt Is Worth Watching

“Flash! Joe Montana, otherwise known as Joe Football, the creature that swallowed the game, arrived in town with an entourage of mystery guests, a cast of unidentified characters of various heights and sizes, who, rumor had it, made up a football team hired to help him win a football game here Sunday.

“The rumor was discounted in most quarters, including the French, since it is well established Master Montana doesn’t need any help. The explanation was offered that these accompanying characters were bit players or dress extras the 49ers had hired out of the Yellow Pages to dress up the stage. They are instructed not to get into Montana’s way or interrupt any of his solos.”

This, in a loop, is the public perception of the San Francisco 49ers, in town to do battle this weekend with the whozits. The Denver Whatchamacallits. Whoever they are.

Prevailing opinion is, the San Francisco 49ers are not a team, just a chorus. The orchestra. Joe Montana and his San Francisco Opera company.

Photo captions in the New Orleans papers stop just short of identifying them in front-page pictures as “Joe Montana and friends.” You get the impression the San Francisco lineup would be a safe place to hide from the law. If you want to go unnoticed, walk down the street next to Joe Montana. The Pope would need a name tag. There has never been a back who towered over his team--not to say, league--the way Joe Montana does.

Oh, a few fanatics might be able to pick a Jerry Rice or a Ronnie Lott or a Roger Craig out of a crowd in a pinch.

But it’s for sure, no one would come up with Pierce Holt.

It will come as a considerable surprise even to people who know him that Pierce Holt plays football for a living. That he is one of the best defensive linemen in the game, if not the decade, might be greeted with open scoffing.

First of all, you know how football players are. Made, not born.

There is a pattern to how they get to the top. First of all, they have these long arms, thick necks and strong legs. And they have the requisite number of eyes, hands, fingers, feet, toes, teeth and ears.

All except Pierce Holt. He’s missing an eye. Well, most of it, anyway. He was born without it, a congenital condition known as amblyopia, which left him with 20/200--or worse--vision in his left eye and an inability to read even the Big E on an eye chart. On some plays, Pierce Holt finds the quarterback by Braille. When the announcer says, “Pierce Holt just blindsided Phil Simms,” he really means it.

A two-eyed football player usually starts out playing in the Pop Warner League. He graduates to high school, where he’s in such demand that Notre Dame, USC, Nebraska and Alabama send cars and alums after him, offering him gaudy scholarships, a sure pro career, a job for his father or brother-in-law, a cheerleader and an academic schedule your average tuna could handle.

Pierce Holt never got any of these perks. He never played football till his senior year in high school, and since he was a 180-pound lineman, and that was in Rosenberg, Tex., the recruiters passed. Pierce Holt didn’t mind. He was into discus at the time. A bowl game was not on his agenda.

You will remember, some years ago, a golfer, passing judgment on a U.S. Open tournament venue, said: “They ruined a good farm when they made this into a golf course.”

Well, they ruined a good farmer when they made Pierce Holt into a football player. If it weren’t for runaway interest rates on leased land, he’d still be growing soybeans and sorghum in East Texas or running a herd of cattle onto railroad cars to market.

It’s not true they recruited him into football when they saw him lifting cows over fences, but after three years making a poor living on the land, he could have. By now, he was about the dimensions of a prize longhorn himself--6 feet 4 and 285 pounds of lean beef on the hoof.

Football players usually enter college at 18 as high school phenoms with 4.6 speed and a conviction they are God’s gift to the world of sport.

Pierce Holt was 22, one-eyed, and he knew there was no Santa Claus. Besides, the rules prevented him from entering big-time Division I college football. It seems there is an NCAA rule in which the clock begins ticking on your eligibility the minute you graduate from high school, and five years later, you’ve had it. Grade II schools have no such provision.

So, Pierce Holt enrolled at Division II Angelo State, where it was immediately clear he belonged in a higher league--say, the NFL. Even though his teammates called him “Pops” and “Coach” and “Old Folks,” he had 106 tackles and 11 sacks in one year, plus 18 quarterback pressures--forced incompletions or interceptions. He was as unstoppable as tomorrow.

The 49ers did their homework. Even though he was the oldest guy picked in the draft, at 26, and didn’t start an NFL game till he was 27, he was a force. He made 15 tackles as a substitute.

He led the line in total tackles, with 48, and sacks, with 10 1/2, this season and chased so many quarterbacks out of the pocket he looked like a cop raiding a crap game.

Big Daddy Lipscomb once described the art of line play thusly: “A charge in which you grab everyone you can till you find the one with the football. Him, you keep.”

Pierce Holt does this as well as anyone in the game. The 49ers of antiquity used to be known for a domineering run at the passer known as “the Gold Rush,” led by Cedrick Hardman and Company.

The game has changed. Tackles are made by linebackers and cornermen in today’s refinement, but the passer still must be harassed. Give John Elway more than three seconds and he will complete a pass to a dead man.

This is where Pierce Holt comes in, and in, and in. He often arrives with the ball. As good as Joe Montana is, he still needs the ball. It’s up to Pierce Holt and friends to see to it that he gets it. A lot.

If he can do that successfully Sunday, you may expect to see him riding in the team parade in a car with Joe Montana next week. And someone on the sidewalk will say, “Who’s that riding in the car with Pierce Holt and what did he do?”