Old(er) Story for Young : At 31, He Still Wants a Chance to Lead the 49ers, but the Job Won’t Be Truly His Until Joe Montana Retires

It has been some career for the greatest quarterback who never was.

Who will forget the Super Bowl teams he never led, the records he never set, the legacy he never left.

Unless life begins at 31 in the National Football League, history may remember Steve Young as another modern-day myth.

Sidd Finch and Young.

Two scouting reports from heaven.

Last year, an assistant coach for the Chicago Bears left his notes on the bench after a game against the San Francisco 49ers. He had warned on his pad that Young was the second fastest 49er behind tailback Dexter Carter.

Was it not true?

They said Young played some of his greatest games--for the benefit of a scattered few--while with the Los Angeles Express.

Did it not seem real?

“Steve Young is a Super Bowl quarterback,” Sid Gillman, the former legendary coach, insists. “I don’t give a damn what anyone says. There’s nothing he can’t do on a football field. But you probably won’t get to see it.”

Young’s career, once full of promise, sifts steadily through the hourglass as he braces for the 445th comeback of Joe Montana, a living legend who, at 36, threatens to chase Young back to the bench again with another of his improbable returns from surgery.

Patience is a virtue, but even devout Mormons have their doubts. Young joined the 49ers in 1987, when it appeared Montana’s brilliant career was over because of a back injury.

“At the time, it was a no-brainer,” Young said of the trade from Tampa Bay that brought him to the 49ers. “(Then-coach) Bill Walsh came to Provo to work me out. He said ‘You’re my quarterback.’ I said ‘Where do I sign?’ ”

Instead, Young’s competitive presence all but air-lifted Montana from his hospital bed back into the huddle, where he has returned to win two more Super Bowls and rule his kingdom.

It remains to be seen whether Montana’s tender right elbow will survive the summer.

Of course, they’ve said that before.

So Young has waited. And waited. And waited.

He has always been deferential to Montana, as one would be to royalty.

But Young’s brief field appearances have not been boring. His 49-yard scramble for a touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings in 1988 was judged by NFL Films the greatest run in the last 25 years.

But it was always back to the bench.

“A damn shame,” Gillman says. “What a waste.”

Young waited through consecutive Super Bowl titles, through Montana’s occasional sniping at him--”Steve is on a big push for himself,” Montana once told the Washington Post--through numerous Montana setbacks and comebacks.

Young’s time was supposed to come in 1991, while Montana recovered from season-ending surgery to repair a torn tendon in his throwing elbow.

Young followers were anxious.

“There are complications in following a living legend,” Leigh Steinberg, Young’s agent, remarked.

True enough.

When the team sputtered to a 4-5 start last season, 49er fans all but offered Young a stepladder and directions to the Golden Gate Bridge.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t entirely fair, either.

In the opener against the NFL champion New York Giants, Young scored the go-ahead touchdown on a face-first fourth-quarter run, then watched the Giants drive 60 yards in the last four minutes to win on a field goal with five seconds remaining.

Young’s fault?

In Game 6 against Atlanta, Young and the offense produced 34 points and 437 yards. The Falcons won, 39-34.

Young’s fault?

In a rematch against the Falcons three weeks later, Young strained knee ligaments in the first half after completing 11 of 19 passes for 187 yards and a touchdown. The Falcons won the game on a last-second desperation pass for a touchdown.

Young had one truly horrible game, against the Raiders.

But when career backup Steve Bono went 5-1 as a starter in Young’s place, mopping up on the likes of the Phoenix Cardinals, Rams and Seattle Seahawks, some 49er followers hailed Bono as Montana Jr., a similar precision passer who was better equipped for the 49er offense.

Young issued his rejoinder in the season finale against Chicago, completing 21 of 32 passes for 338 yards and three touchdowns in a 52-12 rout of the Bears.

He also rushed for 63 yards.

Young ended up winning the NFL passing title with a 101.8 rating. He broke a 49er single-season record with his per-carry average of 6.3 yards, although the 49ers didn’t get around to updating the record in their 1992 media guide, which features guess who (rhymes with Fontana) on the cover.

The 49ers won their last six games in 1991 and finished 10-6, but missed the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons.

Someone had to pay.

Few were interested in rehashing 1988, when the 49ers won the Super Bowl after finishing 10-6 in the regular season.

The town went into detox over this perceived collapse, with most of the post-’91 story angles migrating dutifully back to Montana, whose elbow had been pieced back together in one of the most widely reported surgeries not involving baboon livers.

Could Montana return to right the ship?

At May’s mini-camp, Young, sensing the comeback storm and his own football mortality, decried that he deserved to be the starting quarterback.

Young turns 31 in October. What else could he say?

“The comments weren’t that strong,” he said. “But because they came from me, they seemed to be strong. I said the only way I feel I can go is forward. But I guess that was asking too much.”

Steinberg, his agent, has heard enough. He wants Young out of San Francisco.

What seemed like a perfect fit in 1987--”I thought we crafted the perfect situation,” Steinberg said--has turned sour.

Steinberg calls San Francisco the “velvet trap.” The 49ers keep Young on retainer at $2.5 million a season--some insurance premium on Montana. And there is nothing about the San Francisco experience that isn’t appealing--the tradition, the receivers, the sourdough--except that Montana refuses to take his four Super Bowl trophies and go home.

The paradox is that every Montana resurgence seems directly related to Young’s readiness to take his job.

Young is cornered. He is not great enough to supplant perhaps the NFL’s best-ever quarterback, Montana, but is great enough to stay poised in the on-deck circle.

Steinberg thinks it’s a no-win situation.

“I have pushed him to put aside the San Francisco dream and be a starting quarterback elsewhere,” Steinberg said.

Steinberg shopped Young around the league after the 1990 season and found several takers. Young, though, put a stop on all trade requests.

The problem?

Steve Young doesn’t want to leave.

He and his agent have had heated discussions on the subject.

“His nightmare is that he would leave San Francisco and Joe Montana would suddenly retire,” Steinberg said. “And this goal that he’s been working for for five years would elude him.”

The decision may not be left to Young. San Francisco owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr., who spent millions in the 1980s to keep his team in Super Bowl rings and furs, announced recently that his spending spree on players is over.

If Montana can stay injury-free through the exhibition season, a tricky proposition, the 49ers might be willing to part with Young and his $2.5 million.

Last spring, the 49ers had discussions with the Raiders about a possible deal for Young.

Young, though, wants to fight the good fight.

His career has played out almost like a Biblical parable, an irony that isn’t lost on a direct descendant of Mormon leader Brigham Young.

His is the story of the man who wanted only to fulfill his dream. Young didn’t particularly seek his fortune but, as fate would have it, he was showered with abundant riches while being denied what he wants most.

“All I want to do is play,” Young said. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Young has started only 39 games in seven NFL seasons.

Upon completion of this season, he will have earned almost $20 million in professional football since signing his first contract with the Express in 1984.

Young can’t avoid the money question.

If he wasn’t about money, why did he spurn the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals in 1984 and sign his celebrated “$40-million” contract with the Express of the United States Football League? (When Young left the Express in 1985, he cashed out the “$40-million” annuity, which would have paid that amount over 43 years, for a current-value lump-sum payment).

Young doesn’t always have a good answer, other than to insist it was the opportunity to work with Gillman and Coach John Hadl that wooed him to the Express.

Young also thought the Express, if the USFL failed, might merge into the NFL.

“It was a gamble,” he said. “And it was out of my character. I admit it. There’s not too many times that I’ve taken a gamble. In a weird way, though, I’m proud of being able to do that.”

Instead of drafting Young in 1984, the Bengals used a second-round pick on Maryland quarterback Boomer Esiason.

Young is left to wonder what might have been.

When the USFL folded, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took Young in the supplemental draft. He spent two hellish seasons with the woeful Buccaneers, providing his fair share of highlights and bloopers.

Was Young really in it for the money?

He was so neurotic about the subject when he joined the Express that he wasn’t sure how to act.

“I thought it would ruin me,” he said of his wealth.

Years later, not much has changed.

He is pretty much the same guy who dated Marie Osmond once and took her bowling.

What has Young done with his $20 million?

Well, in 1985, he bought a car.

After he and former Brigham Young University teammate Gordon Hudson missed the starting time for a movie, they stopped into an auto dealership. Hudson had recently received a huge signing bonus from the Express.

“We were just killing time,” Young recalled. “We were wandering around the parking lot. I was taking care of his kids. I walked inside and he’s buying a car!

“We went to the movies and he bought a car! I don’t know how you do that. Don’t you have to think about it a little bit? He asked me if I could drive his old car home. So we get home and he says, ‘Man, I’ve got too many cars.’ One of them was a Jeep Cherokee. I said, ‘I’ll buy the Jeep from you.’ He said, ‘That would be perfect.’ ”

Young still drives that Jeep.

Hudson is a car salesman.

When he lived in Tampa, Young drove a rickety rental car littered with dirty socks and fast-food bags.

“I like cars you can live out of,” Young said. “Because I do.”

For the last three years with the 49ers, he has rented a room from offensive lineman Harris Barton.

Young finally bought his first home last year, a 1,500-square-foot hut in Provo near the BYU campus.

“It was built in 1906,” Young said. “It’s a pioneer house. It’s very small but it’s perfect for my needs right now. I just don’t feel like taking care of a big ol’ giant place.”

Why not pay someone for the privilege?

“Oh, great, that’s me,” Young said. “That’s just my point. I’d feel like an idiot. I’m not saying what everyone else should do with their money. But I tell you, it’s boring. I swear to you. Sure, I think I’ll go down and buy a new suit. Yeah, that’s really fun. I don’t enjoy that.”

Fancy cars?

“I don’t like them, I swear to you,” Young said. “I’ve always wanted a really fast car. I don’t care what it looks like on the outside. One of these days I’m going to get me a fast car.”

Young spends money on everyone but himself.

“You can’t change the world,” he says, “but you can change your little part of it.”

He has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity. Among his interests are the Indians in Utah. No coincidence that his new house is decorated mostly with Navajo rugs.

Occasionally, during the season, Young will fly from San Francisco to Utah on his off day to do charity work on the reservations.

“The only fun I have with money is to be able to spread it around and do some fun things for people,” he said.

Young recently paid the dental bills of a Russian physicist who was teaching at BYU for the summer.

“He kept complaining about his teeth,” Young said. “I looked at his teeth and it was like, ‘Wow.’ The dentist said he’d never seen anything like this in his life. So we worked out a plan so, hopefully, we can send him back (to Russia) and he can at least eat pain-free. Stuff like that. Little stuff.”

Young is smart enough to know what he’s up against in San Francisco.

He’s smart enough to know football isn’t forever.

That’s why he is two courses shy of completing his law degree at BYU.

He is going to be a lawyer, specializing in criminal law.

“A lot of guys can’t let go of football,” Young said. “I’ll be one of those guys. I’ll want to go out and toss the ball. But (when) it’s over, it’s over. Go do something else. That’s why I say give me 100 court cases a day. I want to go in the courtroom and leave it.”

Life, though, doesn’t often go according to script.

“How many 30-year-old single Mormons do you know?” he said, proving his point.

Young was once two days from the altar before a proposed marriage collapsed.

How many more carrots will fate dangle in his face?

After Montana was injured in the 1990 NFC championship game against the Giants, Young took over and was leading the 49ers downfield with a one-point lead in the closing minutes when tailback Roger Craig fumbled, allowing the Giants to reverse field and score a last-second victory.

If Craig holds on, Young starts Super Bowl XXV against the Buffalo Bills.

Last season, the 49ers were the NFL’s hottest team when the regular season ended. But 10-6 wasn’t good enough for the playoffs.

Young believes, however, that there is time to salvage his career.

“Unless I get hurt, I’ve still got five or six years,” he said. “But if I don’t play this year, it’s really a waste of a prime year.”

Taking on Montana in San Francisco is a losing proposition.

Replacing Montana will be a lost cause.

There was resentment in the locker room last season when Young took over, whispers about his lack of discipline, whispers about what might have been with Montana.

After a 12-6 defeat by the Raiders, a game in which Young self-destructed on a last-minute drive toward victory, defensive end Charles Haley gave Young a tongue-lashing in the locker room. Peace was not restored until Ronnie Lott, the former 49er, was summoned from the Raiders’ locker room to calm Haley.

“Let’s be honest, Joe wasn’t real helpful,” Young said. “But there was a transition time. That was last year. People weren’t sure what they were supposed to say, how they were supposed to react. I mean, we’re talking about Joe Montana. But by the end of the season, we were OK.”

Young says he and Montana get along fine. They even play golf together.

“He’s extremely competitive, and I don’t know any other way to be,” Young said. “We do very well, considering we’re very competitive. People think there are fistfights in the back room. That’s not the case at all.”

Still, San Francisco may not be big enough for both of them.

Until the 49ers show him the door, though, Young isn’t budging.

“Just let me play,” he said. “Forget about all the missed timing and everything else. To sit back on the bench and not play is cruel and unusual punishment.

“In sports, we’re always looking for the perfect ending. Maybe in the end there will be that poignant time for me that I’ll feel, because of it all, that it will be that much better, that much sweeter.”