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This Day In Sports…January 10, 1982:
In the Bay Area, it is still known as “The Catch”—Dwight Clark’s fingertip reception of a Joe Montana pass with 51 seconds left in the NFC Championship Game at Candlestick Park. It gave San Francisco a 28-27 win over Dallas and symbolized the beginning of a 17-season run of excellence for the 49ers—a period during which they won five Super Bowls. San Francisco had been building under coach Bill Walsh, who was in his third season, but this was something else again. The Niners were 2-14 in Walsh’s first year and 6-10 in his second. Conversely, the Cowboys would not return to the Super Bowl the rest of the 1980s.
San Francisco, which had routed Dallas 45-14 in October, got in position for the historic moment with a tense and methodical 14-play, 89 yard drive that took more than four minutes off the clock. Montana got the 49ers down to the six-yard line, where it was third-and-three. He dropped back and rolled right, looking for primary receiver Freddie Solomon. But Solomon slipped on his route, and three of the Cowboys’ best defenders, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Larry Bethea and D.D. Lewis, were bearing down on him.
While Montana was backpedaling he pump-faked, and that caused Jones to leap in the air. Montana used the split-second of extra time to find Clark in the back of the end zone. “The Catch” came over Dallas star cornerback Everson Walls and sent the home crowd into a frenzy. It has been iconic ever since. Montana and Clark recreated it on the 25th anniversary of “The Catch” in 2007, and two statues depicting it were unveiled at Levi’s Stadium in 2018, one showing Clark reaching high for the ball, and other with Montana’s arms shooting into the air (the way he celebrated most touchdowns).
The 49ers would go on to play in their first Super Bowl two weeks later, beating the Cincinnati Bengals 26-21. They’d win three more with Montana—over the Miami Dolphins in 1985, the Bengals again in 1989 and the Denver Broncos in 1990. The band stayed together enough to win the fifth Super Bowl during the Steve Young years, defeating the San Diego Chargers in 1995. Despite returning to the Super Bowl after the 2012, 2019 and 2023 seasons, the Niners have not been victorious in one since.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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