‘The Catch’ has forged a lasting bond between former Cowboys back Everson Walls and 49ers great Dwight Clark.
Cowboys defensive back Walls to join celebration of Clark and ‘The Catch’ during Sunday’s game
For as long as they show replays of “The Catch,” which is to say until a few years beyond forever, Dwight Clark’s outstretched fingertips will keep reeling in that floating pass from Joe Montana.
And no matter how many million more times Clark leaps, Everson Walls will never be able to stop him. The Dallas Cowboys defensive back will keep gliding with Clark across the back of the Candlestick Park end zone only to wind up with the worst view in the house.
That highlight will play again and again Sunday, when the 49ers celebrate “Dwight Clark Day” at Levi’s Stadium. Clark, 60, is in a battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a smashmouth duel that has left him weakened, frail and in a wheelchair.
But that Cowboys defender is still right behind him. In fact, he’s as close to Clark as ever.
He’ll be at Dwight Clark Day, too.
Everson Walls wouldn’t miss it.
“I guess football does that — and sports does that — for a lot of people. You’re bonded together because of a certain moment in time,” he said by phone Thursday. “And regardless of how you feel about that moment, it’s what happens after that that really counts.
“And between me and Dwight, I think that what counts between us is the friendship.” I tracked down Walls, with help from the 49ers, after getting a peek at the preliminary RSVP list this week. Montana will be there Sunday, of course, and will speak during halftime of the game between the current 49ers and Cowboys.
More than 30 other players from the 1981 Super Bowl team will be there, too. The names, famous and not, still evoke memo-
ries of San Francisco’s first victory parade down Market Street: Dan Bunz! Ronnie Lott! Earl Cooper! Eddie DeBartolo! Ricky Patton! Dwight Hicks! Ray Wersching!
There is a separate RSVP listing for the ’81 Cowboys expected to be in attendance: “Walls, Everson (yes)” is the only entry.
Why in the world would Walls travel to the Bay Area just to re-live the wrong side of history?
“Dwight’s a respectable brother, man,” he explained.
As it turns out, their friendship was born out of the indelible image of them under the darkening skies at the NFC Championship game on Jan. 10, 1982.
Walls said that a few years after the 49ers’ 2827 victory in that classic game, he ran into Clark at an NFL awards banquet. The 49ers receiver and defensive back didn’t really know each other yet, but Clark approached to ask: “Did you get your money yet?”
Walls was confused. Clark explained that Kodak was using “The Catch” as part of an advertising campaign. As Walls remembers it, Clark got $10,000 for the use of his likeness while Montana got $5,000.
So Clark asked again if Walls had seen a check.
“I’m like, helllllll no!” he said with a laugh. “And I just recall that he was so excited and happy that he’d told me about it. That’s the kind of guy he is. He made me aware of the situation and eventually I was able to work a good deal with Kodak and get my money as well.”
Now that’s the start of a beautiful friendship.
“If a guy says, ‘I’m going to get you some money, man!’ You’re going to keep in touch with him,” Walls said with a laugh.
They continued to partner
up in future years at autograph shows. It helped that with each passing year, the legend of “The Catch” only seem to grow in stature.
“I’ll call him about a gig. He’ll call me about a gig. And that’s just understood between us,” Walls said. “This is part of our history. It’s something that has tied us together, good or bad, famous or infamous, depending on what fan you are.”
So deep is their bond that Walls was more than just shaken when Clark publicly disclosed in March that he was suffering from ALS. He was outraged.
In an interview with the Associated Press at the time, Walls said it angered him every time he heard about an ex-player because “old-school owners and even coaches back in the day never cared about players, and then they feign sympathy after the fact. To me that’s the most important thing that’s going on with Dwight Clark right now.”
I asked Walls on Thursday how he was coping now, a few months later, as Clark’s fight reaches the more difficult stages.
“When I did that interview, I was very upset about a couple of guys right around the same time. One of them was Gale Sayers,” he said, referring the Chicago Bears
Hall of Famer, whose struggle with dementia was also revealed in March.
“That was a childhood hero of mine, someone who inspired all of us to want to be running backs or classy NFL players.
“You talk about him, Dwight and all the victims of this CTE thing. When you put it all together, it is very upsetting, because this was caused by negligence.”
For Clark and Sayers, there is a possibility that playing football might be a contributing factor to their conditions. The Washington Post pointed out that Clark is at least the fifth former NFL player in the last 10 years to be diagnosed with what is also called Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Clark in his original statement said that he didn’t know for sure whether football caused his ALS, but added: “I certainly suspect it did.”
Walls put it in stronger terms.
“The negligence in the beginning that’s upsetting,” he said. “So you have somebody like Gale Sayers. You have somebody like Dwight Clark. You have all of these other players. Junior Seau.
“And what it does is that it just shows the incompetence. And, really, they knew. I’m talking about NFL management
— they knew what was going on and the fact that they chose to ignore it. To me, that’s almost unforgivable.”
“The Catch,” famously, signaled the birth of one dynasty and the end of another. The Cowboys were within a defensive stop of reaching their sixth Super Bowl; instead Montana and Clark propelled the 49ers toward their first of five victories.
Before the 49ers’ thirdand-3 play from the 6-yard line, Montana told Freddie Solomon: “Freddie, I’m going to you.”
And just as the huddle broke, Montana added, “Dwight, be ready.”
You know how this story ends: Solomon slipped on his route, so Montana rolled to his right with those balletic footsteps and held on until three Cowboys defenders closed in. That’s when Montana lofted the ball into immortality.
As Clark later told the NFL Network: “As I started back across, Everson Walls was right beside me. He had me covered. I remember seeing the ball coming and thinking, ‘Wow, that’s pretty high.’ Joe just put it in the exact spot it had to be. Just another magical play by Joe.”
The moment became so famous that it overshadowed what Clark and Walls did in the rest of their careers — and they did a lot.
Clark led the NFL in receptions the next season and went on to make 506 career catches, all for the 49ers.
Walls went on to a career worthy of Hall of Fame consideration. He was a three-time All-Pro who led the NFL in interceptions three times (1981, ’82 and ’85).
Nearly a decade after the heartbreak of “The Catch,” he finally got his own taste of Super Bowl glory with the 1990 New York Giants. The ensuing Sports Illustrated cover showed Walls with his hands raised in triumph.
“Oh, it felt great. I cried so much after that game that I couldn’t even do the interviews,” Walls recalled.
There might be a few more tears this Sunday when Walls and Clark reunite for a ceremony designed to salute the moment that brought them together.
But people ought to save an ovation or two for what happened after “The Catch.” In this divisive time for the sports world, the unlikely friendship between Dwight Clark and Everson Walls remains worth replaying over and over.
To assist 49ers alumni players facing challenges, check out Goldenheartfund.org/Dwight
Contact Daniel Brown at 408-920-5354.