San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Clark secures eternal fame with ‘The Catch’
Those who were in Candlestick Park on Jan. 10, 1982, to report on the NFC Championship Game between the 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys knew they had been witness to sports history.
From Chronicle 49ers beat writer Ira Miller: “The images will last forever. On the freeze frame of a million TV screens, in the hearts and minds of every 49er fan, all the suffering during all the years was worth this one moment.” From Paul Zimmerman in the Jan. 18 issue of Sports Illustrated: “In 10 years at least half a million people will claim to have been in Candlestick Park . ... In 20 years the number of people who were there will be more than a million.”
The official attendance was 60,525 — the largest crowd in 49ers’ history, representing 99.1% of the 61,061 tickets sold. What the 536 no-shows were doing that day may never be known. But it’s a good bet that they’re part of that ever-expanding number Zimmerman predicted.
And what did they miss? They missed “The Catch.” Dwight Clark’s leap into football immortality came with 51 seconds to play on a 3rd-and-3 from the Dallas 6-yard line and capped an 89-yard, 13-play drive. It’s important to remember that the play only tied the score; Ray Wersching’s extra point provided the winning margin in a 28-27 victory that gave the 49ers their first NFC crown and sent them into Super Bowl XVI.
“I just saw the catch for the first time” on television, said quarterback Joe Montana after the game in a raucous 49ers’ locker room. “It was an unbelievable catch. When I released the ball, I knew it was high — but I didn’t know it was up that high, where he’d jump 3 feet off the ground for it.”
Clark was as much concerned about not landing out of bounds along the back line of the end zone as he was in corralling the ball.
“I was just thinking ‘Get your feet down,’ ” said Clark. “Then I looked back for the penalties. (There weren’t any.) I couldn’t believe we had scored.”
The play not only flipped the scoreboard, but also several story lines that had developed in the game’s first 51 minutes.
To that point, the 49ers had repeatedly stubbed their toes and handed the Cowboys chance after chance to take control. Montana lost one of the 49ers’ three fumbles (Walt Easley and Bill Ring had the others) and had thrown three interceptions. Two of the picks were made by rookie Everson Walls, who was the defensive star of the game until Clark turned him into a supporting actor in one of the most iconic sports pictures ever taken.
And when the 49ers finally righted their offensive ship in the game’s final minutes, the hero mantle looked like it might go to either running back Lenvil Elliott or wide receiver Freddie Solomon, not Clark.
Playing in what would be the last game of his nine seasons in the NFL, Elliott — who had rushed for 29 yards on seven carries all season — gained 31 yards on four carries on the game-winning drive. Solomon — whose 8-yard TD reception in the first quarter came on the same play call (sprint right option) as “The Catch” — had a 6-yard catch, a 14-yard run on a reverse, and a 12-yard catch that gave the 49ers a first down at the Dallas 13 with 1:15 to play. Montana went for the win on the next play and had Solomon — a stride ahead of Walls — wide open in the left side of the end zone, but threw wide of the mark.
An Elliott 7-yard run on second down set the stage for Montana-to-Clark.
The Cowboys didn’t exactly go quietly, as Danny White found Drew Pearson — who likely would have scored a game-winning TD had it not been for Eric Wright’s shoulder pad tackle — for 31 yards. But on the next play, White fumbled while being sacked by Lawrence Pillers, and Jim Stuckey fell on the loose ball. Ballgame.
Montana, Elliott, Solomon, Wright, Pillers ... any of them could have made an argument for player of the game.
But as The Chronicle’s Herb Caen wrote in the next morning’s paper: “Today I’d rather be Dwight than President.”