The Catch: One Play, Two Dynasties, and the Game That Changed the NFL

by Gary Myers, Joe Montana (Foreword by)

How many great catches have there been in the history of the NFL? Hundreds? Thousands? Mention "The Catch,"though, and fans will think of only Joe Montana to Dwight Clark, the NFC Championship game, the Dallas Cowboys vs. the San Francisco 49ers, January 10, 1982. It changed the game and The Game. This is the story of the pieces that fell into place to allow it to happen and what it meant to the players, to the fans, and to the future of professional football.Drama like this couldn't be scripted any better. Dallas was still reigning as America's team. San Francisco was hungry for a ticket to its first Super Bowl. With less than a minute left, the 49ers were one touchdown and extra point away from pulling it off, six yards from the end zone. Too Tall Jones and the Cowboys' celebrated defense were primed to stop Montana and the 49ers. The play came in from head coach Bill Sprint Right Option. It almost never worked in practice. But this was game on. It had to work. Montana took the snap and rolled right. With 700 pounds of prime defensive talent bearing down on him, leaning backward, in his last moment of upright balance, Montana sent the ball to the back of the end zone. The primary receiver had slipped and was not in place. But the secondary receiver, Dwight Clark, was streaking toward the corner, leaping higher than he ever had or ever would again. With his arms reaching for the sky, his fingers splayed, he snatched the impossibly high pass, briefly lost control, regained it . . . touchdown!Franchises, careers, lives, and dynasties all changed in that moment.Sports journalist Gary Myers was there, and now with fresh revelations from key players, including Montana, Clark, Ronnie Lott, Randy Cross, Tony Dorsett, Drew Pearson, Charlie Waters, and others, he takes fans back to an iconic game and one of the NFL's most breathtaking plays. Myers presents new details on the rise of Montana and the 49ers and the fall of the '80s Cowboys. He reveals what Bill Walsh saw in an overlooked third-round draft pick named Joe Montana and how Walsh accidentally discovered Dwight Clark. He shows how legendary Dallas head coach Tom Landry, who as reputed did put winning first, was not above crying over players whose personal careers had to come second. He celebrates forgotten heroes like journeyman running back Lenvil Elliott, who picked that particular game–and that final drive down the field–to shine. It's all here, from the death threat that spooked Montana during the game to 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo's bad luck when his view of the historic play was literally blocked by a horse's ass.The Catch is both the ultimate replay of a sports moment for the ages and a penetrating look into the inner dynamics of the NFL. From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Sports, Football, Nonfiction

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're a football fan, you've probably seen highlight footage of "The Catch."

It's the pass from Joe Montana to Dwight Clark in the waning moments of the 1981 NFC Championship game that sent the up and coming San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl and the Dallas Cowboys to NFL infamy as the team that "The Catch" happened against.

The footage has been endlessly replayed on NFL Films and ESPN and was even redone as a Gatorade commercial a few years ago.

But the famous reception is more than just a spectacular football catch in Gary Myers' new book on the subject. Myers takes a critical look at "The Catch" and gives us the history and factors that led up to it was well as its impact on the teams, players, coaches and the NFL as a whole since January 10, 1982.

At times in the book, Myers is channeling John Feinstein (the gold standard of sports books), retelling the events of the day, putting the reader back into the pivotal championship game. However, at other times, he puts events so out of order that it becomes difficult to pin down the specific timeline. Myers is clearly looking to use the game stories as a reference point or an entry into the larger story he's trying to tell, but it's still frustrating to read things out of order in the game. The re-telling of the game would have been more effective in a linear fashion.

And Myers begins to replay certain stories and anecdotes as the book gets into its later stages. With the book weighing in at just under 250 pages, I'd hoped we might get more new material instead of rehashing in the later stages. Maybe it's instant replay.

If you're an NFL or a football buff, this is certainly worth a read. It's not nearly as well done as "The Greatest Game Ever Played" but it's still a fascinating look at one of the pivotal moments in football.

[Steve Kettmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the pleasures of digging into a book like this as a lifelong 49ers fan is that even as a reviewer, ostensibly paid to be skeptical, you can gleefully skip right over any sense that first-time author Gary Myers is overhyping the importance of the Catch.

What's to overhype? That glorious moment when a flu-ravaged Dwight Clark sprang up gazelle-like from the back of the end zone at Candlestick and somehow hauled in a remarkable Joe Montana pass was such an epic moment in sports, all superlatives can and do apply. Cue it up on YouTube and take a fresh look.

For Bay Area sports fans, the moment from that NFC Championship game of Jan. 10, 1982, has an electricity that can never diminish. It's lightning in a bottle, and the lightning still crackles. What Myers has done in his book, "The Catch: One Play, Two Dynasties, and the Game That Changed the NFL," is to pull the top off the bottle and let the excitement escape once again. The twist is that, as a former Cowboys reporter for the Dallas Morning News, Myers brings a wealth of knowledge about the erstwhile America's Team - and makes this book a portrait of both teams.

The biggest surprise is the identity of the character in the book who comes through as far and away the most quotable, funny and insightful and just so consistently himself. That would be Joe Montana, also the most interesting character in the story. Myers must have a great rapport with Montana, who was known for being a cutup with his teammates, but whose personality did not always transfer to talks with reporters.

"They told me on the sideline that there was a death threat," Montana says of the day of the play. "Nobody wanted to stand by me. People scattered quickly."

At the same time, a remarkable photo by Michael Zagaris, longtime team shooter for the 49ers, shows Montana after the game, so spent and vulnerable that he is lying on the floor.

Myers also takes us to the first meeting between Montana and Clark, who would probably never have gone drafted if Bill Walsh - yes, he's consistently referred to here as a "genius" - had not gotten him on the phone by accident, trying to reach Clark's roommate at Clemson, and decided to work them both out to take a look. That first Montana-Clark meeting came at the HoJo's in Redwood City.

"He's got long blond hair and a Fu Manchu, and he's got on little running shorts and his legs are twigs," Clark says. "So he's walking in and I'm eating, and I can't decide if he's a player or not.

" 'Are you with the 49ers?'

'Yeah.'

'I'm Dwight Clark.'

'I'm Joe Montana.' "

You could do a whole movie about the meeting of the young Dwight Clark and the young Joe Montana, and the scene is pure pleasure for any longtime fan.

Also fascinating are the inside glimpses of the Cowboy dynasty, especially the ouster of the great Tom Landry after a long career when Jerry Jones bought the team in 1989. Myers showed up to spend hours with Landry as he was cleaning out his office in the aftermath, and the intimate, revealing glimpse he records of that meeting is timeless - and provides a useful reminder that in sports, as in physics, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. So as huge a boost as the Catch gave the 49ers, it forever shaped the trajectory of the Cowboy franchise as well.

There's no question that any longtime 49ers fan will heartily enjoy this book, and I can enthusiastically recommend it as a gift; in fact, I very well might buy a copy for one or more of my brothers.

But it also should be mentioned that Myers falls into a number of familiar traps to sportswriters, used to writing short on deadline, who are suddenly freed to go the distance in a book.

Leaving aside a tone that feels more flat and press box-banterish than distilled and memorable, the main issue is repetition, especially of basic information about players, and of direct quotes. One can almost hear Myers, in the press box, making a joke about how at times reading this book felt like watching an old-time blue movie, where they keep looping back and repeating the same scenes and hoping you won't notice, such as when the same series of quotes is repeated verbatim on Page 16 and Page 215 and quite possibly elsewhere as well.

Still, those are cavils for those of us who read books far too closely for our own good. The average reader of this book will no doubt be zipping along looking for the good parts, the way Clark zipped along a route. What matters is what you take away, and Myers has given us a rich trove of insight and delicious detail to make the Catch live on even more vividly in our collective memory.

"The Catch was so memorable, that's all you have to say, and everybody knows what you are talking about," Montana writes in an introduction. "I was rolling to my right with the Cowboys defense closing in on me. I saw Dwight in the back of the end zone and let the ball go. He went up and got it, and a lifetime of memories was born."

[Tom Gase · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was well researched, but it could have been better. Problems I had with this book were 1) The author, Gary Myers, desperately tried to make this game and this catch bigger than it was. It is an important catch and one of the best games ever as described in this book, but too many times I was reading how it was the end of one dynasty and the start of another, which isn't entirely true. The Cowboys made the playoffs the next year and were once again one win away from the Super Bowl, but were defeated by the Redskins. The 49ers failed to make the playoffs and didn't win another Super Bowl until two years later, when they had arguably the best team of all time. So Myers kept contradicting himself. I see this as being one of the best games ever played and possibly the best catch ever made, but changing the NFL? Come on, let's not go overboard here. Bill Walsh may have changed the NFL with his West Coast offense, but not this game.

My second problem with this book is it went out of order too many times. Instead of going from the first quarter on, it would go from the first quarter to the fourth, and from the fourth to the second, back to the fourth.

The last problem I had with this was it kept repeating stories on Walsh and Laundry. Keep it simple, we don't need to hear the same story twice. In a sense, this book could have easily been a great read if it was under 200 pages.

The interviews with Pearson, Walls, Clark, Montana and others were, however, great. The research was awesome, and I did feel like I was back in San Francisco/Dallas early 1982 when reading this. I think the overall editing could have been better. I do look forward to reading Myers' next book, but I hope it's a little better than this one. I don't like the Cowboys or Niners, so maybe this book wasn't for me.

[Andy O'Hara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought "The Catch" was a great book! As a young football lover myself, it was really cool to learn about a moment that played such a big role in the sport. I'm glad I was able to learn about not only the actual catch, but all the behind the scenes that helped for it to happen. Gary Meyers does a great job of breaking down the play and everything at the time. I especially like how he went in depth about everything that was happening at the time in the NFL. This really helped to understand how the teams formed and how the catch was able to take place. It's truly amazing how good athletes can be! I would definitely recommend this book to any football lovers or anyone that wants to read an incredible true story!

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any 49ers, or Cowboys fan for that matter, should check this book out. Not only does it describe The Catch play in every detail, but it also examines the players that were involved in the 1981 NFC Championship game. Players such as Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, Tony Dorsett, Ronnie Lott, Danny White, Charlie Waters and of course both coaches Bill Walsh and Tom Landry. These players speak about the game and how that game changed the future of both teams and everyone's careers. It's an in-depth look at one of the greatest plays in NFL history! Recommended!

[Barry Lacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good book on the NFC championship in 1982 covering the 49ers and Cowboys. Covers all the major players and the coach’s involved in the game and what happened to them after the game interwoven with the game filtered through the chapters on above characters. Probably focuses a slight bit more on Cowboys side of things more than 49ers but not by too much. Recommended especially for fans of either team or the era of NFL.

[DaveH · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this book was excellent, imagine if Gary could update it now with the sad story of Dwight Clark's passing away from ALS. This could be the modern day Brian's Song!

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story about the players and coaches and arguably the most significant sporting achievement of my lifetime

[Michael Battista · Rating 5 out of 5]

History

The Niners were meant to win as divine intervention was the real catch.
Looking back it's amazing how they were determined and pre destined to be a dynasty

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read.

Enjoyed reading this book very much. Highly recommend to any 49'er fan. Really told both sides of the story very well. 5 stars!

[Igor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claudio Lanaro - Dentro la NFL

[Jim Willse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun to poke through for anecdotes of that first great Niners team, like the one about Hacksaw Reynolds showing up for the big game -- by cab -- in complete uniform and pads. Not sure The Catch changed the NFL, but it sure changed the San Francisco paper I was working at back then. We got even better at handling big, big stories with a sense of authority and great fun.

[C Baker · Rating 2 out of 5]

On January 10, 1982 the San Francisco 49’ers defeated the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship game on one of the most memorable catches in NFL history. Late in the fourth quarter, with the game on the line, San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana threw up a prayer to wide receiver Dwight Clark in the end zone, beating Dallas 28-27. This improbable catch launched the San Francisco 49’ers into Super Bowl XVI, which they won over the Cincinnati Bengals 26-21.

The theme of this book is that this seminal catch by Dwight Clark marked the rise of the San Francisco 49’ers, winners of five Super Bowls and the team of the 1980’s, and the demise of the Dallas Cowboys, who slowly declined into obscurity.

There is a lot to like about this book. This is a great theme and the author supports it well through describing the highs and lows of the players that struggled on this overcast afternoon in January. But it is so poorly written and sloppily organized that at times I found it infuriating and ultimately very disappointing.

The book is mostly about the rise of the 49’ers and the decline of the Dallas Cowboys told through the prism of this one game and one catch. For the 49’ers, a loss might have meant either a longer climb to a championship, or maybe even a resigned Walsh going elsewhere and no championships at all. Cowboys’ players said a win might have given them the confidence and moxie to win another championship or more under the helm of Danny White, the Dallas quarterback playing in the long shadow of a retired Roger Staubach. But instead, the teams went in different directions.

For the 49’ers this marked the success of Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense and the solidification of Joe Montana as his quarterback. Both rose to incredible heights in the 1980’s. Much of the 49’ers story revolves around Bill Walsh and Joe Montana, as well as the players and coaches around them that saw this seminal moment turn into a decade of excellence.

For the Cowboys this loss raised the red flag on an aging team, with a sometimes aloof quarterback in Danny White trying prove he could lead them to a championship. It also marked the beginning of the end for legendary coach Tom Landry who seemed to lose touch with the players and the game. Much is said about the inability of Danny White, a very fine quarterback, to ever rise out of the shadow of Staubach. He led the team to three straight NFC Championships but didn’t win any of them. Add to that an aging defense and a sudden lack of confidence, you had a team clearly on the decline.

The author tells the post-game story of many of the players on both sides of the ball. Ironically, most of the Cowboys’ stories are not good ones. It’s as if this game marked not only the decline of the team, but the decline of its players both professionally and personally.

But as noted earlier this is a poorly written and organized book that needed a more competent editor. The writing is poor, frankly, and not very engaging to read. Worse yet, even within chapters the author jumps from one chronological point to another, often abruptly, which destroys the flow of the story and the engagement of the reader.

Would I recommend the book? The stories about the players and coaches are very interesting and add to the history of both teams. If you don’t mind the poor writing and organization, it is worth the read.

[Paul Schulzetenberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely terrible. I enjoy me a good book about football, particularly one with some historical context, as this book claims to have. However, this book is thematically and formally a train wreck.

Myers set out to write a book about the collision of dynasties, the 1970s Cowboys with the 49ers. He chooses as the focus the most dramatic meeting between those two franchises, the 1981 NFC championship, best known for Dwight Clark leaping in the end zone to catch a high Joe Montana pass. His claim is that this game was THE turning point. Well, that's not the way it happened. The Cowboys were in the midst of a much longer slide into irrelevancy, and this was hardly their last gasp, as they made it back to the NFC championship game the following season. The 49ers, meanwhile, still had a lot of uphill ground to cover before they became the dominant team of the 80s. Myers seems to understand this, talking about the 49ers still had a long way to go, and that the Cowboys weren't really that bad yet, but somehow he fails to realize that he is undermining the very claim he is trying to make.

As for Myers' writing style, it is embarassingly simple. It is pretty clear that Myers started out as a beat writer on the football scene, as his writing has very little craft to it. Myers forcuses on communicating the facts with short declarative sentences that are so choppy and repetitive that they break up any flow that the already disjointed chronicle could have. Furthermore, they aren't even good declarative sentences. I felt at times as though I was reading a Matt Christopher book intended for 10 year olds. What few analytical points Myers would try to make were drowned out by his truly awkward writing style.

Really awful. Don't waste your time on this book.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of the famous play in the 1982 NFC Championship Game, when Joe Montana (the BEST quarterback ever) threw to Dwight Clark in the back of the end zone with less than one minute left, to defeat the Dallas Cowboys. This crucial play allowed the Forty-Niners to play (and win) their first Super Bowl ever and led to a period of troubled times for the Cowboys.

Myers does a very good job recreating this game and the moment (the catch) that has become so famous in sports history. He also provides the historical context for both teams, going back to entry of each team into the NFL. The coaches, players, and owners for both teams come to life in the pages of this book. Myers conducted many interviews with the critical role players and convincing argues that this catch and game was a pivotal event for both teams.

This is a great book for football fans and sports fans in general. It would be most enjoyable for San Francisco 49er fans, not so much for Dallas Cowboy fans. As a 49er and Joe Montana fan, I loved it.

On the negative side, the chronology of the book is quite confusing. Myers moves around in time, and sometimes lost me. He also repeated many of his anecdotes in different parts of the book.

[Bookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look from various viewpoints of a famous football play, "The Catch". I wasn't even born when this play had happened, but I know of it.

It seemed promising and I was under the impression it would take us through a historical look at the buildup of the play. Instead, Myers looks at the coaches, the players involved, the owners and the paths the two teams took to get there and what happened to everyone after that play.

I thought the book was uneven overall. Sometimes it could be really interesting, especially in looking at what happens to the players after the play and after their retirements. It's a real contrast to see guys like Joe Montana and Dwight Clark as opposed to Drew Pearson. Other times the book just kinda dragged.

An interesting bit of history and I was pleased to find that the writer was from Dallas. I somewhat expected a very slanted look from one way or another, but it seems the author tried to be balanced and look at all the sources that were available.

[Christopher Racle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly exhilarating story about the alleged catch of 1982 where the San Fransisco 49er's defeated the Dallas Cowboys with a last minute reception that will be ever remember as the one. Not only does this story go into great analysis of the games entirety, but also gives an insight before and after the game that will leave you clinging to the book. It gives a true realization of the life of professional athletes and the struggles they face not only on the field, but maintaining balance in their family life. The book gives us great background stories for the managers coaches and players al that were previously unknown. A collision of stories that led up to the NFC conference final. With suspense at every corner, this book is sure to please those who aren't sports fans. My one complaint regarding the book is that it seems to be dragged out and some sections seem practically irrelevant. But all together this book is the perfect middle ground between a true story and a tv drama

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

On Jan. 10, 1982, the San Francisco 49ers beat the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Champsionship game. The Niners went on to win their first of five Super Bowls. Gary Myers shows us how one play (Montana to Clark, aka, The Catch) made San Fran the team of the 80s and put America's Team, the Cowboys, into a deep freeze for the next decade, until Troy Aikman, Emmit Smith and Michael Irvin arrived to bring the Boys back to greatness.

Myers does a superb job examining the pivotal players of that game: Montana, Clark, Everson Walls, Drew Pearson, as well as the legendary coaches of both teams--Bill Walsh and Tom Landry--who cared deeply about their players and winning. A must read for every football fan.

[Dustin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not only is this book about the 49ers in general, which should be an automatic 5 stars, but its about the single greatest moment in 49ers history, another automatic 5 stars, AND its about the downfall of the Cowboys Dynasty, which should be an automatic 3 stars. This book could have been just the words "The 49ers were awesome in this game and awesome for a long time afterwards because they beat the Cowboys who were awful for the next 10 years," and it would have been guaranteed 13 Stars.

Alas, Gary Myers is the worst writer in the history of civilization, making it completely unreadable and annoying and abandoned.

[Howard Rigdon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book " The Catch" was interesting and should be read by all people who like football. Gary Myers did a good job depicting the moment the San Francisco 49ers beat the Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game of 1982. It went into every detail of what the conditions were on the field in the Cowboys standpoint and in the 49ers standpoint. I think he also did a good job in showing how the 49ers became a dynasty after the Catch while the Cowboys were destroyed after that Championship game. His perspective and details made me feel like I was on the field when the Catch occurred.This book was very well written but in my opinion the author interjected too many politics.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

You might not think it's possible to write an entire book about a single play in one game of football. And certainly, there's a lot more covered here than JUST that play. BUT, it really does focus on that Sprint Right Option play and what lead up to it, and what happened afterwards. 49ers fans need things to cheer them up these days, and this book certainly qualifies. (Worth also noting that author Gary Myers was the COWBOYS broadcaster at the time, so his bias, if any, is not towards the Red & Gold.)

Highly recommended as a football book in general, and certainly for any fan of the 49ers and some of the all time greats of the game.

[Sandra Strange · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I am not normally a sports fan, though I grew up playing and watching a LOT of sports. This book, focused on one climactic football pass play in the 1982 playoff game between the 49'ers and the Cowboys, is well told. The author proves how important the play proved to be, marking the beginning of a 49er dynasty and the beginning of the end of the Dallas coach's career. The book examines everyone involved with "the catch" on both sides--Cowboys and 49'ers-- detailing what happened to everyone before and after "the catch."

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is a little disjointed. Some great stories and I like the idea of approaching it from both the SF and Dallas perspective. But there is WAY too much repeating almost word for word. It feels like a collection of blog posts or magazine articles that were all collected together without any larger plan.

There was a very good story to tell here, and I found sections of it fantastic. But it had no comprehensive narrative.

In the end I liked some of it, but as a whole it was pretty disappointing.

[Mike Crawford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weird non-linear structure makes this book harder than necessary to follow. I'm not sure who actually wants to read about BOTH the niners and the cowboys....I assume fans support either one or the other, and this particular game means that only niners fans will read it, and the niners material is pretty well covered in other books. Though the writing is straightforward, the flashback and flash-forward technique is not. Alas.

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

Extraordinarily sloppy book. Information is consistently repeated. Author -- former reporter with The Dallas Morning News -- also attempts to create these links between the 1981 NFC Championship game and the downfall of the Dallas Cowboys and the surge of the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s. He also attempts to connect The Catch and that game with tragedies among the players a decade or two later when there is no connection. Seemed to lack focus or attention to detail.

[Alpha · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 - Enjoyed reading about football history; since I only recently became interested in football, I didn't know a lot of the material covered in the book. That being said, it was pretty light and fluffy.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a fan of the 70's and 80's football 49er's and Cowboys you will really enjoy this book. Goes into the background of a lot of the players and coaches involved in "The Catch" NFL championship game. As an NFL fan who watched this game 30 years ago, I enjoyed it.

[Chandler]

Great book that takes you back to the moment on January 10, 1982, that served to change NFL history forever. I especially liked the "afterwords" aspects of all the players that made that game special. From triumph to tragedy, this book has it all.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was so poorly written that I couldn't finish it.

[Tony Primm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book with background on the 1981 49er game and super bowl season.