The Catch

The play was called Sprint Right Option. It was third-and-three with 58 seconds left in the 1981 NFC Championship Game, the 49ers trailing the Dallas Cowboys 27-21 at Candlestick Park. Joe Montana rolled right, scrambled, and threw a pass to the back of the end zone that was — by every reasonable standard — too high. Dwight Clark, a tenth-round draft pick who'd been discovered at a tryout he wasn't even supposed to attend, went up and caught it anyway. The image of Clark at full extension, fingertips on the ball, is the founding document of the 49ers dynasty. San Francisco had been a losing franchise for most of its existence. Baseball was the city's sport. The 49ers were where hope went to be disappointed. And then Montana threw a ball that should have been incomplete, and a receiver who shouldn't have been on the roster caught it, and none of that was true anymore. They won the Super Bowl two weeks later. It was the first of five. But it all started with a throw that was too high and a man who refused to let it be.