TrueSacNINER
06-15-2006, 10:26 AM
:bday2: :bday2: :bday2: :bday2:
Though some might debate whether Joe Montana is the greatest quarterback in pro football history, there's no question about his age. He's 50.
He has a pain in his neck that is really a pain in the neck.
His left knee is bone-on-bone and recently had to be drained of three vials of blood, which means he can hide but he can't run.
He has nerve damage to one of his eyes that cannot be repaired with laser surgery.
Most troubling, he has high blood pressure.
Welcome to middle age, Joe Montana.
"It doesn't really bother me,'' he said of hitting the big 5-0 on Sunday. "I still feel 13 or 14.''
Those who delighted at the intuitive grace with which he played quarterback for the 49ers and despaired when he left for Kansas City more than a dozen years ago can take comfort in the fact that Joe Montana still looks like Joe Montana ... at 50.
His sandy brown hair has receded a bit with the tide of years and shows flecks of gray and in 2006, there are lines on his face that weren't there in 1986. But his eyes are still Steve McQueen-blue and twinkle when he talks about the Las Vegas bash (bacchanal is more like it) former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. threw for his former players not long ago.
"Eddie knows how to do it right,'' Montana said.
In fact, Montana said if DeBartolo manages to get back in the NFL as an owner, "I'd go with him. I'll be the ballboy, I don't care. He's just fun to be around. I love being around him.''
Montana, who joked that he'd like to "retire from retirement'' because he's so busy, was in San Francisco on Wednesday as a paid spokesman for a cause that is literally near and dear to his heart. He's the point man for a campaign by the Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. called the "BP Success Zone'' that helps people control their high blood pressure through diet, exercise, medication and lifestyle changes.
It turns out the man who led a charmed life as an athlete is no different than the 65 million Americans who have high blood pressure. A routine physical exam in 2002 revealed Montana had high blood pressure, in excess of 140/90, and a partially clogged artery as well.
Sitting in an airy suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, with the blue of his shirt competing with the blue of his eyes and losing, Montana talked about the first major health crisis of his life. In terms of gravity, his torn elbow ligament in 1990 does not compare with high blood pressure.
"I knew my mom had it and I have a family history of it, but I didn't know the consequences of it,'' he said. "My doctor was so concerned she sent me to the cardiologist the same day. They did some stress tests and an ultrasound and they found the start of a small blockage. It's not bad, but it was something to monitor. It doesn't appear to be getting any worse.''
Goodbye, double cheeseburgers and potato chips. Hello, broccoli and skinless chicken.
Montana collaborated with a cardiologist, nutritionist and an exercise physiologist in producing a 100-page handbook called "Joe Montana's Family Playbook for Managing High Blood Pressure.'' It's a thin volume thick with boring old common sense and some of Montana's favorite heart-healthy dishes with cornball names like "Hall of Fame Hoagie,'' "Playoff Potato Skins'' and "Montana Magic Meatloaf.''
In the last two years, diet, exercise and medication enabled Montana to get his blood pressure below 120/80. His family provided the catalyst for change.
"That's the most important part, not having something catastrophic happen that makes Jen take care of me, too,'' he said of wife Jennifer. "That's what I was trying to avoid.''
All in all, Montana at 50 is not a bad place to be. The family lives in Calistoga, where Joe saddled up in cutting-horse competitions and show jumping before sending off the steeds with a proper trainer. He and Jennifer blend grapes from Howell Mountain in St. Helena and produce with vintner Ed Sbragia small quantities of a cabernet-merlot called Montagia.
Not to worry -- the kid from shot-and-beer country in western Pennsylvania is no wine snob. He fell asleep three times during the movie "Sideways.''
"All the money that comes from the wine sales from our half goes to our family foundation,'' Montana said. "We support a bunch of children's charities.''
The Montana children are growing, if not quite grown. Daughters Alexandra, 20, and Elizabeth, 19, are both legacies as students at Notre Dame. Sons Nathaniel, 16, and Nicholas, 14, are at Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa. Nathaniel is 6-foot-4 and likes hoops but wants to play a little quarterback, too. Nicholas takes to both football and basketball.
"It's gratifying and heartbreaking at the same time,'' Montana said. "I look at both girls -- they both started internships here in the city and pretty soon they're not going to be coming home. I don't see them sticking around Calistoga. That's the bad part.''
A dozen years removed from his last football game, Montana is a dabbler (horses, wine, real estate) and a devoted dad. He aches to join his sons in sports and aches for having done so. A recent shooting contest on the basketball court led to blood being drained from his knee. He needs to have the joint replaced but is holding out for a magical injection of artificial cartilage sometime soon.
The knee prevents the quarterback who once moved so deftly from being able to run and limits his time on the golf course to a charity event now and then. Montana was not much of a golfer anyway, and he certainly didn't embrace the game like many former pro athletes. For exercise, he does some light weightlifting and he gets on a treadmill, or Stairmaster, or elliptical machine, and churns out 45-60 minutes on most days. He said he feels guilty if he misses two days in a week. Similar feelings arise when he contemplates a big steak or a bag of chips.
For his 50th birthday on the 11th, various friends took him out for dinner Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Heart-healthy Joe had fish on two occasions and a modest-size steak on the other.
"Knowing I can have steak helps a lot,'' he said. "I've stopped eating big portions of meat. That way I don't think I'm missing things.''
He misses some old teammates like Fred Dean ("I haven't seen him in ages'') and regularly sees others such as Keena Turner, Eric Wright, Ronnie Lott, Harris Barton, Steve Bono, Dwaine Board and Bill Ring.
At the half-century mark, Montana remains San Francisco's No. 1 sporting icon, 1a to Willie Mays' 1b because of number of championships won. Mays recently celebrated a milestone birthday, his 75th. With his blood pressure under control, Montana has a better chance of reaching 75 as well.
Now, if they could do something about his knee, and his neck, and that one twinkling blue eye ...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/06/15/SPG3PJEHNN1.DTL
Though some might debate whether Joe Montana is the greatest quarterback in pro football history, there's no question about his age. He's 50.
He has a pain in his neck that is really a pain in the neck.
His left knee is bone-on-bone and recently had to be drained of three vials of blood, which means he can hide but he can't run.
He has nerve damage to one of his eyes that cannot be repaired with laser surgery.
Most troubling, he has high blood pressure.
Welcome to middle age, Joe Montana.
"It doesn't really bother me,'' he said of hitting the big 5-0 on Sunday. "I still feel 13 or 14.''
Those who delighted at the intuitive grace with which he played quarterback for the 49ers and despaired when he left for Kansas City more than a dozen years ago can take comfort in the fact that Joe Montana still looks like Joe Montana ... at 50.
His sandy brown hair has receded a bit with the tide of years and shows flecks of gray and in 2006, there are lines on his face that weren't there in 1986. But his eyes are still Steve McQueen-blue and twinkle when he talks about the Las Vegas bash (bacchanal is more like it) former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. threw for his former players not long ago.
"Eddie knows how to do it right,'' Montana said.
In fact, Montana said if DeBartolo manages to get back in the NFL as an owner, "I'd go with him. I'll be the ballboy, I don't care. He's just fun to be around. I love being around him.''
Montana, who joked that he'd like to "retire from retirement'' because he's so busy, was in San Francisco on Wednesday as a paid spokesman for a cause that is literally near and dear to his heart. He's the point man for a campaign by the Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. called the "BP Success Zone'' that helps people control their high blood pressure through diet, exercise, medication and lifestyle changes.
It turns out the man who led a charmed life as an athlete is no different than the 65 million Americans who have high blood pressure. A routine physical exam in 2002 revealed Montana had high blood pressure, in excess of 140/90, and a partially clogged artery as well.
Sitting in an airy suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, with the blue of his shirt competing with the blue of his eyes and losing, Montana talked about the first major health crisis of his life. In terms of gravity, his torn elbow ligament in 1990 does not compare with high blood pressure.
"I knew my mom had it and I have a family history of it, but I didn't know the consequences of it,'' he said. "My doctor was so concerned she sent me to the cardiologist the same day. They did some stress tests and an ultrasound and they found the start of a small blockage. It's not bad, but it was something to monitor. It doesn't appear to be getting any worse.''
Goodbye, double cheeseburgers and potato chips. Hello, broccoli and skinless chicken.
Montana collaborated with a cardiologist, nutritionist and an exercise physiologist in producing a 100-page handbook called "Joe Montana's Family Playbook for Managing High Blood Pressure.'' It's a thin volume thick with boring old common sense and some of Montana's favorite heart-healthy dishes with cornball names like "Hall of Fame Hoagie,'' "Playoff Potato Skins'' and "Montana Magic Meatloaf.''
In the last two years, diet, exercise and medication enabled Montana to get his blood pressure below 120/80. His family provided the catalyst for change.
"That's the most important part, not having something catastrophic happen that makes Jen take care of me, too,'' he said of wife Jennifer. "That's what I was trying to avoid.''
All in all, Montana at 50 is not a bad place to be. The family lives in Calistoga, where Joe saddled up in cutting-horse competitions and show jumping before sending off the steeds with a proper trainer. He and Jennifer blend grapes from Howell Mountain in St. Helena and produce with vintner Ed Sbragia small quantities of a cabernet-merlot called Montagia.
Not to worry -- the kid from shot-and-beer country in western Pennsylvania is no wine snob. He fell asleep three times during the movie "Sideways.''
"All the money that comes from the wine sales from our half goes to our family foundation,'' Montana said. "We support a bunch of children's charities.''
The Montana children are growing, if not quite grown. Daughters Alexandra, 20, and Elizabeth, 19, are both legacies as students at Notre Dame. Sons Nathaniel, 16, and Nicholas, 14, are at Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa. Nathaniel is 6-foot-4 and likes hoops but wants to play a little quarterback, too. Nicholas takes to both football and basketball.
"It's gratifying and heartbreaking at the same time,'' Montana said. "I look at both girls -- they both started internships here in the city and pretty soon they're not going to be coming home. I don't see them sticking around Calistoga. That's the bad part.''
A dozen years removed from his last football game, Montana is a dabbler (horses, wine, real estate) and a devoted dad. He aches to join his sons in sports and aches for having done so. A recent shooting contest on the basketball court led to blood being drained from his knee. He needs to have the joint replaced but is holding out for a magical injection of artificial cartilage sometime soon.
The knee prevents the quarterback who once moved so deftly from being able to run and limits his time on the golf course to a charity event now and then. Montana was not much of a golfer anyway, and he certainly didn't embrace the game like many former pro athletes. For exercise, he does some light weightlifting and he gets on a treadmill, or Stairmaster, or elliptical machine, and churns out 45-60 minutes on most days. He said he feels guilty if he misses two days in a week. Similar feelings arise when he contemplates a big steak or a bag of chips.
For his 50th birthday on the 11th, various friends took him out for dinner Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Heart-healthy Joe had fish on two occasions and a modest-size steak on the other.
"Knowing I can have steak helps a lot,'' he said. "I've stopped eating big portions of meat. That way I don't think I'm missing things.''
He misses some old teammates like Fred Dean ("I haven't seen him in ages'') and regularly sees others such as Keena Turner, Eric Wright, Ronnie Lott, Harris Barton, Steve Bono, Dwaine Board and Bill Ring.
At the half-century mark, Montana remains San Francisco's No. 1 sporting icon, 1a to Willie Mays' 1b because of number of championships won. Mays recently celebrated a milestone birthday, his 75th. With his blood pressure under control, Montana has a better chance of reaching 75 as well.
Now, if they could do something about his knee, and his neck, and that one twinkling blue eye ...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/06/15/SPG3PJEHNN1.DTL