Meet the new Hostetler: 49ers' Smith
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith warms up before playing the New Orleans Saints in an NFL divisional playoff football game. (Jan. 14, 2012) Credit: AP
The memories of that improbable afternoon of Jan. 20, 1991, are still fresh for Jeff Hostetler, the former Giants backup quarterback who overcame the odds to beat Joe Montana's two-time defending Super Bowl champion 49ers in the NFC Championship Game at Candlestick Park.
So fresh, in fact, that Hostetler sees a lot of himself in one of the quarterbacks playing Sunday night. And we're not talking about Eli Manning.
"Oh, sure, I can definitely relate to Alex Smith," Hostetler said of the 49ers' maligned quarterback, who failed to live up to expectations until his stunning resurgence this season. "You see the struggles he's gone through, you see him persevere, and to go out and do what he's done with a coach who believes in him, that's big."
It wouldn't be quite as big an upset to see Smith beat Manning -- after all, the 49ers are favored -- but think about this: What if someone had told you before the season that Smith would be in the Super Bowl? That's about as unlikely a scenario as if someone had told you before the 1990 season that Hostetler would become the first pure backup to win a Super Bowl.
Hostetler, a third-round pick out of West Virginia in 1984, didn't come to the Giants with the same kind of fanfare as Smith, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2005 NFL draft. But Hostetler was met with similar skepticism during his years as a backup to Phil Simms. When the time came for him to play late in the 1990 season after Simms suffered a broken foot, you'd have been hard-pressed to find any non-Giants who thought they could make a Super Bowl run.
Hostetler laughed when I brought up the fans' and the media's doubts about him. But that laughter masked a deeply felt sense of inner resolve that still flashes today.
"If it were up to you guys, I shouldn't have stepped onto the field," he said. "If I had based my thought processes on what the press and what former coaches and analysts all had to say, I shouldn't even have gotten out of bed that day. So heck no, I never gave any of the so-called experts any credence. I used it. And I don't forget."
There was one doubter in particular whom Hostetler was anxious to prove wrong: former 49ers coach Bill Walsh, who publicly derided Hostetler as being the Giants' weak link.
Hostetler was 15-for-27 for 176 yards and set up Matt Bahr's five field goals in a 15-13 win over the 49ers. As Bahr's 42-yard field goal sailed through the uprights with no time remaining, Hostetler finally had proved to Walsh and his doubters that he belonged. And he followed that up with a 20-19 win over the Bills a week later in Super Bowl XXV.
"I'll always remember Bill Walsh's comments about me," said Hostetler, who owns a construction company in Morgantown and is deeply involved in his charitable foundation -- Hossfoundation.com. "That was one of those things where it just stuck with you. This was the place where he spent his whole career and he was so successful, and I had the opportunity to prove him wrong. It was just another step and another obstacle to climb, another naysayer to win over."
But the postgame delirium was not without its own set of challenges. Hostetler managed to annoy another prominent NFL head coach: his own. Hostetler was on the team bus after the game and was asked by a CBS producer to appear on a postgame interview with announcer John Madden.
"I knew that if I was late getting back to the buses that Bill Parcells would leave without me," Hostetler said. "[The producer] said, 'We'll get you right back on the bus.' I said, 'Listen, you have to get me back because I know the buses are going to go.' "
He did the interview. When he got back, all five buses were gone. "This was during the Gulf War, and there was a lot of security, and I knew they were taking the team right onto the tarmac and the plane was going to take off [for Tampa]," he said. "There's no way I get to the airport in time to get onto the plane."
As it turned out, Madden found out about his predicament. Madden had his own bus and gave Hostetler a ride. "So we get to the airport and some dark gate at the back end, and we go right onto the tarmac and up to the plane. I walk on and Bill's sitting in the front seat and looks at me kind of surprised."
Parcells grinned at Hostetler and said, "Not bad. Not bad."
