NFL Legend Joe Montana on the Power of Preparation
A Former Super Bowl MVP and NFL Icon Shares His Secrets for Health & Longevity
Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana knows a thing or two about winning. The three-time Super Bowl MVP for the San Francisco 49ers built an illustrious NFL career on come-from-behind wins and wins in general, with “the comeback” a featured part of his resume beginning with his time at Notre Dame.
But Montana also knows that an on-the-field win is nothing without your health, which is why he’s partnered with Pfizer to help spread awareness around its vaccine against pneumococcal pneumonia.
In an informative conversation with AskMen, Montana shares insights into his professional football trajectory, the importance of preparation, and how taking care of your health on and off the field is a necessary component to one’s overall wellbeing.
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AskMen: Growing up in Pennsylvania, did you always know football was the path you were going to pursue professionally?
Joe Montana: Not really. I played baseball, basketball and football all the way through high school. I just loved sports and played 364 days a year or something like that. I actually thought I was going to end up playing basketball and always had a dream of going to Notre Dame. Growing up, basketball was just so much more fun to practice than football.
I was visiting a lot of schools for football and a few for basketball, but once I received an offer from Notre Dame for football, I stopped visiting everywhere else and decided to go there. I could have taken a bunch of free trips but didn’t want to waste anyone’s time knowing Notre Dame was where I wanted to end up.
AskMen: What was the moment when you realized football might just be your livelihood?
Joe Montana: I hadn’t really thought about it until senior year when teams started talking to me. They’re telling you they’re going to take you in this round and that round, and that’s when you start thinking that you might have a chance — at least to get an opportunity to try and play.
I got fortunate in where I was drafted at the time and I’m so glad they didn’t have what they do these days where they sit there and watch you and keep saying a guy is going to go first and the next thing you know, he’s going in the second or third round. Once I understood where I was going in the draft and who I was going to be coached by — Bill Walsh — that’s when I realized I had the opportunity.
AskMen: After making it to the NFL, what were the keys to success that you lived by — both as a human and as a player?
Joe Montana: You do the best that you can. The workout programs they have now are crazy, and sometimes that’s why I think we see a lot more injuries. After playing this kind of physical game for a while, you need some time off, and for a while they were making you go 10 or 11 months a year where you’re working. But your body needs time to recover, so one of the things I tried to do was maintain my body in a certain amount of shape without putting a lot of pressure on heavy weights or anything like that.
Off the field, I was fortunate that Jennifer [Montana’s wife] was a healthier eater. She helped me change a lot of things I was doing before to help maintain my physical being while playing. The other thing was preparation. Something I think most people don’t realize is that I probably prepared more off the field than on the field. Once I left the building to go home, I still had two or three hours of work to do each night.
One time, my mother-in-law who lived in Los Angeles asked if we could come down for Thanksgiving. Jennifer told her I had to work and her mother said, “I thought he only worked on Sundays?” People don’t realize the time that gets put in off the field by all the players, but especially quarterbacks.
AskMen: The idea being, you prepare as much as you can so that you’ve gone through almost every scenario you’ll potentially encounter on game day.
Joe Montana: Bill Walsh was a preparation freak, so to speak. He wanted you to be perfect everyday, not just on Sunday. He wanted you to come in everyday and strive to be perfect, which takes a lot of work. He was constantly adding plays to the playbook on any given week, so practice took more and more time as the week went on. Bill was a stickler when it came to the quarterback position, but he wanted everyone to strive to be their best.
When we started to get into a position where he was really comfortable with the way we were preparing, he would do things other players could not believe — like going into training camp without wearing shoulder pads. We wouldn’t wear pads until we were going to scrimmage, and then we’d throw on pads. We’d scrimmage for an hour or so and then take them off again and change practice. During the week, we never wore pads at all during the season. He’d say, “I don’t need you healthy on Wednesday. I need you healthy on Sunday.”
As long as we were putting the effort forward, he changed the way we prepared. But he demanded a lot, and every now and then would tell us that if we didn’t do what he wanted or if he didn’t see the effort, he’d have us go back in and put the pads on and start practice over. Every now and then he would do it just to prove that he could do it, and then we’d go back to no pads. Everybody wanted to come and play for us at that point in time because they couldn’t believe we didn’t wear pads.
AskMen: In terms of staying healthy now, what strategies do you employ being over 65?
Joe Montana: I’ve been in partnership with Pfizer for a number of years now and one of the things I’ve learned is that you really have to be prepared with your health. Once I turned 65, I didn’t realize I became six times more vulnerable at being hospitalized if I got pneumococcal pneumonia. But it’s not just at age 65 or over, you can get it anytime, anywhere. You can be 19 to 64 and still be at a higher risk of contracting it if you have underlying conditions like asthma or diabetes.
Pfizer has put together a great website — www.vaxassist.com — that has some great information on there on how to prevent this disease, and the number one way to do that is through vaccination, which is what I’ve done.
It’s part of what I do to try and stay ahead of my health requirements. Before, I would only go to the doctor if I was sick. Now, I make sure I get there regularly. I’ve been trying to get back down to my playing weight, which I’m getting close to and I’m pretty happy about. The doctor I have is a concierge doctor, so I can call her anytime little things go wrong. That helps me stay ahead of my health requirements. I also want to stay physically active — I’ve had too many surgeries already — so I still try to do as much as I can physically to stay healthy. I think the more active you can be — and the more proactive you can be with your health — the better off you are.
Follow @joemontana and @pfizer for the latest on Joe Montana and Pfizer
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