Who would have thought that a night of celebration win would turn into a medical emergency for Steve Young?
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On January 29, 1995, Steve Young finally got his chance to shine on football’s biggest stage. Young put on a show in Super Bowl XXIX, throwing a record six touchdown passes, leading the San Francisco 49ers to a 49-26 win over the San Diego Chargers.
After the game ended, Young headed for the interviews, where he spent a long time. It was also uncomfortably hot that night. Veteran Peter King, in an appearance on 25 Whistles and who was working for Sports Illustrated at the time, recalled that Young had asked if he could get something to drink. King got him three Gatorades, which Young drank in minutes.
“By the time we got in the car to go back to his hotel, he pukes a red torrent of puke all over the back of this limo,” King said. “When we got back to the hotel, he had like a junior suite … And he was so dehydrated, he was virtually catatonic. The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue came up into his room, and they didn’t put one IV of saline in him; they put two IV in him.”
Per Sports Illustrated, Young’s agent at the time, Leigh Steinberg recalled Young lying on the bed with his arms outstretched, “like a death-bed scene,” resembling “the last supper or something.”
However, according to King, the quarterback was still entertaining those who came to talk with him, including former teammates from BYU. Young, even in that state, was still able to bask in the happiness of his performance.
“At one point, he just looks up and he goes, ‘What an unbelievable day.’ He said, ‘I never threw six touchdown passes as a kid in Connecticut. I never threw six in high school. Never threw six in college. Never threw six obviously in the NFL. And I did it in the biggest game of my life. How incredible is that?’
“He was just, even though he was weak as a kitten at that time, he was just so happy. As happy as I’ve ever seen a human being after winning the Super Bowl.”
Young had reason to be jubilant. Once an afterthought for the 49ers during the time Joe Montana led the charge, Young proved doubters wrong with this Super Bowl victory.
He put up solid numbers on the field too. Steve Young completed 24 of 36 passes for 325 yards and six touchdowns without throwing an interception. He and the 49ers continued their legacy of being a Super Bowl contender even in Montana’s absence. The Super Bowl XXIX was the only one that Young won as a starter; the other two he had won at San Francisco were as a backup to Montana.
However, even with two IV lines pumping saline into him, Young had a clear mind. Someone in the room said, “Joe, who?” to which Young took offense.
“No, don’t do that!” he replied. “Joe’s a good guy.”
Per SI, King was with Steve until 3 am, and he later wrote up his assignment.
“It was less a file and more like a complete story—he estimates 1,500 to 2,000 words long; [Michael] Silver guesses more like 3,000—with a scene opener, dialogue and a ton of details, topped by the symbolic moment of an exhausted Super Bowl MVP purging himself. It was, King knew, journalistic gold,” Chris Ballard wrote for Sports Illustrated.