cover image A Nearly Perfect Season: The Inside Story of the 1984 San Francisco 49ers

A Nearly Perfect Season: The Inside Story of the 1984 San Francisco 49ers

Chris Willis. Rowman & Littlefield, $40.50 (368p) ISBN 978-1-4422-3641-7

In this detailed account of the San Fransisco 49ers’ 1984 season, historian Willis recounts how the team’s 15-1 regular season that culminated in its Super Bowl XIX victory over the heavily favored Miami Dolphins. Central to the story is the relationship between coach Bill Walsh and his star quarterback Joe Montana. Walsh, who had “gained the reputation as an offensive genius” as an assistant coach with the Cincinnati Bengals, found his perfect student in Montana, who teammates considered to be the best quarterback ever to play the game. Willis provides full descriptions of each game of the season, even giving details on the television commercials that aired during ABC’s broadcast and mentioning that Apple computers provided 84,000 seat cushions for the wooden seats in Stanford Stadium. Overall, this is a book for hardcore 49ers fans. However much fun it is to find out that television star Teri Hatcher was once on the 49ers cheerleading squad, average football fans may be put off by Willis’s uncritical approach and clichéd prose—“This team would fight for each other and were hungry to prove they were the best team in the National Football League.” (Aug.)