Once Joe Montana discovered that the San Francisco 49ers team phone could call out, he decided to use it to start a romantic tradition with his wife.
The former 49ers quarterback, 68, shared in a viral interview with NFL Films how he figured out how to call his wife Jennifer Montana from the phones used on the sidelines to communicate with coaches and commentators in the stands above.
“I don’t know what made me do it. I’d hung up and I’m sitting there going ‘Hmm, I wonder if these things call out,’ ” he recalled. “So I pick up the phone and I hit — what do you normally do, you hit nine right? Give you an outside line. I hit nine, got a dial tone, [so] I dial my house.”
Jennifer, 66, recalled her reaction upon receiving the first call to NFL Films, noting that she had asked him a lot of questions about how the whole thing came about. “The phone would ring and I’d pick it up and it’d be Joe. I go, ‘What are you doing?’ ”
“He goes, ‘I’m calling you! I’m calling you to say I love you,’ ” she said, recalling their conversation. “And I go, ‘I love you,’ and I [ask], ‘How are you calling?’ He goes, ‘They have an outside line. I check in every stadium.’ ”
The NFL Great said that he then told her he was on the “sideline phone” and “found out that it calls,” so he decided to give her a ring “since I’m just sitting here waiting to go on the field.”
ESPN reshared the clip from NFL Films on TikTok, along with the caption, “Elite QB. Elite Husband.”
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However, that wasn’t the last time the pair would chat over the phone in the middle of a game. It became a sweet tradition between the two, with Joe calling his wife on the phone while on the field and telling her he loved and missed her. He noted that he had even tried out every phone in every NFL stadium just to call her. There were even football cards made with the former NFL pro on the phone.
Joe also believes his wife brought him luck during his games and he’s credited her with helping him win the 1989 Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals with an impressive 92-yard drive. He recalled that Jennifer packed the same jersey he wore in the 1985 Super Bowl game against the Miami Dolphins that his team won.
“When I got there, I opened it up and … there was a little note saying something like, ‘Hey, this was good luck for you last time. You might want to wear it again this time,’ ” he told Today in a 2023 interview, adding that it gave him the drive he needed to win.
The pair met on set for a commercial in the 1980s, where Jennifer, who had worked as a model and actress, helped the professional football player loosen up during the shoot. The pair quickly fell in love and started a relationship soon after.
It appeared that Joe always knew Jennifer was the one, and admitted that he casually asked the actress to marry him six months into their relationship.
He recalled asking her, “What would you say if I asked you to spend the rest of your life with me?” Although she didn’t agree at the time, she also didn’t give a firm no.
This prompted him to try again, and on his second try — in which he hired a plane to fly over the restaurant they were dining in with the message, “Jen, will you marry me?” — he finally got a yes. The couple wed in February 1985 and welcomed four children: two daughters, Alexandra and Elizabeth, and two sons, Nate and Nick.
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