Prof. Montana Teaches: The Golden <i> Still </i> Rules : Pro football: In first game against former 49er teammates, he leads the Chiefs to a 24-17 victory.

KANSAS CITY —  He stole the game from his former team, stole the headlines from his former rival, stole the hearts of those who had stopped believing.

When it was finished, this celebration of greatness under fire, Joe Montana then stole the ball.

After leading the Kansas City Chiefs to a 24-17 victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Montana grabbed the ball from the last play and held it high above his head.

Wagging it with the boisterousness of a boy who had swiped it from his younger brother, he rushed from the field and into the locker room.

“Then he gave the ball to the equipment manager, a really strange thing to do for Joe, who is not very sentimental,” said Dave Szott, Chief guard. “All week he said that winning this game wouldn’t be anything special . . . but right then, we knew that it was very special.”

That ball will undoubtedly be signed and mounted for Montana’s living room.

“The master showed he had more to teach the student,” said Steve Young, the 49er quarterback.

Where Montana paraded, Young limped, dragging his tired body from the field, his white shirt as disheveled as it had been throughout the second half.

While the master celebrated amid 79,907 screaming Arrowhead Stadium fans, the student was left alone with his welts and his doubts.

“That was a pretty good beating out there,” the student said.

Anybody who has ever wanted to prove somebody wrong could learn from Sunday when Montana, in his first meeting with his former team, attacked them with the vengeance of a jilted lover.

So the 49ers thought he was too old and brittle when they traded him here in spring of 1993. Wonder how they liked his two touchdown passes and his 19 completions without an interception?

Wonder how they liked that 57-yard drive in the third quarter that resulted in the Chiefs’ go-ahead touchdown after they had trailed by 14-7? It came on a perfect eight-yard pass to Kerry Cash.

Or what about that 62-yard drive to end the game and clinch the victory?

“He’s magic, he’s just magic,” said Chief offensive lineman Joe Valerio, who scored the game’s first touchdown on a fourth-down, one-yard pass from Montana.

Young played as if bewitched.

Hampered by a depleted offensive line, he threw two interceptions in a span of three offensive plays in the third period. He also lost a fumble in the fourth period, one of three sour endings to their three drives during their attempted comeback.

The second drive ended with a field goal after Young’s bootleg run from the two-yard line was halted by a flying tackle from another former 49er, David Whitmore.

The third drive ended with a lost fumble by John Taylor.

Young completed more passes than Montana (24-19) and threw for more yards (288-203). But somehow, there was no comparison.

“We had a chance to win, and I didn’t get it done,” Young said.

Given a chance to seal the victory, Montana behaved a tad differently.

On first down at his 31-yard line with 2:23 remaining, instead of handing the ball to Marcus Allen in hopes of killing the clock, he threw a perfect sideline pass to Allen.

The 34-year-old running back beat rookie linebacker Lee Woodall for 38 yards. The 49ers spent the rest of the game hitting themselves in the helmets.

“The two guys who worked out that play were the only two guys in this league who could have done that,” Valerio said. “This was the kind of game you dream about playing in.”

Long after the media horde had left--there were nearly 100 more media members here than usual at an NFL game--even Montana acknowledged that the game caused his heart to race.

“Yes, this was very emotional for everybody,” Montana said. “You could just look around out there, see how many guys going down, see how many fights.”

Although Montana and Young aren’t particularly close, they weren’t the combatants. In fact, they even briefly shook hands before the game, even if Young did have to run 35 yards across the field to find Montana, who made no motion in his direction even though he saw him.

“For me not to go over and say hello to Joe, after all we’ve been through together, that would have been awkward,” Young said.

Young spent most of the game meeting with Montana’s defensive linemen, who took advantage of the absence of starters Harris Barton, Ralph Tamm and then Jesse Sapolu for the second half.

Linebacker Derrick Thomas, playing defensive end for most of the game, had three sacks, seven tackles, and a safety.

Montana rewarded him, and all the defensive players, by buying them post-game hamburgers.

It was a typical gesture for a guy who said he prepared for the game on Saturday by “playing nine holes of golf and driving my kid’s go-kart down the street.”

But it was atypical in that Montana erred.

“Gave us all double meal burgers,” Thomas said, wincing. “I would rather have a beer.”

Tale of the Tape

A look at the key statistics in the Joe Montana-Steve Young quarterback matchup in the Kansas City Chiefs’ 24-17 victory over the San Francisco 49ers Sunday.

Category Montana Young Completions 19 24 Attempts 31 34 Yards 203 288 TD Passes 2 1 Interceptions 0 2 Sacked 1 4