The somewhat vaporous career of Steve Young will begin to solidify Monday night. Whatever happens next, Young will at least begin the 1991 season as the San Francisco 49ers' starting quarterback.

That fact has actual substance. With Joe Montana safely tucked away on injured reserve for the first time since Young has been with the 49ers, it is not an idle promise or a cloudy expectation. It will not slip from Young's grasp like so many other opportunities.Last season ended with the ball slipping from Roger Craig's hands. And with it floated away Young's chance to start in Super Bowl XXV.

"I think that was the worst thing I ever saw Steve go through," said tacke Harris Barton, Young's closest friend on the team.

After the game, Young stood in the Candlestick Park parking lot with his agent, Leigh Steinberg. Steinberg remembers Young turning to him and saying:

"Won't the world cut me some slack?"

From the average person's perspective, the world has, in fact, cut Young a great deal of slack. A millionaire several times over and one semester shy of a law degree, Young could easily pick and choose his future.

But, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, Young is different from you and me. He's a football player.

"He loves football," Steinberg said. "The dream of being a starting quarterback burns within him."

And that dream has led to four years of frustration. Young terms his predicament - receiving $1.2 million last year for standing on the sideline with a clipboard - as "an interesting situation." Offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren calls it "not normal."

The abnormal factor is Montana. Young came to the 49ers in 1987, when it looked as though Montana was at the end of his career, because of back surgery the previous season. Instead, Montana, now 35, made what Steinberg calls "the most remarkable resurrection in football history." He led his team to Super Bowls after the 1988 and 1989 seasons and was the NFL's most valuable player in 1989 and 1990. Meanwhile, Young waited, frustrated, in the wings.

A .713 percentage passer at Brigham Young University and runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in 1983, Young left college saddled with expectations, and the $40 million contract he signed with the Los Angeles Express of the now-defunct USFL did nothing to ease them.

Young probably could start for more than half the teams in the NFL. Bill Walsh, who traded second- and fourth-round picks to Tampa Bay for Young in 1987, puts him behind only Montana, Dan Marino, Randall Cunningham, Warren Moon and Jim Kelly in talent.

But Young's ability as an NFL quarterback is mostly conjecture at this point. With the 49ers, he has made seven starts in four seasons (the 49ers are 5-2 in games he's started), and last season he was reduced to making spot appearances as a wide receiver.

"I've tried to find ways to compete," said Young, who turns 30 Oct. 11. "In practice every day. And every time I get a chance to play it's been a very big deal."

But with big deals few and far between, Young - who voices his support and admiration for Montana at every chance - gave serious thought to leaving the 49ers. When his contract expired last year, the end of a six-year deal originally signed with Tampa Bay and picked up by the 49ers, Steinberg counselled him to investigate other teams. Several, including the San Diego Chargers and Los Angeles Raiders, expressed interest.

But the 49ers, who could match any offer from another team, made it clear they weren't willing to part with Young.

"The 49ers held most of the cards," Young said. "And I felt, because of long-term reasons, that my career would be better served here."

Young said that - in several conversations with coaches and team management last spring - the 49ers worked hard to recruit him.

"He wanted to have a kind of philosophical meeting of the minds," coach George Seifert said. "And we did. But you don't negotiate playing time. And we didn't."

The result was a two-year contract that will pay Young $2 million this year and $2.5 million next year.

Reaction around the league to that kind of salary for a backup player was negative, team president Carmen Policy said. But Montana's elbow problem has validated the 49ers' extravagance.

It also might rekindle the quarterback controversy, an issue largely avoided during Seifert's reign as head coach.

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Montana's scheduled return is set for Sept. 29, when the 49ers play the Raiders. If the 49ers are 4-0 at that point, ghosts of the 1988 season - when Walsh juggled quarterbacks - could be resurrected.

Young, by his own and by his coaches' estimation, has come a long way since that season.

"I'm getting the ball out to guys," Young said. "I'm more relaxed. In the past I've had to run. But one thing I've learned from Joe is that at the end of the play, you don't want to have the ball in your hand."

Holmgren said: "He's worked very hard to learn this system nd develop himself. He's more patient now."

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