SANTA CLARA, Calif. — While Steve Young was saying goodbye to his football career Monday morning, his new wife was saying hello to the public.
Meet Mrs. Barbara Young. She got her first heavy interview treatment from the media, and here's what we learned: She's not a football fan; she refused to date Young for years (but now she thinks he's "Superman"); Young is a doting, All-Pro husband; and don't blame her for Young's retirement.
Tall, blond and brown-eyed, Barbara — the Woman Who Bagged the Nation's Most Eligible and Enduring Bachelor — contended with morning sickness and tears during Monday's press conference/retirement party. She choked up again later when reporters asked her what she would tell their children someday about the event — "How wonderful it was to see the respect and admiration people had for him."
Young, whose long search for a wife became a sidelight to his football career, announced his retirement just 2 1/2 months after marrying the former Barbara Graham. They are expecting their first child at the end of the year, and she reports that Young has risen to the challenge.
"At two in the morning he runs upstairs and makes a sandwich, then he runs up there later and makes another one," she says. "He rubs my feet, he scratches my back. He's wonderful."
Barbara, 31, grew up in Mesa, Ariz. She modeled in Europe and South Beach every other semester to pay for school (she graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State). She mentions that she modeled the girl-next-door fashions, "not the seedier stuff."
About 10 years ago, mutual friends tried to arrange a blind date for her and Young, but she refused. Their friends tried again early last year, but she refused again. They continued to pester her about it for another four weeks before she relented.
"Finally, I said let's get this over with," she says. "We went on a date. We ended up philosophizing for four hours. I thought, Who is this man? We continued to see each other, and we'd talk a lot. We'd go to a restaurant and sit in the car in the parking lot and talk, and a couple of hours would go by and we'd realize the restaurant had closed."
Why did she resist being set up with a famous millionaire quarterback? "The fame. The money. I hate to say it, but I steered away from athletes," she says. "I didn't want to raise my kids in that environment. But I had no idea someone like Steve was out there . . . Steve says, 'We could have had four kids by now.' "
She had another reason to dodge Young. Several years ago he ended an engagement to one of her friends. "That made me suspicious," she says.
Barbara had never seen Young play football until they were dating. She saw three games last season, and then Young suffered a season-ending concussion in the fourth game.
A number of reporters seemed to think Barbara was the reason Young was retiring from football, but she said, "I was behind him 100 percent with whatever he wanted to do . . . I wasn't into football, but I knew how much he loved it."
"To her credit, she was not afraid to go for some more," says Young.