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Before the 49ers move on from Candlestick Park, their home since 1972, to Levi's® Stadium in Santa Clara in 2014, it's time to look back again. Jerry Rice passing legend Jim Brown in the record books in 1994 lands at No. 3 on Candlestick Park's Top 10 Greatest Moments, presented by SAP.
Each highlight, which fans voted on from a list of 25 nominations, will be memorialized at a home game in 2013, continuing on Sunday, when the 49ers host the Arizona Cardinals. The piece of history will also be pictured on each game ticket for the final season at the 'Stick.
It's time to celebrate No. 3.
PHOTO GALLERY: Rice in 1994
Jerry Rice had a routine. Get on the first bus to the stadium. Jump on the stairmaster or the exercise bike. Spend 30 minutes to an hour – however long it took – to get down to his playing weight.
"Then jogging on that football field, the history, all the great players that did amazing things on the field, like Dwight clark when he made 'The Catch,' I felt honored to be able to walk out on that football field and to excel and to entertain the fans," Rice told 49ers Studios recently. "I never took it for granted because there's a lot of history in Candlestick Park, and I'm honored to be a part of it."
Rice's three-touchdown game in a 44-14 49ers victory over the then Los Angeles Raiders on a Sept. 5, 1994 edition of "Monday Night Football" goes down as one The 'Stick's best. What those three touchdowns meant makes it so.
VIEW: All 10 Moments
With those scores, San Francisco's best pass-catcher ever passed Jim Brown as the NFL's leader in scores with 127.
"That was a huge milestone for me," Rice said.
Let's take them one at a time.
No. 125
"It was a post route, which I called," Rice said, "and somehow I stumbled into the end zone."
Stumbled, sure, but this was a 69-yard play, the 49ers first scoring play of the 1994 season.
No. 126
On a reverse handoff from running back Ricky Watters, Rice scampered 23 yards the record-tying score and San Francisco's fifth touchdown of the game.
"That one was special," Waters told 49ers Studios.
No. 127
"George Seifert had taken us out of the football game. All of a sudden he came down the bench, he looked at Steve and I and said, 'Hey, look, I'm going to to give you guys one opportunity to break this here at home,'" Rice said. "And we ran back onto the football field. Everybody in the stadium knew exactly what was getting ready to happen. I remember seeing (Raiders wideout) Tim Brown almost halfway on the football field because Tim Brown was saying to me, 'I know you're not going to do this to us on 'Monday Night Football.'"
Seifert's decision resulted in a 38-yard pass-and-catch from No. 8 to No. 80, who jumped over his defender to make it happen.
"Steve Young snapped the ball, dropped back, threw a spiral, it was up into the air and everything that Bill Walsh had taught me – to go up to catch the ball at its highest peak," Rice said. "I went up and attacked the football. It's something that I will never forget."
