Steve Young opened up about his faith, his experience with loss and his "greatest feat of athleticism" last week in a wide-ranging interview with Graham Bensinger .
Here are four takeaways from the interview, which was shared on YouTube on Wednesday.
While at BYU, Young was asked by the parents of his friend, Jill Simmons, to drive home with her from Provo, Utah, to Scarsdale, New York, for summer break.
The 21-year-old Young was supposed to fly home but agreed to drive with his friend. He drove the first 12 hours through the night, then Simmons took over in the morning while he slept.
When Young woke up, the car was in the median while "in the middle of Nebraska," he told Bensinger.
"All I know is we flipped a few times. We ended up on our wheels and I was OK, and I looked over and Jill was slumped over the door and immediately, (I) started to try to figure out how to — I'm not an expert — but how to try to do what I could in the middle of nowhere."
Simmons had passed away at the age of 19 from an aneurysm "before the car even hit the median," Young said.
"But at the time, she had passed away, and I'm alive and I'm in the middle of Nebraska and I promised her mom that I would drive her home and I remember being really broken about it, about letting her down and letting Jill down. Like the guilt of it was super heavy," he said.
The quarterback said he was feeling "broken."
When he returned home, he went to see Simmons' parents. There, her mother grabbed him by the face and said, "Oh, Steve, I'm so glad you were there," he recalled during the recent interview. She told him that he was "the one person I'd want to have been there."
"It was shocking to me," he said. "It was such a moment of grace in the pain that she must feel to say something that would make me feel like I can get through this."
Her selflessness in that moment is something Young said he'd never forget.
He said that he learned from that accident that "life is precious."
Discussing Simmons' death led to Young sharing his belief in angels and "durable spirits that can be near us and can help."
"Every human is of divine origin. Every human has divinity in them in that durable spirit," Young said.
Bensinger asked what he meant by that.
"We're a family, and I think no matter what the strifes that you could have in life, if we have that base understanding that every human is divine and has the same divinity in them and has the same amount of love from heaven — God loves every human the same and it's not going to change — and I think that informs my relationships. It informs kind of how I see the world," he said.
Young also talked about his NFL career during the interview.
He said he went to the 49ers with "the sense that maybe I'm going to play" knowing that Joe Montana had undergone two back surgeries.
But that wasn't the case.
Young admitted he "didn't handle it well."
"This is the immaturity and stupidity of me, I was like I'm not going to cash my checks. You know what? I'm just going to let them sit in the drawer. I'm not playing so it doesn't matter," he said.
He went to law school during the offseason, and while there, he got a call from the 49ers asking where his checks were because he was "screwing up the taxes" and it was time to file.
He called teammate Harris Barton, who he was renting a room from, to send the checks to him, so he could cash them.
Young was known for his athleticism and mobility as a quarterback, but he said his "greatest feat of athleticism" didn't come on the football field.
Young described being at a fancy restaurant with his wife and their oldest son Braden, who was just a baby at the time. While there, they had to change Braden's diaper, "and it was bad," Young said.
The Hall of Fame quarterback had promised his wife that he would change every dirty diaper, so he took his son into the men's room. But there wasn't a changing table.
"So I do the wall sit against the wall. ... I got the bag here; I got Braden here," he said. "It was the greatest feat of athleticism as I took Braden up and cleaned everything up, made everything, didn't make a mess."
As he finished, Young noticed he wasn't alone and that a stranger was staring at him.
"He goes, 'Are you Steve Young?' I remember this. I'm not making this up. I remember like taking a second going, 'Yes, I am.' Like, 'Look what just happened, bro!' And that was like one of my great moments, athletic moments. I was in a wall sit for like three minutes," he said.
