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He is devoted to the new Mrs. Montana, Cass—"Cass Montana," a more buckskin name even than his—a pretty, bubbly, outdoorsy woman, as outgoing as her husband is shy. "If I didn't know better," she says, "I'd think he was a California boy. Blond hair, blue eyes—and unbelievably laid back." She is a United stewardess, with no plans to stop flying. They met on a Notre Dame charter flight to Los Angeles, his second-to-last college game against U.S.C.
Cass, 29, is not much awed by her husband's celebrity, which works out well, since he is not either. His three game-balls from this season decorate the mantel of their sitting room, but as homes of star athletes go, the exhibits are sparse—a few pictures, the footballs and a golf trophy (a long-drive contest—fourth place) hidden in a plant. "There are no heroes around this house," says Cass, who has a remedy for artistic temperament all prepared if it ever comes up. She will just hand Joe his shovel and point him to El Makata and Ghafad Asim's stalls.
A pair of handsome Arabian horses, a chestnut and a gray, are the Montanas' nearest neighbors and two of their closest friends. When the football year is out (fearing injury, Joe won't ride in season), Cass and Joe can be seen galloping through the buckbrush up and down the peninsula hills, sometimes clear to the ocean six miles off on the horizon. Joe has a great fondness for animals. The two obstreperous dachshunds, Broadway (a tribute to Namath) and Bosley (after Charlie's Angels' major domo) reside underfoot. Says Cass: "Joe will just sit here and get lost for hours in an animal book."
After Pontiac and the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, where Cass was born, a safari to Kenya is on the itinerary. One day Joe announced: "I want to see some things I've only seen in books." It's an odd expression for someone who might be expected to be worldly. "He's curious, full of wonderment," says his wife, "not at all worldly." It delights him to have installed the sprinkler system in the horses' shed himself and to have managed a good deal of the carpentry. Life is good.
She understands him well. "When everyone else was out cruising, he was out practicing. Sport sheltered Joe." They have been married since July but have been together since 1979. At times Cass has difficulty reconciling the man with the quarterback. "On our tape player, there is a piece showing Joe walking from the huddle to the coach and back again—swearing, or shouting at least, every step. We ran it back about 15 times one night—and laughed and laughed. I finally said: 'I don't know that man.'