Steve Young speaks on economy

A fellow who once made a living scrambling from 340-pound people out to hurt him nonetheless on Tuesday described the past six months as "scary."

Football great Steve Young said rough economic times are akin to playing football in rainy, muddy weather: It's when the stars shine. As San Francisco teammate Joe Montana told him, those games "are when the pros show up," Young said at the ACG Utah Growth Conference and Capital Connection.

"And so when it's horrible weather, when the pros are supposed to come out, the reason why he said that is because most of the time, they don't come out because the 'pros' aren't there. They're getting paid to play, but you're not a real pro. The truth of the matter, most people are looking for the bus. You go out to walk on (the field), it's muddy, it's wet, cold. Where can I find the bus? How fast can I get there?" Young told a crowd of about 300.

"There are very few people who take it as a challenge to see how good they can be. This is an opportunity to see how good a pro you can be."

Using football as a metaphor for business specifically and life generally, Young said he coped with bad-weather games by making adjustments — ensuring that the footballs were as dry as possible and gripping them and delivering them downfield differently than if the weather were fine.

The individual, he said, is the only person who can judge whether he or she is a success.

"(This is) a phenomenal opportunity to not see if you're as good as Joe Montana, but to see how good you are," said Young, a managing director at Huntsman Gay Global Capital.

"Test yourself. That means you have to be mature and challenging who you are: What are my assets? What are my weaknesses? What can I use to grow?"

Young acknowledged that he did not experience earlier recessions — he was too busy playing football — "but I can tell you from the experience I've had the last six months, we are mudding through maybe one of the all-time storms … And if it hasn't happened to you yet, I'm afraid it's coming."

But he stressed that the way to gauge success is not to worry about naysayers. He's had plenty, especially when following record-setting quarterback Jim McMahon at Brigham Young University or Super Bowl-winning quarterback Montana for the San Francisco 49ers.

"Because there are enough naysayers out there when times are tough that you're not going to run out of them. You're never going to knock down every hurdle. There's always going to be somebody that says, 'I don't think so,' " said Young.

"Those of you that own businesses, those of you that have professions, in this tough time, find out if you're a pro and see how good you can be," he said. "Because I can tell you, over time, looking back on my whole career — in business, in sports, in family — the real, true test is I will find more about what I did in adversity than I ever did in success."

E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com