Part of the beauty, says Dwight Clark, 30 years later, is that it began so unexpectedly.

The 49ers had lost 10 games the season before and started the 1981 season 1-2, leaving fans expecting another year of frustration.

But by season's end, the 49ers had become Northern California's most celebrated professional team, winning the first of five Super Bowl titles.

Thirty years later, the 2011 49ers have again grabbed the region's attention with another unexpected – yet similar to 1981 – trip to the playoffs in search of a sixth title.

"I think the biggest comparison (to the 2011 49ers) is the surprise value of what's happening," Clark said in a telephone call this week. "I think it was even a surprise to us in '81 that we were turning out to be such a good team."

For Clark, it was Nov. 1, 1981, when he "really started believing the team was good enough to maybe take it a long way."

That Sunday, the 49ers beat the Steelers 17-14 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. The Steelers had won two of the past three Super Bowls. It was the 49ers' sixth win in a row.

"We were all looking around at each other and saying, 'Wow, did that really just happen?' " Clark said.

What's happening now, with the 2011 49ers one day away from the franchise's first playoff appearance in nearly a decade, against the New Orleans Saints, invites comparison to the 1981 team.

Like that '81 team, the 2011 49ers finished the regular season 13-3 after going 6-10 the season before, winning the division for the first time in nine years.

Both teams did so with tenacious defense, ranking second in the NFL in points allowed per game and leading the league in turnover margin.

Both added impact rookies in the first round of the draft – defensive back Ronnie Lott in 1981, linebacker Aldon Smith in 2011 – and entered the season with quarterbacks who still had something to prove.

And where the 1981 team was led by a former Stanford coach, Bill Walsh, and owned by Eddie DeBartolo Jr., the current 49ers also play for a former Stanford coach, Jim Harbaugh, with DeBartolo's nephew, Jed York, the organization's CEO.

DeBartolo said recently that he sees similarities, including that he and York were both young when they took over the franchise.

DeBartolo, however, said this year's team is more talented than the 1981 version.

"You could see the talent on the team," DeBartolo said of the current 49ers, "and it's been building over the last two or three years."

It appears to be flourishing under Harbaugh. Players have talked of adopting the first-year coach's confident and workmanlike demeanor.

"Why all of a sudden did Harbaugh turn this thing around? The players believe in him, and I think that's what happened with Bill, too," said Ray Wersching, the 49ers' kicker from 1977 to 1987. "Somehow they got the guys to believe in it, and it worked."

The 1981 49ers were two years removed from a 2-14 season – Walsh's first – when they convened for training camp in Rocklin. Quarterback Joe Montana, 25 years old, was beginning a season as a starter for the first time, and the receiving corps was not flashy. The secondary featured three rookies, one of them Lott, a 22-year-old from USC.

"That was one of my contract years, and I'd like to say that I had the confidence that we were going to get it done that year," said Keith Fahnhorst, an offensive lineman with the 49ers from 1974-87 who lives in Minnesota. "But I really didn't.

"In fact, I was so frustrated after we started out 1-2 that I told my attorney to tell (then-director of football operations) John McVay, 'Unless you want to pay me, I'm frustrated enough to get out of here.'

"Fortunately, he didn't listen to a young, frustrated tackle."

The 49ers ran off seven consecutive wins after their 1-2 start, shocking the Dallas Cowboys by 31 points at home and the Steelers on the road, and won 12 of their final 13 games.

Confidence, said McVay, increased with each victory.

"You don't usually hear guys are playing hard for the owner, but they did," said McVay, who is now retired in Granite Bay. "Eddie was that kind of owner. … (For him) it was always the team and the coaches.

"He expected success. Success came suddenly, but it came by starting off as a trickle, and as the season went along, it built into a crescendo."

Youth infused the team with a "college enthusiasm," Clark said.

Wersching said players were "unselfish ... 'Whatever I can do for you,' that was the approach."

"I can't speak for everybody on defense," Eric Wright, then a rookie starting cornerback, said this week. "But my thing was playing well enough so I didn't let the other guys down."

By beating the New York Giants in the first round of the playoffs, the 49ers hosted the Cowboys at Candlestick Park for the conference championship game on Jan. 10, 1982.

Jack Harbaugh was then an assistant coach at Stanford, so 18-year-old Jim Harbaugh was rooting for the 49ers. He had tagged along with his father on a recruiting trip that weekend, and they watched the title game on a TV in a "big room" with a buffet.

Clark, who had been sick with the flu that week, was pale and gassed when the 49ers started their march from their 11-yard line, down by six points, with 4:54 left in the game. When the 49ers reached the Cowboys' 13, they called a timeout. TV cameras caught Clark kneeling on the field, winded.

Clark came out of the game for the next play. "When I got to the sideline, I could hear the coaches talking," he said. "They were throwing it to Freddie (Solomon), then I heard them talking about 'sprint-right-option.' As soon as that play was over, I ran right back on the field."

Two plays later, on third down from the 6, Montana called "Red Right-18-bob-sweep" in the huddle. The play took longer than expected to develop. Montana rolled out to his right, and, backpedaling with Ed "Too Tall" Jones in pursuit, delivered the throw that Clark plucked out of the air by his fingertips in the end zone.

It wasn't over. With 51 seconds left, Cowboys quarterback Danny White threw a deep post to Drew Pearson on Dallas' next offensive play. Pearson momentarily slipped behind the 49ers' defense.

But Wright, using just one finger, dragged Pearson down by his back collar at the 49ers' 45-yard line. With today's rules, Wright would have been penalized for a 15-yard horse-collar penalty and the Cowboys placed at the 30-yard line – within field-goal range.

But on the next play, the 49ers sacked White and recovered his fumble, allowing Clark's game-winning grab to become known as "The Catch" and he and Montana to become forever linked to one of the iconic plays in NFL history.

Fahnhorst said he believes that if Clark hadn't caught the pass, the 49ers would have scored on fourth down. But, he added, "Without that catch and without that win, history would've been different."

"Dwight got a lot of attention for it, and Joe, and they're both just wonderful guys," McVay said. "They were the first to share the success with their teammates. It was never about 'Me, me, I.' It was a true team."

The 30-year anniversary of "The Catch" passed this week, and Clark said it still comes up almost daily in conversation or on TV or radio shows. He said he finds that "amazing," and likes that it gives him a conversation piece whenever a 49ers fan approaches him.

And if the ball had bounced off his fingertips? Does he ever consider what might have been?

"Yeah, I have thought about it," Clark said. "The thing is it was high enough to where if I hadn't caught it, I don't think I would've been crucified as if I dropped the touchdown that cost the 49ers the game.

"I don't think I would've been crushed by the media or the fans or anything, and I could've gone along over the next 30 years like this and been able to talk about having a fairly decent career but no signature moment.

"I'm glad it didn't turn out that way. I'm glad it didn't turn out to be 'The Drop.' But I think we would've scored on the next play, anyway.

To me, that was a team of destiny."

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