"Then Steve Said to Jerry. . .": The Best San Francisco 49ers Stories Ever Told
190
"Then Steve Said to Jerry. . .": The Best San Francisco 49ers Stories Ever Told
190-
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781600780943 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2008 |
| Series: | Best Sports Stories Ever Told |
| Pages: | 190 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.76(w) x 8.76(h) x 0.84(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
"Then Steve Said to Jerry ..."
The Best San Francisco 49ers Stories Ever Told
By Steve Silverman, Joe Funk
Triumph Books
Copyright © 2008 Steve SilvermanAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60078-094-3
CHAPTER 1
The Years Before Walsh
The 49ers always belonged to San Francisco. They weren't somebody else's rejects who happened to move to the beautiful city by the bay.
The Good, Old Days
They have been the most beloved sports team ever in the city of San Francisco.
That's because the 49ers always belonged to the city. They weren't somebody else's rejects who happened to move to the beautiful city by the bay. The Giants belonged to New York City until Horace Stoneham decided he was tired of playing third fiddle in a city with three baseball teams. The Warriors were Philadelphia's beloved team for many years before making their way west. The San Jose Sharks? They're in San Jose — for the love of Mike! They also started playing, oh, about the day before yesterday.
The Niners played in the All-America Football Conference from 1946 through 1949 and were one of three teams that merged into the NFL following the 1949 season, joined by the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Colts. The Niners quickly became contenders in the NFL, finishing with a winning record from 1951 through 1954.
Over the years, the team developed many star players who became fan favorites. In the early years, it started with quarterback Frankie Albert. The records show Albert was 5'10" and 166 pounds, but he was more like 5'8" and 155. He looked more like a water boy than a quarterback, but he was an excellent signal caller with a penchant for making big plays.
Albert made the 1951 Pro Bowl team and in subsequent years the Niners would send defensive tackle Leo Nomellini, fullback Joe "the Jet" Perry, halfback Hugh McElhenny, quarterback Y.A. Tittle, and a ferocious offensive tackle in Bob St. Clair.
The Niners also had another player in flankerback R.C. Owens, who was among the most exciting in football. Owens was a 6'3" leaping machine who could easily propel himself over the top of opposing defensive backs. Tittle took advantage of his extraordinary leaping ability by throwing him high passes that only Owens could come down with. The "Alley-Oop" plays became Owens's signature and nickname.
In addition to being wildly entertaining, the Alley-Oop plays became the foundation for using bigger wide receivers who could leap over smaller defensive backs. Those plays are in nearly every NFL offense more than 50 years later.
Throughout the 1960s the Niners were usually a very respectable team, with six out of 10 seasons at .500 or better, but they never came close to winning an NFL Western Conference title.
But the parade of top-level players — particularly on the offensive side — continued. Start with quarterback John Brodie, who had one of the smoothest releases and most accurate deliveries of any quarterback of that generation. While Johnny Unitas of the Colts and Bart Starr of the Packers were the greatest quarterbacks of that decade, both men often talked about Brodie when the subject was quarterbacks they admire.
Brodie had two fine running backs in halfback John David Crow and fullback Ken Willard, and receivers Dave Parks and Gene Washington baffled defensive backs. The name Howard Mudd is familiar to NFL fans as the offensive line coach of the Indianapolis Colts, but he was a Pro Bowl blocker in San Francisco as was center Bruce Bosley.
The Niners were not bereft of defensive talent either. Cornerbacks Jimmy Johnson and Kermit Alexander were both sensational cover men who were also big-time hitters. They also had a linebacker in Dave "the Intimidator" Wilcox, who may have been as violent and nasty as Ray Nitschke or Dick Butkus.
The Niners upped their status in the early 1970s when they won the NFC West title in the first year of the decade to earn their first postseason victory since joining the NFL. They couldn't have drawn a tougher opponent than the Minnesota Vikings, who at that time were the dreaded Purple People Eaters and played in frozen Metropolitan Stadium.
Pass rushers Jim Marshall, Carl Eller, and Alan Page were supposed to eat Brodie for lunch, but the Niners came away with a 17–14 upset. A 17–10 loss to the Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game hurt badly, but the season was clearly a positive one.
The Niners defended their division title each of the next two seasons but lost to the Cowboys in the postseason. That was it for the glory years until new owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. hired a coach named Bill Walsh in 1979.
That move would key the Niners' rise from a football afterthought to one of the great franchises in sports history.
Hitting Rock Bottom
The 49ers have a great legacy in the NFL and they may be the best team that ever played the game. Five Super Bowl championships in the 1980s and 1990s put San Francisco at the top of the heap with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and both the 1984 and 1994 teams get regular consideration for being the best individual teams to ever play football.
But make no mistake about it, life was not always grand for the 49ers. They were weak stepsisters in the NFL for decades, getting bludgeoned regularly by their archrival Los Angeles Rams and losing the battle for popularity with the Oakland Raiders across the bay.
When Bill Walsh was hired in 1979, the 49ers had finally made the move that got the franchise on the right track, but the mood of the team and the outlook for the future was never worse than just before he was hired.
Monte Clark became head coach after the Niners fired Dick Nolan at the end of the 1975 season. Clark had earned the position as an assistant coach under Don Shula in Miami. Shula had been Clark's boss and mentor, telling him, in essence, to seek out and command as much power within the organization as he could grab.
Clark's first season in San Francisco was clearly a success. The Niners went 8–6 and they would have been at least two games better if special teams hadn't been disastrous. San Francisco kicker Steve Mike-Mayer went into an awful slump in the second half of the season, making less than 50 percent of his field-goal attempts in the final weeks. He also missed 4 of 30 extra-point attempts and that shoddy performance kept the Niners out of the playoffs.
But the promising start had no chance of continuing. After Clark was hired, the 49ers went through ownership changes as the widows of Vic and Tony Morabito sold the team in 1977 to an outsider from Ohio. The Morabito widows and their advisers had come to the conclusion that the dramatic upturn in NFL salaries would keep them from competing and that it was time to get out of the football business.
Enter the DeBartolo family.
Ed DeBartolo was the founder and owner of the DeBartolo Corporation in Youngstown, Ohio. DeBartolo really had very little interest in the team or making the decisions that had to be made. But what he did want to do was buy his 30-year-old son Eddie DeBartolo Jr. a toy that he could own — and keep him from being involved the main portion of the family business, which included real estate, construction, mall development, and gambling interests.
The younger DeBartolo had enjoyed a life of privilege and nothing changed when he was thrust into the public eye as an NFL owner. He chose to remain in Youngstown instead of San Francisco, a move that did not sit well with San Franciscans, who had a great deal of pride in their city. If given a chance to live in San Francisco or anywhere else in the world, most fans couldn't understand why another choice would be necessary.
DeBartolo seized control of the franchise and he had to hire his own point man to run the team. He chose a controversial general manager in Joe Thomas — who had worked in Baltimore and Miami prior to coming to San Francisco — a power-hungry megalomaniac with more than a bit of phoniness in him.
Thomas always liked to run the show and tried to show the rest of the world — scouts, coaches, and media — that he was always the smartest man in the room. While in Miami, the Dolphins' scouts knew he was a phony and they once made up a fictional player's name and put it on the blackboard in the room where they were seated. When Thomas came into the room he proceeded to give a detailed scouting report on the player, making up the facts as he went along. Everyone in the room — with the possible exception of Thomas himself — knew who the phony was.
Clark was in Miami at the time of the incident and he had no use for Thomas at all.
"If there was one man in the world that I would not have turned my future over to it was Joe Thomas," Clark said. "With Joe, you never knew what was going to happen. You might love a particular player but the next day find out that he's gone. I worked with Howard Schellenberger at Miami and saw how he was treated by Joe Thomas. I wanted no part of that and there was no way I was going to go along with that."
Clark knew the 49ers were making a mistake and he tried to advise DeBartolo that bringing in Thomas would be a huge mistake. "I told them that they had to operate with class and dignity in this city — and that was not Joe Thomas," said Clark. "I told them that Thomas did not have that ability and that it would be disastrous. I went over it many times and I knew that I could not and would not work with the man."
DeBartolo tried to convince Clark to stay and coach the team, working with Thomas. But there was never any movement and never any indication from Clark that there was a reason to stay.
Clark was fired by DeBartolo with three years remaining on his contract. The DeBartolos promised to honor the deal, but the team would be run by Thomas.
DeBartolo knew the decision to fire Clark and hire Thomas was unpopular but he didn't care. "Joe Thomas was a friend of ours long before we ever got involved in the football business," DeBartolo said. "I let him know that if we ever got involved in football ownership we wanted him involved with us. We wanted Monte Clark to stay as head coach. However, we did not want him to run the personnel department. Even if it had not been Joe Thomas we would have made changes in that area and renegotiated Clark's deal."
The Thomas era became known for one thing — incompetence.
Thomas hired Ken Meyer as head coach in 1977 and then fired Meyer after a 5–9 season. Pete McCulley and Fred O'Connor were the head coaches in 1978. The team went a miserable 2–14 and was one of the worst franchises in all of professional sports.
Thomas was probably even worse in the personnel area than he was at picking coaches. He released Jim Plunkett; the former Stanford great was picked up off waivers and went on to win two Super Bowl titles with the Raiders. He inexplicably traded five draft picks for a washed-up O.J. Simpson, who was no longer able to compete because of various knee ailments. Thomas's drafts were without merit. The worst of those was a Notre Dame tight end named Ken MacAfee, who was selected with the number seven overall pick. MacAfee was unable to catch a cold, let a lone a key pass in the NFL.
In addition to his incompetence on the field, Thomas alienated nearly everyone he came into contact with while conducting business with the 49ers. He disrespected long-time employees of the club, stuck his nose in the air when conducting business with the local government. He was rude and obnoxious with the media.
Call him the anti–George Bailey. Think of the protagonist of Frank Capra's classic movie It's a Wonderful Life. When Bailey was considering suicide as a result of his memory-challenged uncle's financial gaffe, he was given the gift of seeing what life would have been like if he had never existed. That allowed him to gain a clear view and change his mind.
If Thomas had had that opportunity, he would have seen that pro football in San Francisco would have been much better off without him and he'd have to choose another profession.
DeBartolo ended up firing Thomas, but only because the team had fallen so far. He would have kept the irascible Thomas just to show the media and the community who was boss, but there would have been no substance to that decision.
So, Thomas was fired ... and Bill Walsh was brought in.
It was a move that would turn the 49ers into one of the best organizations in all of professional football.
CHAPTER 2A Major Rebuilding Project
"If you have to win a game or score a touchdown or win a championship, 60 percent of his passes in this systemthe only guy to get is Joe Montana."
–Randy Cross
Laying the Foundation
Bill Walsh's first years as head coach of the 49ers were challenging. When he inherited the team in 1979, it was a complete mess. San Francisco had been 5–9 and 2–14 in the two previous seasons. The team had little talent and couldn't have been more unimaginative. The offense lacked talent, but even if it had a few decent players the coaching staff wouldn't have had any idea how to deploy those players.
When Walsh came on the scene, the first thing he did was what he knew best — built a proficient offense. Walsh had learned from some of the great innovators in the game — Sid Gillman, Al Davis, and Paul Brown — and his own vision and creativity allowed him to come up with his own game plan for success.
Walsh had hoped that his 1979 team would be much better than the previous year's team. But during training camp, Walsh realized the weapons were not there for the Niners to be able to grind out victories. He was not discouraged. He wanted to see improvement even if the team continued to lose. He didn't buy into the philosophy that winning was everything. In 1979, his goal for the team was overall improvement. If his team played tougher, smarter, and was more competitive than it had been the previous year, he would be satisfied.
Walsh's on-field expertise was offense, but as head coach of the team he installed a new management system that would be tantamount to the team's success. While it ended up with Walsh making nearly every key decision, he was a consensus builder. He wanted the opinions of all the key people in his organization before he made a final judgment.
On the field, one of his most notable moves was to step up the organization in practice. Walsh allotted specific times for each drill. He put all his plays in at once and if the players didn't follow all the specifics right away, he still moved on to the next play. Many other coaches wouldn't put in a second play until his team understood the first play without fail.
His practices tended to be significantly shorter than that of other teams. He had his players spend more time in the film room and the classroom studying the playbook because he wanted his team to be mentally prepared. As the season progressed, his practices all but eliminated hitting because he wanted his players to be fresh.
Walsh also brought in a number of waiver-wire players for workouts since his team was thin on talent. Most were easy to eliminate after a short drill session but he found a fine pass rusher in Dwaine "Pee Wee" Board and a solid defensive back in Dwight Hicks.
After his first year, Walsh went after as many quick and agile offensive linemen as he could find. He came to the conclusion that those players would be far more productive than the big 300-plus pounders that nearly every other team went after. He also wanted a quarterback who was athletic and could make good decisions on the field. Arm strength was not one of his top priorities.
The Niners' system required the quarterback to learn the responsibilities of each receiver on the field, and it was somewhat complicated because there were so many options. While it was somewhat intimidating at the start, Joe Montana and Steve Young grew to love it because there were so many potential receivers. "Any decent quarterback should be able to complete at least 60 percent of his passes in this system," Young said.
The key to the West Coast offense is the quarterback's confidence in where his receivers are going to be. There are no variations with the routes. The only time a receiver would alter his route is if protection breaks down and the quarterback has to scramble. Otherwise, Niner quarterbacks knew just where their receivers were going to be.
In Walsh's first year on the sidelines with the 49ers, Steve DeBerg was his quarterback. DeBerg was a smart, strong-armed quarterback who was excited to be in Walsh's system and had all the attributes needed to be successful — with the exception of quickness and foot speed.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from "Then Steve Said to Jerry ..." by Steve Silverman, Joe Funk. Copyright © 2008 Steve Silverman. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Steve Young,Acknowledgments,
Introduction,
Chapter 1: The Years Before Walsh,
Chapter 2: A Major Rebuilding Project,
Chapter 3: The Keys to a Devastating Defense,
Chapter 4: The 49ers Capture Greatness,
Chapter 5: Super Bowl Success,
Chapter 6: Bill Walsh's Lasting Legacy,
Chapter 7: The Greatest Receiver of All Time,
Chapter 8: New Coach, Similar Results,
Chapter 9: Pounding the Broncos for Another Championship,
Chapter 10: Transition at Quarterback,
Chapter 11: The Other 49ers Stars,
Chapter 12: After Greatness, A Fall,