Building a Champion: On Football and the Making of the 49Ers

Preface: I've come to realize that pro-football fans are so partial to "their" team (e.g. "America's team," the Dallas Cowboys) they're often closed to, even unaware of, revolutionary developments in a different league or division from the fortunes of the team that, week-to-week carries their hopes, dreams and pride. But Bill Walsh is truly a special case, worthy of any NFL fan's attention, even as a lowly assistant in the Paul Brown football tree, where he served as a quarterback coach for the newly-formed Cincinnati Bengals. It was there that he first envisioned what would become known as the "West Coast Offense." And of equal importance to the concept was Walsh's discovery of a young Swedish-American athlete who had enrolled at a small Midwestern college on a basketball scholarship, graduating with a major in math, so far removed from "big name football" that there could not have been a more pristine, unspoiled, raw talent for the testing and implementation of Walsh's futuristic theories. At this early point in the story, some readers may prefer a comparison of Walsh not with Oedipus but with Pygmalion, the mythic king who sculpts a glorious statue, watches it come to life, and then falls in love with it. All but the last part of the story occurs in Cincinnati: Unlike Tony Bennett, Walsh would not leave his heart in San Francisco, never to reclaim it: he would return to the place that represented home and his true love. As head-coach of the '49ers, he would find his heart in San Francisco.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Of the five books I've found about Bill Walsh, this one is closest to autobiograpy--and is therefore the most satisfying to this Bears' fan. Having abandoned the game since the Bears' great 1985 season--in retrospect a sort of "last gasp" by the Lombardi-school of an offense centered on rushing and ball control and, more importantly, a defense sufficiently intimidating, punishing and smothering to protect the slim lead built by the offense. But with the advent of color TV sets with bigger screens, producers and NFL organizers were eager for a more volatile and competitive game-- with more aerial displays, higher scoring and heightened fan excitement. In teaching college literature, the critical theory of Harold Bloom, as expressed in "The Anxiety of Influence," has proven useful to many of us seeking to trace the influence of an antecedent father-poet upon his later poetic "son" who like Sophocles' Oedipus, is in a conflict with the father-figure's dominance from which he must escape to find an identity he can claim as his own. In this review, I will apply the Bloom-Freudian paradigm to the innovations of Bill Walsh, who began envisioning and implementing a new game while working with football legend Paul Brown, who as head-coach of the new team needed an equalizer to be competitive with the Steeler dynasty of "Mean Joe Green" and nine other future Hall-of-Fame players, whose dynasty was proven by victories in 4 Super-Bowls in a mere six years:1974-1979.Bill Walsh was a talented, innovative assistant coach, whose ego, ambition and creativity were obviously underrated by Paul Brown, the football legend for whom Walsh worked. Brown then assumed Walsh would be content as a lifelong subordinate, or Bob Cratchit, privileged to work in the "Brown family." When Brown, frequently credited as the primary "inventor" of professional football, stepped down as head coach of the Bengals and did not promote Walsh to the head coaching position, Walsh--at once a reflection, and the "Oedipal son,” of the father of the game--immediately left town, looking to right this wrong by finding a better life for his family and more opportunities for himself close to his original home on the West Coast. Like Oedipus, Walsh was motivated, first, by a need to escape the oppressive patriarchal father and, second, by the driving ambition to create a self-identity rivaling if not superseding the father figure who had threatened to "castrate" him by leaving him powerless to advance in the Bengal organization. And like Oedipus, Walsh is welcomed in his homeland, eventually settling into the San Francisco Bay area, where he becomes head coach of the struggling 49ers. Soon he will, like Sophocles' protagonist in "Oedipus the King," deliver his city from a plague of losing seasons and become its hero. The only difference is that whereas Oedipus delivers the city of Thebes from a "real" plague tormenting and killing its citizens, the pestilence that Walsh will drive out is the disarray of San Francisco's dismal and disorganized professional football team. %he 49ers were coming off a season of 2 wins vs. 14 defeats. Soon, but not before suffering with the team through another humiliating season, Walsh would turn the franchise around, leading it to three Super Bowl victories, a new dynasty--and much more.Leaving Cincinnati with mixed feelings of shock, anger, bitterness and resentment, Walsh takes with him films of his discovery and "special project," quarterback Ken Anderson, a raw talent groomed by Walsh into a winning Bengal quarterback--who led the Bengals to a Division title in 1973, his first year as the Bengals' designated starting quarterback. Anderson is so successful in running Wash's complex and explosive "West Coast Offense" that he receives #1 Passer ratings in 1974 and again in 1975, when the Bengal team sets an NFL record in total yards gained passing. Now Walsh, still a mere quarterback coach except for the San Diego Chargers, uses the films of Anderson's success to teach his increasingly complex offense to future Hall-of-Fame quarterback Dan Fouts. Next, Walsh will emulate the father-figure Paul Brown, by accepting an offer to become head coach of Stanford University's football team. After two winning seasons, he receives the offer he wanted, and in 1979 Bill Walsh becomes head-coach of a foundering NFL team, the San Francisco 49ers.Thus is completed the time and setting for the story Walsh wants to tell--how, as a wronged underdog, he proved to those who underestimated him, that he was better--and by far--than his employer or anyone else (including those fans who don't bother to learn the names of assistant coaches)—could ever have imagined. And since the results can't lie--esp. when measured in wins vs. losses--the man responsible for those winning teams may be forgiven for exaggerations and slight distortions here and there.Walsh adds to the melodrama, and enhances the degree of his success, by making some characters who were obstacles appear worse than they actually were. Certainly, Paul Brown recognized Walsh's talent and wanted to keep him in Cincinnati. But there's little to support Walsh's contention that Brown actively worked to sabotage his career by telephoning coaches, managers and owners throughout the NFL, urging them not to hire Walsh because of unspecified flaws. (I've seem the same charge against Brown repeated, and more than once, in "Wikipedia"--but the source goes back to Walsh himself!) Walsh says in the book that he left Cincinnati in anger, bitterness and disgrace. But why? Even Walsh had said that Brown's successor "earned" the head-coaching position. The only explanation an impartial reader might infer is that Walsh, by making his exit more "dramatic," heightens the importance of his ultimate success. Later, upon returning to Cincinnati and defeating the Bengals, Walsh insists that he refused to talk to the press after the victory so they wouldn't get the impression he was "gloating" over the Bengals' defeat. So what are we to make, then, of a Youtube video showing Walsh talking to a Cincinnati reporter after this very game, explaining his immense satisfaction in showing the people of Cincinnati the talent they had under their wing but let go? There could hardly be more convincing evidence casting doubt on Walsh's contention of persecution from his former employer.The above is not meant to discredit the book or Walsh's skills, which are undeniably impressive though perhaps not as "complex" or even "unprecedented" as Walsh would have the layman believe. Playing football and quarterbacking are neither rocket science nor quantum mechanical physics. Football players (including quarterbacks) can't be expected to remember more than 60-80 formations and plays. What distinguishes Walsh is: 1. having the "right play" at the "right time," regardless of the score, the time on the clock, the team's position on the field; and 2. practicing the play repeatedly until it can be executed with total confidence and precision, regardless of pressure from the opponent or the intensity of the game. Walsh would script as many as 25 or more plays at a time, while allowing his quarterback to veer from the script and call audibles when an unfamiliar defense or "unexpected" event demanded a reconsideration. Walsh was the designer, the choreographer; the "auteur" (the term film scholars apply to obsessively precise and controlling directors like Alfred Hitchcock); the players were his "cast," or close-knit ensemble, of throughly disciplined and prepared, highly-trained professionals, each an extension of the other, bound together by an understanding that any single player's success was due to the sacrifice of every other player on the field. Their success, in turn, is not due to emotion or individual heroics but to the team's "execution" of plays designed, rehearsed, and called by Walsh. Not only did Walsh's "West Coast Offense" produce a winning team: he produced a dynasty rivaling if not surpassing earlier ones like the Steelers of the '70s, the Packers of the '60s and perhaps even Paul Brown's dominating teams of the '40s and '50s. Moreover, he rebuilt the entire '49er organization, from the ground up.We come away from the book with the picture of a charismatic, smooth-talking, creative talent of exceptional eloquence (at least in speech, since all of his books include ghost writers) and of countless important connections with powerful figures throughout football (including the media). Public relations, in fact, are of paramount importance to Walsh, who stresses the importance of a team's relation to the community, making as his first priority the support of an enthusiastic and loyal fan base. Unlike older coaches unfamiliar with the importance of ABC's "Monday Night Football" (in prime time) Walsh seems to sense that “image” is as important as substance, if not inseparable from it. Whether he's talking about his many accomplishments as a coach or his undeniable impact on the game itself, it's hard for the impartial reader to view Walsh as anything less than "one smooth operator." Whether the subject is the lay-out of management offices, the team's relation to the community, proper protocol on draft day, the type of personnel best suited to manage and coach a football team, the types of players--on defense as well as offense--needed to ensure a winning team, Bill Walsh not only seems to have all the answers but continually sees them work to his advantage. If he strikes readers as a man coveting control, the same was said about Paul Brown. With his less eloquent speech and more abrupt and coarse exterior, Brown's insistence on control eventually led to his separation from football for two years and his return as coach of a new team, one no longer bearing his last name. By contrast, Walsh, perhaps to his credit. has learned--from the different methods and results of his predecessor--how to present a more attractive, compelling face to those who might act in his interest.With Bill Walsh everything seems to work out to perfection, including his micro-managing each offensive play with the precision of Nijinsky choreographing a ballet. And the result, which Walsh is not about to let us forget, is a revolutionary new game--radically different from the "old" game of ball control. Compared to that pedestrian game, Walsh's new version is more entertaining for the fans, featuring aerial displays, higher scores, and more action. In short, Walsh "freed" a game formerly stuck in the trenches, and for his accomplishment, perhaps we all owe him gratitude for increasing not only what we're able to see but the excitement of what we do see.Addenda #1: Walsh uses Howard Cosell as an example of the ignorance surrounding his new game. After Cosell had criticized a ‘49er play on network television, Walsh upbraids him for failing to see that the play was drawn up with the expertise of a scientist and executed exactly as planned. It may come as a surprise that Walsh, who had worked for 7 years to neutralize the intimidating defense of the Steelers in the tough and rugged AFC Central Division, is himself a strong advocate of tough, even punishing, defense, revealing that he urged his defensive players to hit hard and early, ”shocking" opponents in the instant before the offensive player has a chance to prepare himself for the hit. And if a team was less fit and quick—as he judged the Miami Dolphins before the 1984 Super Bowl—they would suffer from the proactive fury of a Walsh-coached defense.Steve Young, unlike Joe Montana, has said that while he finds Walsh's book fascinating, there's so much detail in it that he can't help but "skim" large parts. Joe Montana—who left the 49ers for his last 2 years, after Walsh had decided Steve Young was the more capable athlete—is back in the fold as a staunch Walsh believer. Most readers are likely to follow Young's approach, taking from the book whatever interests and pertains to them as readers. After reading this book, you should not need to read any of the other ghost-written books by or about Bill Walsh. In each, he comes off as pretty much the same brilliant, innovative, visionary individual--at least in the area in which he excelled, viz., coaching, managing and producing winning football teams and franchises. In the end, he admits that the game consumed him and expresses regret that he didn't take more time to enjoy the magical moments that he had made possible.Addendum #2: For those who wonder why Ken Anderson is still not in the Hall of Fame—after modeling Walsh’s concept to perfection, 1973-1976, and then receiving ComeBack Player and MVP honors upon his resurgence as the NFL #1 Quarterback 1981-1983—Wash’s book provides no evidence for or against his enshrinement. But there are some Anderson detractors who maintain that Anderson’s two dismal seasons (1978-79) and his apparent decline with the arrival of Sam Wyche as coach and Boomer Esiason (a younger and taller, flashlier and more outspoken player), are evidence to support denial of Anderson's entrance to the Hall of Fame. Wash’s book doesn't refute such a posture but it at least raises serious questions about the termination of a "franchise quarterback" like Anderson and consigning the former Bengal team leader to being “platooned” in Wyche’s first year (1984) and benched in his 2nd. In 1984 Anderson was 35 years old and certainly had “earned” a new coaches assurance that he would remain the team’s starting quarterback for at least two more seasons. On the other hand, no athlete who is 35 years old can equal the strength and endurance of a 22-year-old athlete who, at 6’5”, is 2- 3” taller than Anderson, the player he is being prepared to replace.Here’s where Walsh, unwittingly, plays his hand re: the Anderson enshrinement question. In explaining his year-after-year success [debatable, since unlike the Bengals' 1st place finish in '82 following their Super Bowl after the '81 season, the ‘49ers would suffer a losing season in '82]. Walsh writes that a coach aiming for consistent excellence must not allow sympathy to outweigh necessity in his cutting of older players (some of whom may be friends). Then Walsh continues by giving, as his only personal example, the release of Sam Wyche (on p. 189), who had been a friend as back-up quarterback for the Bengals when Walsh was quarterback coach. It so happened that Sam was unceremoniously "let go" in 1971 to make room for the drafting of, who else?, Ken Anderson on the Bengal quarterback roster. Even though there was little comparison between Wyche and Anderson as players (other than both having the quarterback position), Sam would need to be a saint not to return to the Bengals without an unconscious “grudge” against the “upstart son” who had displaced him. Moreover, Sam’s agenda was to “coach” less like a "dad" than a newborn son himself, by installing a “hurry-up,” “no-huddle” offense. Anderson, though a more deliberative quarterback than most, possessed a mathematical mind that amazed players like Bradshaw and Cris Collinsworth with its ability to read numerous defenses. Moreover, the modest Anderson, always the quintessential “team player,” would, without objection or fuss, have learned the new no-huddle offense and adjusted. A player of his stature simply deserved respect for his contributions and sacrifices (piled on countlessly by defenders 50 pounds heavier than he) along with confidence in his own ability to evaluate his desire and ability to play longer in the game that he had changed, making the game more playable by competitors like Isaac Curtis and himself (by one account, he had worked out, long and hard, to make himself ready to play for the 1987 season!)Had Ken Anderson received the reassurance he deserved as the player who, in the '70s, served as the gateway and model of the West Coast Offense and then, after two dismal seasons, had undergone a resurgence in which he again served as gateway and exemplar to the even more potent offense of the 1980s, he not only would have served as the still-mobile and effective wise elder for his last season or two, but the Bengals would have: 1. made it to the Super Bowl a year earlier and 2. not played so poorly in the big game as to need as an excuse "Joe Montana stole the game from us" (a reference to the closing 2-minute drive). Yes, there was a Drive, but it had less to do with Bengals' superior play than the 49ers' own mental mistakes. Even a cursory look at the individual stats of both teams in the game will show that in every aspect --passing and running--the Bengals were overwhelmed by a superior team. Rather than lamenting the game that in the last 2 minutes was stoen from them by Joe Montana, the Bengals should be grateful that the game was close enough to make the Bengals appear at least respectable, even competitive, in a game in which the more deserving team--viz., the far superior 49ers--at least made the Bengals look respectable, even competitive (almost), until the very end.

Written when the events just had happened this book has a wonderful rawness and authenticity to it. Five stars all around.

Bill Walsh's San Francisco 49ers were not like other NFL teams, either before or since.Sure, their offense owed a debt to Paul Brown's Cincinnati Bengals, and Don Coryell's San Diego Chargers, but Walsh took that style of football to heights his predecessors never achieved. He did this in spite of the fact that one of his mentors actively worked against him, stymieing his efforts to become a head coach in the NFL.This book traces his career arc from his earliest ventures into coaching through the 1988 NFL season, which culminated in his third Super Bowl victory with San Francisco. It is written from Walsh's first person perspective.At times it's a bit meandering and unfocused. At others, it lends some real insight into Walsh's philosophy of organization building and coaching. There are principles that he espouses that could possibly apply equally well to business or social relationships as they do to football teams.If I'm not mistaken, there are even traces of Dale Carnegie's famous tome, "How To Win Friends And Influence People" in Walsh's musings.I read this book hoping to gain a bit of perspective on what new 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh was facing when he was hired to rebuild a notoriously underachieving team. Only time will tell, I suppose, but at the very least, this book has been good company during a heretofore winless preseason for the 2011 49ers.

The book has a signature that was not disclosed, which really should had been. Be careful what you purchase. Signature is not from anyone described in the book! Book is in good condition.

This book is a must read for coaches of all levels. Some chapters are boring but looking into the mind of one of the greatest coaches ever to coach football is a treasure

Great story on obstacles and challenging moments. Leadership motivation book.

a lot of functional applications! ROCKY CARZO

Product is great, thanks.

Wow. If you like the NFL. Don’t buy this. Why ??You’ve got to love the NFL as on every page you get bombarded with either priceless information on how the game ( specifically the West Coast as they say or nickel and dime football ) is played.Walsh was an innovator but also a self confessed thief ... Gillman ,Shaughnessy , Brown being some of the names he stole from and then refined their already advanced stuff. I love Walsh and started watching the NFL in his 49ers years. I didn’t realise then how brilliant this man was. Passed now by Bellichick in terms of success but he set the pattern for B.B. and others to follow. One of THE greats. Wooden. Walsh in that order. Be prepared to have sore head after each chapter.

This book is a must for NFL fans interested in the history of the game. I've read books on Lombardi, Brady, Manning and now this. It gives an insight into the type of person Bill Walsh was, plus it tells you what it takes to build a champion. Never a dull moment from the offensive genius that was and still is Bill Walsh.

Step by step advice from one of the greatest ever coaches on how to build your own coaching program. Invaluable lessons from the architect of the 49ers road to the history books.