A Football Life Bill Walsh

I am familiar with the book I've read it this is an amazing book this book is hard to find if you try to buy it on eBay it's you're talking about $100 or more this book is really about how to manage and get the best out of people every football coach should have and I'd be surprised if they don't what I learned from reading this book would be some of the things behind the scenes that you know I would have no way of knowing unless they were explained to me as close to scriptures you can get for a coach right it's the Bible of football coaching it's a great book it's it's it should be required reading for every football coach [Music] [Music] job convinced me team game [Music] it's been said that we are all authors of our own life story summer triumphs some tragedies some collect dust some become bestsellers like most the book of Bill Walsh has its ups and downs but in the end his story is one of the NFL's greatest masterpieces he was the author of a franchise's unlikely revival we're just a group of young players that have excellent chemistry together the creator of the West Coast offense as Paul Brown would say we're a precision machine a dramatist who scripted the greatest quarterback controversy in NFL history we're gonna have to flex between Steve Young and Joe Montana that's a critical area for us a man nicknamed the genius after three Super Bowl championships was this the final game on the sidelines for a great coach yet page after page he remained his own worst critic I wish I'd have enjoyed it more because those were the truly golden years a lesser-known chapter of his career is a monumental book titled finding the winning edge written by Walsh eight years after his retirement as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers to know the book is to know the man this is everything that this guide talked to me about I can't read it cover-to-cover it's I'm not I you know there's places that I really am interested in other places I just I just can't go to the detail that he was interested in I have this sittin in my house he left coaching too soon for me and he left this world too soon as just as you start to get to know him well he'd been asked many times by a number of different organizations what he had used to get to the point where the 49ers were winning Super Bowls so he was giving talks and giving lectures and one day he said why not he's write a book he was an infamous for having all of his lectures and team meetings videotaped and it came in really pretty handy when it came to to crafting the book because he could go back and see exactly what was his mindset Walsh also looked to the Past for a writing partner he found one in a former 49ers public relations assistant turned NFL coach I think how antiquated we used to be but I had a little cassette tape recorder little mini cassettes that I would literally tape our conversations it's fascinating to be able to look at the original manuscripts and I think you can get a sense of the way it was laid out my writing abilities were only such that I knew we were gonna have to bring in an editor to clean up the flow of the book because this was this was a little more than an outline bill boss didn't pay me any money didn't bother me then it doesn't bother me now I wrote this book primarily because I wanted to get to know Bill Walsh but I said coach Walsh if we're gonna do this why don't we make this your legacy project and he said what's that and I said let's do a book that is so comprehensive that no one will ever try to write a similar kind of book there's a rule with a legacy as large as Walsh's there was plenty to write about 500 550 pages that was cut down from a svelte 800 pages this thing just kept growing and growing what this book reminds you of is how meticulous Bill was and how thought-out everything was and how specific he was the scheduling you know down to the minute of this is how the way the players day is gonna go utilization of formations you know personnel groups how your place should be in a minicam practice when you only have helmets practice schedules offseason programs draft evaluation everything is in this book right here so then bill decides well no we got to have we gotta have X's nose in there there's got to be a purpose for any information but I said bill the minute we put a football diagram in this thing's gonna be shoved on the sports section and it's not gonna sell anywhere near he says I don't care finding the winning edge sold just 35,000 copies although it went on to become the definitive textbook for running an NFL franchise its author was tortured by the imperfections he saw within it it just wasn't good enough you know he but that sort of seemed to be how a lot of things had been for him even if this was a success he would still somehow find a way to not consider it one coming up I'd be on the phone with him at half an hour and I'm trying to convince him not to jump off the bridge he might win next Sunday I spent the five hour flight home sitting by myself I looked out the window so no one could see me break down it was too much for anyone I was emotionally mentally and physically exhausted I decided I would resign as soon as the season ended I believed I had done as much as I could do and the job was just too much for me Bill Walsh thought he was a failure 27 games into his NFL head coaching career he had just five wins he inherited a team that won two games in 1978 roll one before he even coached a game in San Francisco Walsh was asked to host a preview film of the 1979 season oh that's not good start over the hell did I say my mind wandered and as he threw the ball it was got my mind on things going on downstairs that's why I'm trouble and though he did his best to hype the coming attraction in 1979 we expected expect to have a very competitive team deep down he might have known his show was going to bomb at the box office [Music] he has work cut out for him it's tremendously I mean some of the Saturdays even right before games he would hold tryouts and there would be not like 20 or 30 people but 200 and 300 people coming in he was trying to find anyone that could help the team at that point you 9070 not we inherited a team that didn't think they were gonna win a game I mean they that was the attitude of the team they actually won two games and after the second a town and a team with the lowest of expectations celebrated as if they'd won the Super Bowl [Music] in 1980 the losing continued we have this taste in our mouth one too many times I don't have to suck it through this in Wonju do I don't want that sick feeling I'm losing a game that you should've won or could at one that's sickening lousy field I can remember Bill after a loss to Miami the eighth loss in a row literally in tears I looked out the window for five hours in the middle of the night because I broke down emotionally I had conceded that I couldn't get the job done they'll put everything on himself he wasn't blaming the coaches he wasn't pointing fingers to the players it's my system good enough am i doing it the right way am i a failure or not walsh may have accepted the blame but he shared his misery i'm coaching now at philadelphia and I finally got a night program going and he would call on Monday I'd be on the phone with him a half an hour would hold up my entire offensive meeting now there's a three-hour time zone difference so it's midnight in Philadelphia nine o'clock in San Francisco and I'm trying to convince him not to jump off the bridge that he might win next Sunday bill you're crazy you know you're crazy at the start of my third year I just wanted our team to have some respect in the National Football League because we didn't we began to demonstrate offensively that we could be interesting he would put plays in and meeting sometimes and say you don't have to flinch when you catch this there won't be anybody around you'll be wide open you know we're all thinking yeah they get coached too and you know you catch it get ready to get hit and turn around and he would be right nobody would be we don't only got respect but we played more intensely and more fiercely than anyone in the game because the 49ers had been embarrassed and humiliated for a number of years by virtually everyone in football so whenever we had a game it was sort of a vendetta it was like the last game we will ever play can we play that way and what happened that year was like Ali coming out his first year a lot of confidence a lot of hey no one could stop us this time when they carried him off the field it was because he had won a division title but for the author to have a storybook ending and a trip to the Super Bowl Walsh would have to beat Dallas fittingly he had scripted a perfect play when you think about the coaching point of my part of the play why he's in here sliding back out for him to say to Joe throw it to Dwight high enough to where it either goes out of bounds or he can jump up and catch it [Applause] to think through that play all the way to that minor little detail to me you just really believe and every single thing he says [Music] looking back on it that was cowboy that was Kamla that was the origin of a dynasty many people erroneously think they have only one chance to succeed in their life's work and if they missed that chance they are doomed to failure in fact most people have several opportunities to succeed before Bill Walsh could write that passage he had to experience it as a young assistant with the Cincinnati Bengals in the late 60s and early 70s Walsh thought his life's work was succeeding his mentor the legendary Paul Brown bill walsh loved him he thought he was the example of how you do things you see after we get hit with a TD like we did there does Paul Brown thought Bill Walsh was a bright mind he was a young up-and-coming in coach Brown the first coach to call plays from the sideline even allowed his protege to ghostwrite the Bengals play calling it was convoluted the call would come from Walsh upstairs 86 at Baker and then Bill Johnson would repeat that call then I will go to the messenger guard and then on the field no we're not gonna have much time probably get this I don't want to try something that we're gambling on in the run-heavy NFL of the early 70s the Bengals high percentage passing game was a sensation like WKRP s dr. Johnny fever Bill Walsh was living on the air in Cincinnati [Music] Paul Brown was ahead of his time and bill absorbed all this from it but he wanted to take it to the next level he wanted to keep more of Bill Walsh stinking 86 never square down why [Music] Walsh believed he was Browns heir apparent then on New Year's Day 1976 the Bengals coach made a bombshell announcement we were shocked when Paul Brown announced that he was retiring the next an elephant was bill Johnson's - head coach the next announcement was Bill Walsh is leaving Bill Johnson is possibly my closest friend I'd follow bill to the end of the earth there is no connection between my leaving and Bill becoming the head coach the offensive players on the team we all called Walsh don't leave don't leave please don't leave he said I can't stay here anymore I need my system to work somewhere where I get the credit I talked to Paul Brown about Bill Walsh I asked him I said why didn't you give bill the head coaching job he said I didn't think he could handle the highs and lows because bill was could be very high and he could be very low being passed over by the man he idolized plunged Walsh into a deep depression his heart had been broken he contemplated getting out of football it was just absolutely devastated and didn't know if he could continue he was in a state of shock he came and lived in our basement after the Cincinnati thing for a while he just was distraught do you feel a feeling of personal disappointment when you weren't given a head coaching job in Cincinnati shocker but it didn't shake us and shaken shook us dramatically and it took us a while to get over that the only place Walsh could get a head coaching job was at Stanford University in the NFL he was approached and then passed over by the New York Jets the expansion Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams speaking speculatively would you possibly go down to LA well I put it this way I think the Rams are the finest organization in the National Football League and if I were to return to the National Football League I would want to go with the finest organization he learned later that Paul Brown had blocked him from a number of different coaching opportunities by giving him a bad review by saying things that flat-out weren't true I think he was real close at the top of going to Green Bay he thought he had the job and Paul made a phone call and squashed it was in a sense of blackballed of me had I not gone to Stanford University have been successful I've never been a head coach in the NFL people had come to the cushion nobody can have this kind of a intellectual approach to the game and be tough fasten your seat belts outcome of the Super Bowl birth everything hangs in the balance now for Walsh the catch was much more than the play that launched a dynasty Dwight Clark's touchdown gave him a chance to settle a score [Applause] the Shenzhen should be a great Super Bowl it's ironic that I see Paul again I just wish them the best publicly it was all oh no it's just another game it's not that important does it mean anything extra in the Super Bowl but you're going against Paul Browns Bengals not really this is the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl in itself the world's championship there just isn't room for any revenge motive I think bill wanted to win that Super Bowl 16 as bad as anybody could ever want anything in the first Drive on the playlist was the triple path the reason we ran it is that Paul Brown always preached we got a trick do it early before the other guy does but with a Paul Brown of today innovation remains a way of life Bill's thinking the same way in that game [Applause] that was a Paul Brown play if the message was remember me I was Darryl we used to do nothing and there's a way of doing stuff like that [Music] here's Montana point really meant something to him the only thing that would make it better is if Paul we've been on the sidelines instead of just the owner [Music] now beating the AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl in the 1980s a philosophical war was being waged in the NFL some saw it as East Coast versus West others as Smash Mouth versus finesse it was an era when many believed that might made right that the run was better than the pass and the sword mightier than the chalk but this wasn't the first time bill Walsh's offense was challenged by the old guard when what is now known as the West Coast offense was being developed it was summarily dismissed by many people as nothing more than nickel and dime football history has shown that these individuals were glaringly mistaken I agree with that he always kind of laughed at the West Coast offense title he says it really ought to be the Midwest offense because it's just the principles that we started in Cincinnati 1969 they drafted this stronger on Kidd Greg cook from Chillicothe Ohio Greg could could do things that nobody could do he not gotten hurt I believe could have been one of the all-time great quarterbacks every a shoulder injury suffered on this play eventually ended Greg cooks career and it forced Paul Brown and Bill Walsh to devise an offense for Virgil Carter a quarterback who lacked the arm strength of cook let me talk to him what do you like next year it was high percentage throwing lay the ball off short let the receiver make them the total yardage to run after the catch we began to control the ball through the short pass always looking for the big play but going then to the short pass we won a division championship in Cincinnati with Virgil as our quarterback so it was a little nickel dime football in the beginning but he had to do that he goes that's the only way we could do it and he took it to another level the original stanzas of the West Coast offense that Walsh penned in Cincinnati grew into volumes of poetry in motion in San Francisco a short passing game replicating the efficiency and the security of a running game that's what changed things and so defenses couldn't respond the ball was coming out so much faster then it happened in the past the passing name the defensive state didn't take 15 20 years ago I think Bill waswas from another planet to be honest with you he was so far ahead simplified everything forward to quarterback they gave the quarterback options he knows where his primary his secondary is a third receiver so it was very very simple for the quarterback it may have looked easy but it was anything but for the men who had to execute Walsh's offense we talked about my footwork and he said look if you'll just follow the directions and the footwork that goes with each pass pattern I can tell you the timing for when to deliver the football into who on your feet like what so I started to learn the footwork of the West Coast offense [Music] which told me by timing when to throw to a certain guy drop back hitch up [Music] and he's like just follow the directions and you can play quarterback footwork footwork footwork turn on the film and go hey footwork you know this is a five-step truck you took like three big and a hop and that's why you feel like you're waiting on it because everything's not ready yet we put steps in here for a reason there's a three step drop is a five step drop five step with a hitch seven step with a hitch all this is all timed so that things can open up for you at a certain time I remember Bill Walsh talking to me one day Nico's Ronnie look at Joe's feet they're just beautiful they're just beautiful Freddie Freddie was like really bill he's the most graceful quick-footed nimble quarterback we've seen in many years it's almost sensual his movement graceful nimble sensual no wonder much of the football world saw Walsh's team as less than intimidating kotel if you describe your football team visit a finesse team finesse is not the word for our offense it bothered him I think it bothered him a lot for every person that said that we were finesse he wanted to go punch him in the mouth he always talked about delivering that first punch we take that feel that line is just like Marvin Hagler that's what it's gonna be like bill created up a poster that I helped him with that said we will not be out hit by anyone and all the players signed it he says and we're gonna pound them into submission and they won't even know [Applause] the way but we were weirdest tricking people we were beating people by death of a thousand paper cuts death by paper cuts is a fitting way for an author to beat an opponent and it was on paper with his scripting of plays that Walsh prepared for his weekly battle open right here it was funny because the it initially started as our that's the first ten plays and ended up at 25 sometimes 26 because in Bill's mine I can script the whole game if I could get players that would do what I told him to do scripting plays can be even more effective when you claim your coaches headphones don't work at the start of a game we knew they scripted plays well we lost the toss in 85 and we knew that we're gonna get the ball and then all of a sudden their phones won out now you know the league man says you you got to put your phones down when the other teams fallen go out so it was just a coincidence that they got these plays scripted they know what they're gonna do and man their phones go out we were kind of I don't want to say caught off-guard by that but we had to make some very quick adjustments I can't afford that that was a little bit calculated on their part getting ready to play them the next year in the playoff and I said to Bill these phones go out again to start the game I said I'm gonna expose you okay he looked at me with a little wink and he says just the little gamesmanship and listen I understand scripted plays or not Walsh's West Coast offense managed just three points in each of those playoff losses in New York as the Giants and Bill Parcells got the last laugh the 49ers had won two Super Bowls in the early 80s but the middle of the decade was being dominated by the big bad bears and the beasts of the East but the author would have a say on how the history of his football philosophy would be written whether you're a general a CEO or a football coach finding a middle ground between the well-being of the people who work for you and the achievement of a goal is one of the trickiest aspects of leadership bill understood that unless you get people to perform you're not going to get very much done and that's why he was such a great leader he got the best out of people he really had a special talent he could take a player and stretch him right to the breaking point and then with some humor and wit he brings them all back together again everybody understand fresh for this ball game somehow in some cases it may mean a lot of sex the players would refer to those same talents as manipulation they saw Bill as someone who played with their minds he was the puppeteer who was pulling the strings when they started recognizing some strings that were attached they resented it even if a string was being pulled for their own benefit bill Walsh's true genius was not X's and O's but handling people psychology had as much to do with the 49ers becoming the team of the 80s as the West Coast offense on the field in practice players would make mistakes and instead of the typical coach screaming at the player he would turn and scream at the coach wait a minute wait a second the halfback frost is that way on a double circle outside I can remember Bill Walsh explaining to the coaching staff why he yelled at coaches if I yell at you those players are gonna defend you they're not gonna like the head coach getting mad at you I put the play in call do you correct me on the field I put the thing in upstairs now I'm being told by you what to do let's go the dynamic boys the coaches getting yelled at the player feels bad like jeez I feel bad for my coaches can yell that for my mistake and so what happened is to play anything I gotta make sure and protect my coach boy if I ever get a chance to be a head coach I'm not gonna do that I'll be darkness when I became a head coach if I were to talk to Steve Mariucci Randy Reid or Jon Gruden I did exactly the same thing what happened on the screen why do we run out the formation that's the first 50 let's go as I got older I said you know I realize now why he did it pretty effective getting ready for the 83 season sits down looks at me and goes think you can probably play another six eight years in this league only gonna play maybe three or four here that's it excuse me he says yeah if you won't finish your career here I just want to give you the heads up he says because I only want your good years bill had a philosophy my players I want them off my team a year before it's too late nobody left the 49ers through the eighties really you know like chipper nobody you name the name they left in their minds too early it's just nature of Bill it was difficult but it was masterful he pulled me in and said I don't know if you can make the team this year and if you do I want you to take half salary because you won't be playing that lunch when you hear the way he was thinking about you it hurts you a little bit for a couple years after I retired I was mad at him he would sort of sever a relationship I know that had to be really hard for him because I know he really cared about people and it must have been really important to him to win being around and him watching him I realize that his pursuit of greatness was bigger than me you don't win that many championships unless you do that it hurt but at the end of his life it hurt him too the San Francisco 49ers owners are the best record in the NFL at 13 and two tops in both offense and defense and the pick of most of the experts to win it all again in the 1987 playoffs the worst loss of Bill Walsh's career almost cost him his job [Music] slower as the age of the biking paths begin to catch up with it during the game we fell behind and were unable to move the ball I sensed that Joe Montana was not at his best Montana straight back [Music] in the middle of the third quarter I knew what I had to do Joe Montana lifted it was one of the toughest decisions I had ever had to make I didn't want to be pulled I didn't like being pulled I always felt that no matter what we can come back from a deficit with our team Joe cool never got the chance it was Steve Young who led the spirited comeback but it came up short the best [Music] [Applause] the championship game that was the third straight playoff game that we had lost under Bill's coaching and Eddie was convinced bill was not doing the job and Eddie had instructed me to relieve bill of his responsibilities it hit us all with like a ton of bricks I was expecting to go to the Super Bowl I strongly recommended that he not do that let's tell bill you're still running everything you're calling the shots just coach we want him to coach because that's where his greatness lies bill was not happy with that losing the title of president this change was eventually good but initially tough almost immediately after his demotion Walsh rocked a coach's meeting by proposing the unimaginable he said what do you think we could get if we traded Joe Montana no one said anything no one wanted to do it we went around the room again and of course it was no no no no no no no no and then he passed out pieces of paper goes right down what you would take in a trade for Joe Montana there were several teams that we discussed the possibility of a trade one of them of course was San Diego there were also conversations with Denver there were even conversations with Kansas City when no trade was consummated the embattled genius played Montana and young against each other with an unprompted explosive announcement but our problem is we have to and there's a quarterback controversy developing we're gonna have to select between Steve Young and Joe Montana wasn't accidental bill did nothing by accident zero he was doing that for a specific purpose when you talk about Bill it's not an easy story there's a quarterback controversy developing the bills come from so many different places you're never quite sure what the motivation was I call it creative tension he loved creative tension he would create creative tension amongst the players sense of insecurity around your job just as there will always be fleas on dogs there will be a quarterback controversy somewhere in the NFL and now there is one building here in San Francisco I think everybody was caught off guard by the quarterback controversies took a lot of heat off of that situation for himself could have been a smoke screen I was blocking in Montana yesterday and he said he feels fine and he's disappointed that he's not starting today now bill wall says that doesn't mean joe Montana's out of this game he's not gonna start Steve Young is gonna start for the first 10 weeks of the 1988 season Walsh played both Montana and young ratcheting up the creative tension they're both very competitive neither which is to be pulled from a game neither which is wishes to be on the sidelines Nikki Montana throws long down the middle for rice but there were moments bill would say I'm not really sure who's gonna be the quarterback joking throw the ball first even throw the ball on time to Jeremy without a problem he was calling Joe and I in Bill was like Joe I'm playing Steve today no this is Joe Montana right Steve's got a set of plays and then well I'm gonna put them in so just know that's coming and you could see Joe just Joe had a knife it was you know a good problem you know before Steve got there I don't think Joe felt that kind of pressure at all angry if Phil Walsh were to say to you Joe it's time to hang it up would you play somewhere else yes I would wouldn't hesitate [Music] by mid-november the experiment seemed to be backfiring walsh was losing his players it got to a point in the locker room guys were gone what is he talking about he was also losing games san Francisco's record was just six and five all of a sudden the genius didn't look so smart [Music] coaches have a shelf life in just a few cases have a coach has been successful when they've been on the same job over ten years just a few cases and you'd question those the pressure is so intense that you're only able to do it for so many years in a given role at 88 we weren't playing well we were six and five and going nowhere and I saw that the the wear and tear on Bill was pretty dramatic so I have to blame us for the penalties that's what's killing this football killin that was a stress that was getting huh what he was what he had built from an expectation standpoint it was part of what warm down every loss hurts deeply there's no question about it every time somebody robbed your grocery store you wonder why you don't move it or sell it to somebody else that's the kind of feeling you have we had other ones meetings he said what's wrong with his team I said I think the team's off balance because we haven't set on the quarterback in the quarterbacks feel you got a pick one he got up and left he's angry I don't know if we wanted to hear that and he came back in the room he goes okay Joe Montana our quarterback and from that moment on he they mess with him anymore Joe is the guy [Applause] from my perspective it was difficult no question but what happened is who was the beneficiaries of this experiment with Bill was the 49ers because you got the best of Joe Montana I mean I was as good at football as you ever find behind Montana the 49ers won four of their last five games and raced to a division title we've opened the door we're gonna go through it next week we're gonna kick ass and take no prisoners the weekend [Applause] when we did finally get to the playoffs it's almost like Bill snapped out of it he was driven by this sense of I've got to prove something to myself and to everyone else especially the NFC Championship game in Chicago where the world had written us off and we dominated in back-to-back playoff games against the best of the NFC Central the so-called black and blue division Walsh's 49ers shed their finesse label once and for all you can say finesse if you want to but when they were sticking the ball down your throat he wasn't finesse they were really pounding you drives for the endzone [Applause] on the coldest day of January the finesse ass 49ers who come in the backyard of the Bears and kick ass the 49ers had come a long way from six and five to the Super Bowl for the head coach his career had come full circle once again the Super Bowl opponent was the Cincinnati Bengals now coached by Sam Weiss Walsh's former assistant I coach Sam as a player for a number of years and I developed him right up to the upper reaches of mediocrity [Music] [Applause] he had one every way imaginable with brawn and precision bold experiments and creative scheme [Applause] [Music] against the bangles there would be a final test could Walsh's West Coast offense deliver one more game-winning drive with 310 remaining the 49ers will have to go from their 8 yard line we always practice that two-minute drill after practice when everybody is tired being able to execute when everything is on the line you know a spell was [Music] we went straight back to basic plays that we ran forever plays maybe we can close our eyes and run [Applause] [Music] [Applause] my all-time favorite clip of tape with Sam wipes walking down the sideline going how many times have I seen this deja vu [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I remember holding on to each other and bill at one point kind of gave way on me I mean I held onto him to kind of hold him up a little bit he was emotionally spent [Applause] this is tough moment in a way because was this the final game on a sideline for a great coach Bill Ward [Music] right now with the coach down here inside the locker room jack for 10 years Bill Walsh had alienated his players by releasing teammates who were still in their prime after retiring in 1989 Walsh got a dose of his own medicine the regret I have is not coaching longer because I left the best team in football I'm the youngest team in football so I could have coached a couple more years he found little sympathy inside the 49ers locker room when he quit there were a lot of guys that wanted to win the Super Bowl so bad that following here because we wanted to prove that we could win it without him and that became the battle cry that year forty-niners are going to there [Applause] we would see him that year and you could tell that he missed it you can tell that that was tough for him and one since you are very proud of your team doing very very well and it feels sort of unfortunate that they can go on so well without you so after building something like this you wish them well but dharna they wish they missed me just a little bit more than they do he sat with me at the game and no-knock to George Seifert but he knew that team that was on the field was his team and it was about five minutes into the game he looked at me and he said this game's over I said what are you talking about he said everybody's open [Applause] he said this game is going to be a blowout San Francisco 55 Camelot was having a coronation the only thing missing was its King there is a certain relief when you step away but then there's a grieving process that occurs with any of us when they step away from their life's work you miss the craft itself bullsh eventually returned to the sideline first as head coach at Stanford then as 49ers general manager where he made amends with former players I thought I was really well-liked when I coached later I found out he wasn't quite that well light there were players who wouldn't speak to me for a period of time who are now very close to me in the relationships are great there's much love and that's the way it should be someday I'd love to get all the men I've worked with together God be great he'd be great it will never happen but I give them the word I love you 30 tackle - Walsh express those feelings after being diagnosed with leukemia in 2006 he had to spend a lot of time in the hospital and getting transfusions and things and he would be on the phone and you know he'd be talking and then he would end the phone conversation with you know I love you did hang up but I'd always be like you who is that and he'd say oh yeah that was so-and-so and usually be a player watching a champion die watching somebody that you admired somebody that you fought with somebody that you cared about somebody that you loved you only have moments like that very rare in your life where you can thank somebody and you can you know truly love them for that moment Ronnie had said goodbye and walked out and I was saying goodbye and he stopped me and he said hey you owe me any money I said I don't think so coach but I'll check but he had that sense of humor till the last minute that I saw him and in the face of what he was up against I think that says you know everything about him he was just a great great coach and a great man and a great person I wish I'd a lot more time with him I'm honored to be standing here today [Music] people look for words to say and if I had to say one about Bill I would say life because life is what he brought wherever he was the life story of Bill Walsh is about much more than a football coach leading his franchise to multiple championships his story is a masterpiece that still resonates across the NFL today not just by way of books or statues but through the very makeup of a sport that he elevated to an art form I look for the roots of Bill in places that I'm visiting and they're always there the game was coached played managed owned in a very archaic way for a long time and bill changed that fundamentally at every level forever to get to greatness in life one has to overcome their weaknesses in his case he was up to the task I've never been completely pleased with myself in my own performance innocence has been what's driven me to be relentless toward winning and toward improving thank God for football [Music]

Channel: Zach Crutcher

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Id: fd_CnRkKOqA

Length: 53min 12sec (3192 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2017

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[u/Kaps_Sore_Knee]

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[u/juanny_depp]

His Niners X North Face jacket at 22:30 is fucking siiiiiick. I must have it