R.I.P Bill Walsh
 

The Chronicle is reporting that Bill Walsh is dead. No story yet but big type at the top of their front page. Sad news. :(

Oh shit. :(

Wow. That sucks. :(

I had no idea he was 76. Still sad. :(

He changed the way the game is played.

Shame.

RIP Bill.

RIP, Bill. You were the best coach Northern California has ever seen in any sport.

Did we know he had Leukemia?

:( Unbelievable.

He was a big reason that I liked the 49ers as a kid. I will hook up the Sega Genesis tonight and play a honorary game of Bill Walsh's College Football in his honor. God Bless...

I did but I thought he was only in his late 60's.

RIP Bill :(.

Damn.

One of the Greats.

Too Bad.

Pro football has lost one of it's great minds today. Condolences to all 49ers fans.

Sad. :(

Man, I'm a terrible fan. I had no idea he was even sick with Leukemia. :(

I didn't know he had Leukemia either. Great football coach and a class guy. Very sad news.

sad news for all 49ers and football fans

RIP Bill

RIP.

Perhaps the most gifted mind football has ever seen. The team of my youth lost two super bowls to Walsh and Montana and always respected the hell out of him.

this is sad, RIP Mr Walsh...

FM

Wow thats crazy :(

Always hated having to play against him, a hell of a coach. :(

Anyone know what form of Leukemia he had?

RIP Bill..Thanks for the memories..

One of the greatest of all time.

Didn't hear about this until right now when Terry Bradshaw brought it up on the Scott Ferrall Show. Had to check here to make sure i heard it correct. Never knew the guy was that old.

Tonight on the Tom Snyder Show: One of the greatest coaches football has ever seen and one of the great directors in cinematic history. Bill Walsh and Ingmar Bergman...

That is a show I would have watched... Rest in peace gentlemen.

yes, they talked about it during a couple games last season

as a lifelong niners fan, i am very sad about this...a friend of mine who is a packers fan always babbles about how many coaches in the league right now started under holmgren in green bay...he shut up real fast when i pointed out how many, including holmgren, started under walsh...the man made the nfl what it is today.

RIP

WHAT?! fuck, didn't see this was coming. I had no idea he was sick. Truly a great influence on the game.

RIP Bill.

The SF Chronicle produced this graphic of Walsh's coaching "family tree." An great look at how far his influence is felt.

http://cdn.sfgate.com/chronicle/acro...familytree.pdf

That's incredible, really.

And 49er universe needs to give a big bow of thanks to Paul Brown. He's the man who gave Walsh the job and the freedom to create his amazing system and recreate the NFL as we know it.

I must, on principle, hate everything San Francisco, but Walsh was a BENGAL first.

;) Damn niners.

RIP Bill, NFL Heaven just got a whole lot smarter.

I wonder what Parcells' tree would like.

Actually I was listening to the NFL HOF induction show by ESPN today while driving, and they had Carmen Policy on... one story he told was about when he and Eddie DeBartolo were flying out to interview Walsh. What Policy said was that Ed Sr. (Eddie's dad) took Carmen aside and told him, "no matter what, don't let Eddie hire this guy." Apparently Ed Sr. had talked to folks around the league, including especially Paul Brown, and had been told that Walsh "wasn't head coach material."

So yeah, we do owe thanks to Paul Brown. Not so much for hiring Walsh, but for being dumb enough to drive Walsh away.

Thanks Bungles! :D

Might want to get the story straight, Brown didn't say he wasn't head coach material, he told them he wasn't ready at that time to become a head coach.(paraphrased from Bengals.Com interviews with Forrest Greg, Sam Wyche and Ken Anderson, all of whom mentioned this very item).

Also if you recall the state of the 49ers at the time, you can't put ANY real validity in the DeBartolo's football sense. That team was a freaking train wreck.

There was significant improvement every year in those first few years Walsh coached. He absolutely was ready to be a head coach. The 49ers went from the worst in the NFL before Walsh arrived to 8th in offense in just the first year, with basically the same personnel. Even though it didn't translate into more wins immediately, it was a huge first step toward the success that would happen two years later.

Oh I'm not saying brown was mistaken in his judgement, I'm just saying the way Policy spins it it makes brown look like an idiot and anyone that knows football knows thats not the case. Brown wanted Walsh to stick around for a couple more seasons because he saw the talent he had for creating schemes and finding the right play for the right situation. Brown has also been reported as saying he felt Walsh was too much of a "players" coach, to soft on the team etc etc. Brown was very old school and didn't care for the, as he saw it, candy-ass NFL of the coming decade (speaking on the 1980's).

You know Walsh's reduced contact training camps and other "soft" methods, such as allowing players to drink water whenever they wanted to during workouts, were mentioned in the paper today, and it was pointed out that late in the season, Walsh's teams usually were not as worn down as the teams using the old school methods. Walsh knew what he was doing, and the old school guys like Brown weren't necessarily as smart as they thought they were.

Yeah but brown was also working on 50+ years in and around the NFL at that point, he was too old to change ;)