The Philosophy of Bill Walsh

[tk13]

I'm not going to post the whole thing because this is a long, long, long article. Too many great parts to paraphrase it. But it's about Bill Walsh's insane drive to be a perfectionist and a book he wrote that's considered the bible for football coaches to this day. It follows a high school coach that got into coaching because of Andy Reid. It shows how far ahead of his time Bill Walsh was, and features Vermeil, Al Saunders, Belichick, Urban Meyer, Brian Billick and others. If you like football it's a great read.

THE MOST INFLUENTIAL football coach of the past 30 years hated his legacy. He hated it from the moment he retired at age 57, in January 1989, days after winning his third Super Bowl as head coach of the 49ers. Bill Walsh had felt fried for years, and during that last season he was in "a claustrophobic panic," as a friend later described it. Or "just eking by," as his son Craig recalls. That 1988 season had been the most wrenching of his career, because the 49ers were not a great team. They were a 10-6 team that happened to win it all, and the grind swallowed Walsh to the point that he was, as his son says, "like a zombie." So he secretly decided to retire during the season, and in the whooping and wet locker room after the Super Bowl, Walsh wept alone, head in his hands. He wasn't happy. He was relieved. It was over.

That image, of course, doesn't square with the Walsh in old footage: elegant and confident, handsome and professorial, walking a damp Candlestick Park sideline in a sweater and khakis, fog-white hair neatly combed, holding a pencil to his lips as he plotted his next move, which always seemed to be two ahead of his opponent. But that's how he was. He always coached through existential torture, with alternating bouts of believing that he was brilliant and that he was incapable of fulfilling his own idea of greatness.

So it was no surprise that Walsh instantly regretted retiring. Believing that he left at least one Super Bowl on the table, Walsh was "melancholy and terrible," according to Craig. That the 1989 49ers were more dominant in the playoffs under new coach George Seifert than they ever were under Walsh made it worse. Walsh hated that Seifert won a championship that year with his team, his West Coast offense, his philosophy; he so hated the ring that the team awarded him that he gave it away. "He didn't want them to win," Craig says. "He couldn't hand over the team he had created to someone else, because he wasn't capable of it."

He tried broadcasting but quit in 1991. "I'm not going to sit for three hours and let some 27-year-old f-- in my ear tell me about the game," he told Brian Billick, former Ravens coach and one of his many protégés. In 1992 Walsh returned to Stanford, where he had coached in the '70s, but left after two losing seasons in three years, his magic gone. "He needed to be Bill Walsh," Billick says. "He needed to be a genius."

So he decided to write a book.

(Continued...)
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/88...-espn-magazine

[Hootie]

I have a hard time considering anything from that era the "greatest" because some teams clearly got it and were so ahead of the curve (like the 49ers) and some teams were the Jets...and there was no salary cap and the parity was really, really low.

Today...the best of the best still rise to the top but the playing field is totally level. Back then, it wasn't.

[Buzz_TinBalls]

Originally Posted by Peyton's Princess

I have a hard time considering anything from that era the "greatest" because some teams clearly got it and were so ahead of the curve (like the 49ers) and some teams were the Jets...and there was no salary cap and the parity was really, really low.

Today...the best of the best still rise to the top but the playing field is totally level. Back then, it wasn't.

so, you think there was merely one team -- the 49ers of that era that was the "greatest" and the other teams couldn't compete. that is hilarious.

Reminds me of my niece, who recently stated "animation started in the nineties and is getting really good now".

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

The NFL sure creates some sick people.

[tk13]

Originally Posted by GoWalrus

The NFL sure creates some sick people.

I didn't even mention the part where Belichick read this book at the crossroads of his career after getting fired in Cleveland, and decided that the way he was doing things was the right way.

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

Originally Posted by tk13

I didn't even mention the part where Belichick read this book at the crossroads of his career after getting fired in Cleveland, and decided that the way he was doing things was the right way.

**** that.

[Chiefshrink]

An accurate armed QB with quick feet and a good pass rush in the 4th qrt is Bill Walsh's philosophy to winning.

[Rambozo]

Originally Posted by Chiefshrink

An accurate armed QB with quick feet and a good pass rush in the 4th qrt is Bill Walsh's philosophy to winning.

No shit... Good post man...

[Smed1065]

Originally Posted by Rambozo

No shit... Good post man...

Geno!

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

Thinking Jake Plummer was going to be awesome must have killed him.

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by GoWalrus

Thinking Jake Plummer was going to be awesome must have killed him.

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

Holy shit.

The other, Finding the Winning Edge, cost a minimum of $100, with special leather-bound, signed editions fetching $1,000. It had been published in 1997 and was no longer in print.

[tk13]

And also, the book is currently selling for $900-1500 on Amazon.

[Hootie]

Originally Posted by tk13

And also, the book is currently selling for $900-1500 on Amazon.

that's it?

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

Originally Posted by tk13

And also, the book is currently selling for $900-1500 on Amazon.

****ing goddammit. I want to own a copy of this.