Friends and family bid farewell to Bill Walsh during service at Memorial Church
Speakers recall his dedication to family, generosity toward friends, intensity as a football coach and gifts as a teacher
Former 49ers quarterback Steve Young spoke at Stanford Aug. 9 during the memorial for Bill Walsh.
Former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana spoke at Stanford Aug. 9 during the memorial for Bill Walsh.
BY KATHLEEN J. SULLIVAN
Even at his memorial, Bill Walsh called the plays.
He chose the songs. "Amazing Grace" and "Danny Boy." He requested Psalm 23. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." He selected the speakers—friends all, including a pair of former 49ers quarterbacks, a noted sports sociologist and a U.S. senator.
One by one, his emissaries stepped up to the lectern at Stanford Memorial Church on Aug. 9, looked out on an audience of 1,000 invited guests and shared their memories of Walsh, a Hall of Fame coach who led the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl victories in the 1980s and, along the way, revolutionized the game he loved.
They spoke of Walsh's dedication to his family, his generosity with friends, his intensity as a coach, his gifts as a teacher. They extolled his uncanny ability to recognize and nurture a professional football player's particular talents, even before that player knew he had them—a skill Walsh also demonstrated during his years as head football coach at Stanford.
There were tears during the two-hour service for Walsh, who died of leukemia on July 30 at his Woodside home, his family at his side. There was laughter too, as when former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana described the moment, after he had thrown two interceptions in one game, that he decided to face his disappointed coach straightaway on the sideline:
"He said to me: What was that? I said: That was an interception, Coach. He said: Yes, and it was a darn good one, but let's try not to do that again, would you?"
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was mayor of San Francisco when the 49ers returned home with their first Super Bowl trophy in 1982, said the team brought joy to a city that was "deep in despair" over the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the massacre of more than 900 Bay Area residents in Jonestown, Guyana, and the emergence of a deadly new disease known as AIDS.
Feinstein organized a celebration for the 49ers, not sure anyone would come. But tens of thousands of people lined the parade route on Market Street and half a million crowded into the plaza in front of City Hall to welcome their team home.
"All of a sudden, hope and promise came to a city that had lived in the dark for a couple of years," Feinstein said.
Harry Edwards, a sports sociologist whom Walsh hired in 1985 to counsel 49ers players, described his longtime friend as a "genius of football organization and strategy" whose vision, initiatives and achievements had left a lasting imprint on the game—on and off the field.
"He will be there in every NFL franchise where a player gets an opportunity to return to college and conclude his degree, or to participate in a league-sponsored program that prepares him for life after football," Edwards said, his voice choked with emotion.
Former 49ers quarterback Steve Young said Walsh's commitment to integration—he helped create the NFL's minority coaching fellowship program—went far beyond race, encompassing culture, religion, geography, language and socioeconomic background.
"Bill wanted to break down every barrier between his players," Young said. "In the locker room, on the practice field, in the lunchroom, on the planes and the hotels, Bill forced his players together."
Walsh wanted his players to understand, respect, even love each other, Young said, because he knew those bonds "would be the deciding factor in many, if not all, football games."
At the end of the service, Bob Bowlsby, Stanford's athletic director, announced that the university had created a program to honor the beloved coach and presented a crystal bowl to the Walsh family inscribed with the words, "Stanford University, Bill Walsh Leadership Program, Established 2007."
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