The odd couple: Coach and reporter
I’ve been waiting a couple of days to post this because I have been thinking a lot about Bill Mcpherson, who died Tuesday. I wanted to say so many things about him without being too wordy. But this is still going to be a long post. Sorry.
In my former racket as a newspaper sports columnist, it wasn’t often that you developed a true personto-person relationship with any player or coach that went beyond the field or the locker room or the office. I have been fortunate to have that happen with very few people I’ve covered. But I had that kind of relationship with Mac. It would not be a stretch to call us long
time friends, though with his decades of football connections he had so many friends across the Bay Area who were closer. Our relationship was still special to me. And the whole thing developed organically.
We first met in 1977. I was a 25-yearold kid covering UCLA football for the Los Angeles Times. Mac was a 45-yearold assistant coach of the Bruins. He had originally been hired at UCLA by Dick Vermeil but declined the offer to follow Vermeil when he left to coach the Philadelphia Eagles. Mac, a former Santa Clara football player and Santa Clara football assistant coach, simply liked living in California too much. So he stayed on with the Bruins and new head coach Terry Donahue. I was writing a feature story about one of Mac’s position players and wound up interviewing him about the player. We hit it off and continued the discussion after our interview was over.
“You moved here from Ohio?” he asked and I nodded. “You must like it. You’re looking good. How do you like LA?”
We chatted a bit more and as the season progressed, had a few more conversations. But the next year, we both moved on – Mac finally accepted Vermeil’s entreaties (and an NFL salary — UCLA didn’t pay as much in those days) and joined the Eagles staff. I went back to Cincinnati to become a columnist. But Mac still loved California and the Bay Area. So in 1979 when Bill Walsh became the 49ers’ head coach, Mac accepted a job on Walsh’s staff. The two guys had known each other since their days as young high school coaches in the Bay — Mac at Bellarmine Prep in San Jose, Walsh at Washington High in Fremont. They had a no-b.s. relationship and communicated well. Within three years, they’d won a Super Bowl together.
Mac and I hadn’t really stayed in touch but conversed briefly before that Super Bowl in Detroit when the 49ers’ opponent was the Bengals and I was covering them. But imagine his surprise in the summer of 1984 when I showed up in San Jose as a Mercury News sports columnist and showed up on the 49ers’ practice field and began chronicling maybe their best team ever, concluding with another Super Bowl victory.
“You couldn’t stay away and moved back here from Ohio?” Mac joked when he first saw me. “You’re looking good. Where are you living?”
We discovered that our houses were just a mile apart in San Jose and we went to the same church. One of his good friends lived across the street. Mac asked about my family. I asked about his — five kids and wife Elsie. I asked for advice about the neighborhood. One of his grandkids wound up in the same grade school class as our son. We had plenty to talk about besides football. But we talked a lot of football.
And yes, I can now admit, Mac sometimes leaked me little scoops. Mac didn’t like or want to be quoted. But as a longtime Bay Area guy, he knew how much fans soaked up information on the 49ers and he wanted to make sure the information was accurate. Eventually, we developed a relationship of trust. He could steer me in the right direction about a certain story — or just as important, steer me away from something wrong. He could tell me if Walsh was in a good mood or bad mood, which helped me time my most sensitive questions to Bill. Mac didn’t want to be quoted (about anything) and didn’t even relish being interviewed that much. But he always seemed glad to see me if we met coming off the practice field.
“You’re looking good,” he would say, even on days I looked awful from staying up all night with a sick kid at home or partying too much on the road.
Then he would warily eye other reporters as they approached.
“Come over here and stand next to me and let’s pretend to talk one-on-one about something important so they stay away,” Mac would say, then gesture with his head “I don’t want to talk to that guy or that guy.”
It was all invaluable. Meanwhile, away from the “office,” I really enjoyed his company. At the church festival beer booth where he sometimes worked, he’d hand me a free beer. At the supermarket, I would encounter Elsie, Mac’s warmhearted but outspoken wife (“You don’t want to get the Italian side of her mad,” Mac would joke). With the crazy schedule of a football coach, she did much of the heavy lifting raising their kids. Along with my wife, the four of us attended some dinner parties that included Mac’s longtime friends from our street, where the old stories — mostly about Santa Clara football teams from the late 40s and early 50s — were hilarious and wonderful to hear.
Meanwhile, the 49ers and their championship seasons kept unfolding. Mac ended up with five Super Bowl rings. I came to understand why he was such a successful coach. He was a master of defensive line techniques in particular. When he later became the Niners’ defensive coordinator under George Seifert following Walsh’s departure, Mac displayed his X and 0 knowledge that earned him respect around the league. But his true talent was motivation.
I watched in admiration as Mac communicated eye-to-eye and “coached up” players who were 30 or 40 years younger than him, especially young Africanamerican players who all came to adore him.
I think that happened for three reasons. One, Mac was a good man. Two, Mac’s individual coaching made them better players and therefore earned them bigger paychecks. And three, Mac had no personal ambition to become famous or campaign for a head coaching position. I know he had opportunities and interviews. But he loved the grunt work of football and probably realized that he would absolutely hate some of a head coaches’ responsibilities — daily Q and A with reporters, organizing and attending lots of meetings, schmoozing with the owners and their friends, etc. So he simply decided to be the best assistant coach or coordinator he could possibly be.
And he was one hell of a coach. He always had his players ready. Always. He shrugged off or engaged and worked with some of the wilder personalities on the team, including “Hacksaw” Reynolds or Charles Haley. As we all know, Haley had some mental illness issues (which he’s successfully managed today with medication) that made him entirely unpredictable. Once during a position meeting, Haley threw something unmentionable at Mac and cursed him. Mac rolled with it, making sure that Haley was ready for the next week’s game. Mac definitely had his favorites (he thought Fred Dean was the best player he ever coached) but every one of his players thought he was “Mac’s guy.”
When he decided to leave coaching, Mac moved into the 49ers’ front office as a pro personnel man, working his contacts around the league to help the team decide who to pick up via trades or free agency. We’d still touch base now and then, only this time at his office or maybe at the airport when he’d be off on a scouting trip and I’d be on my way to who knows where, catching a 6:30 a.m. flight.
“You’re looking good,” he would lie. “I’m glad you’re still working and they haven’t fired you.”
And of course, from time to time, Mac couldn’t help himself in leaking me a scoop. I can now tell this story, too. Before a 1998 playoff game with Green Bay, Mac told me that the 49ers were going to sign Haley — who had been retired and out of football for a year — just for that game. I didn’t believe him at first. But then I saw he was serious.
“I just want to see the look on Brett Favre’s face when he has to walk up under center and look across the line at Charles,” Mac said in his raspy voice that I won’t ever forget.
This happened late in the afternoon, after I had already filed my column, so I called our beat writer, Clark Judge, and gave him the info. Clark said I had to be wrong, that it wasn’t possible. Clark was an excellent reporter and none of his sources could confirm the signing. So he wouldn’t go with the story. I told him he’d blow it if he didn’t. Sure enough, the next day, Haley signed. It was the headline of the day. I still tease Clark about that whenever I see him.
Finally, as Mac approached his eighth decade and a new generation of management and coaches took over the 49ers, he left the organization and retired. Mac and I would occasionally have breakfast or lunch, and we’d bump into each other from time to time. He was so proud of all his kids, including son Pat, who is an assistant coach with the Seahawks. My wife and I were honored when Mac and Elsie invited us to their 50th anniversary party, which was a hoot.
As Mac’s health challenges made it more difficult for him to leave the house – Mac had horrible knees and orthopedic problems, but hated it when he had to use a cane or
walker — I went over to his home to visit two or three times. But not enough. Not nearly enough.
And definitely not enough recently. I had heard that Mac was having some medical problems and put a visit to him on my list of things to do but delayed it too long. I offer my heartfelt sympathy to Elsie and Mac’s family, which included 11 grand kids. I hope that after this coronavirus stuff is over, there’s a memorial service so that all of Mac’s friends inside and outside football can celebrate his life. The man was truly one in a million. I so regret not going over to see him in the last few months before he left us. I hope he’ll forgive me when I see him up in the ether again one day.
Even if I die in a car crash, I know Mac will tell me I’m looking good.