San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
SPEED ALL IN THE FAMILY
McCaffrey works diligently to sharpen legacy of elite quickness
LAS VEGAS — Peel away the layers of Christian McCaffrey’s speed, one of the superpowers fueling his transcendent season for the San Francisco 49ers, and a fascinating picture emerges.
His maternal grandfather, Dave Sime, won the silver medal in the 100-meter dash at the 1960 Olympics. His dad, Ed, was a sneaky-fast NFL wide receiver, and his mom, Lisa, was a swift soccer standout at Stanford.
Or consider this: Christian was not even the fastest of the four McCaffrey brothers coming out of college. And he soon could fall to third on the list.
That’s the word from Max McCaffrey, a former Duke wide receiver and at age 29 the oldest of the McCaffrey boys. (Christian is next at 27.) Max ran the 40yard dash in 4.46 seconds at his Pro Day, good enough to edge Christian (4.48).
But the youngest McCaffrey, 22-year-old Luke, might race past his brothers (including Dylan, 24) at the NFL combine later this month.
“I think Luke is the fastest,” Max said in a phone interview Thursday. “I’m thinking he’ll take the (family) championship.”
This friendly competition offers context for the rise of Christian McCaffrey, as he leads the 49ers into Sunday’s Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs. He always was a dynamic threat, dating to his high school days in Colorado and college career at Stanford, but this season he blossomed into the NFL’s leading rusher and maybe its best allaround player.
Some of that traces to his ideal fit with the 49ers, from head coach Kyle Shanahan’s play calling to the skilled offensive teammates around McCaffrey. Much of it stems from diligent dedication to his craft, including speed and strength training under the guidance of longtime personal trainer Brian Kula.
And let’s be honest: A piece of McCaffrey’s ascent goes to genetics.
It’s increasingly common for the offspring of professional athletes to follow in a parent’s footsteps. Witness the Golden State Warriors, with Stephen Curry (son of Dell) and Klay Thompson (son of Mychal). Or consider 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, whose dad, Shawn, reached Triple-A as a pitcher in the San Francisco Giants’ organization.
McCaffrey’s lineage of athletic achievement includes Sime (rhymes with “him”), a onetime Duke baseball player who was considered the world’s fastest man in the mid-1950s. He came out of the 1955 Millrose Games with the best 100-meter time in the world, according to a Washington Post obituary after Sime died in January 2016, and he was favored to win gold at the ’56 Olympics.
But Sime, who landed on Sports Illustrated’s cover in 1956, tore his groin muscle during the Olympic trials and didn’t compete in Melbourne. Then, in ’60,
Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle he narrowly missed out on the gold medal in Rome, falling to West Germany’s Armin Hary in a photo finish by “at most an inch,” per the Post story.
Sime also ran the anchor leg on the U.S. 4x100 relay team, and hit the tape first, but the Americans were disqualified because of an improper baton exchange.
Asked this week what his grandfather shared about his Olympic experience, Christian McCaffrey said only that he knew Hary won the race in ’60. McCaffrey didn’t really study Sime’s running mechanics, he said, though he acknowledged winning gold in the 100 meters would be his biggest athletic dream if he weren’t a football player.
Max McCaffrey said of Sime’s influence, “We definitely also got natural speed from my mom’s side.”
At another point in Wednesday’s group interview, Christian spoke in broader terms about the components of speed.
“Speed comes from first knowing what you’re doing, especially in football,” he said. “You can play fast if you know exactly what to do on every play, you’re good at reading defenses and you know where to put your eyes. (49ers running backs coach) Bobby Turner always says run with your eyes and your feet will follow.
“So I think that’s the first part of speed in football. And then the actual mechanics part of it, you’ve got to have good genes and you have to practice all the time. I think speed is like anything, you need reps — you need to run fast and do it often.”
As for how much genetics matter in speed, that seemed like a question for an expert outside of football. Stanford assistant track coach Jarius Cooper specializes in sprints and hurdles, and he said, “It’s half the battle if you’re blessed with the genetics of mom and dad, and they were really good.”
Just as valuable in Cooper’s view: the mindset and work ethic often picked up from parents who were high-level athletes.
That was the case with Christian McCaffrey, who talked appreciatively of the lessons he learned from his dad. Ed, a three-time Super Bowl champion (once with the 49ers), caught 565 passes in his NFL career, mostly with Denver.
If the 49ers win Sunday, Ed and Christian would become the eighth father-son tandem to win the Super Bowl and only the second to achieve the feat with the same team.
One of Ed’s teammates with San Francisco in 1994 was offensive tackle Harris Barton, who has remained close friends with the McCaffreys over the years. So when Christian attended Stanford, he occasionally visited Barton’s nearby home and played Nerf ball and Monopoly with his kids.
Barton soon came to understand McCaffrey’s zest to maximize his physical gifts.
“One thing about Christian:
He’s a worker,” Barton said. “He treats his body like it’s a machine. He’s got great talent, speed and tenacity, but his preparation makes him the best. I don’t think there’s a better football player out there.”
All four McCaffrey boys ultimately followed Ed into football. Dylan played quarterback at Michigan and Northern Colorado, and Luke played quarterback at Nebraska and Rice before finishing his college career as a wide receiver. He caught 68 passes last season for the Owls, including 12 for touchdowns.
Back when they were kids, the McCaffreys played several sports, both formally and informally. Christian recalled routinely coming home from school and engaging in spirited games with his brothers: two-on-two basketball, football in the snow or “crush the carrier.”
Some of the brothers dabbled in track, but mostly they played sports in which they made unnatural movements natural, as Luke put it. “We have speed not really limited to a straight line,” he said.
They also inherited Lisa’s vigor as much as Ed’s poise under pressure.
“I’m similar to my mom in a lot of ways,” Christian said. “She’s feisty and competitive as hell. She’s the cool mom.”
Now the McCaffreys are bound for Las Vegas, to watch one of their own play in his first Super Bowl. It’s a world removed from 2020 and ’21, when Christian played in only 10 of 33 games with Carolina because of injuries.
More than two years later, he’s healthy, thriving in the 49ers’ offense and one win from a championship — the NFL championship, not the family speed title.