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Overview
Here is an exhilarating chronicle of the Stanford University football team's spectacular 1992 seasons and an incisive portrait of Bill Walsh, their idiosyncratic, ingenious coach, whom George Schulz has called "a great intellect." Not since A Season on The Brink has there been such a revealing study of a great team and a great coach in action. When Walsh returned to Stanford in 1992 to coach its team, the Cardinal, he surprised many, including himself, by turning his back on a realm - professional sports - that he had conquered. During the fourteen years since he had last coached at Stanford, he had amassed a record and a reputation few men of his era could equal, having led the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl wins and six divisional titles. The nickname "Genius" had been bestowed on him, and most in the sports community and beyond would use it without reservation. Even those few who added a dash of sarcasm when they used the moniker could not deny Walsh's brilliance. What drew Walsh back to Stanford (in what Time magazine called his "Second Coming") was its embodiment of the scholar-athlete ideal so rarely glimpsed today in the high-stakes world of college sports. What that idea meant for Walsh in real terms was a decent team, hampered by its school's high admission standards, surrounded by the toughest teams in the sport. What Walsh and his scholar-athletes did in his first year back astonished many. They achieved their first ten-win season since 1940, earned their first top ten ranking in over twenty years, and won their first bowl game since the Carter administration. Throughout that remarkable season, Lowell Cohn had unlimited access to Walsh, his coaches, and his players during every game, practice, scrimmage, and team meeting. The result of his immersion in the Cardinal's triumphant 1992 season is an account of singular intensity, depth, and eloquence. Certainly there is victory's thrill and defeat's agony here, but there is more besides: a trencEditorials
Wes Lukowsky
During the 1980s, when head coach Bill Walsh guided the San Francisco 49ers to six division titles and three Super Bowl wins, it was common to see his name linked with the word "genius". After retiring from coaching and spending three unfulfilling years in broadcasting, Walsh surprised the football world by accepting the head coaching job at Stanford, a position he had held for two years in the late seventies. Cohn, a columnist for the "San Francisco Chronicle", was granted unlimited access to Stanford's program for Walsh's debut 1992 season. The result is an intelligent, evenhanded look at both Walsh and the complex dynamics of a high-profile college football program. Walsh, who had always envisioned himself a teacher and a mentor, saw his return to college coaching as a reaffirmation of that vision. As the season wore onsuccessfully but not perfectlyhis idealized role did not take shape as he had hoped. The pressure to win, coupled with the outside demands on his time and his reluctance to delegate, took its toll physically and mentally. Cohn doesn't debunk the Walsh myth, but he does replace it with a new, more accessible and reality-based image. Walsh's genius, we learn, is bred of hard work; he doesn't roll out of bed on game day with an epiphany that will ensure victory. He labors over details, he struggles with motivation both of players and his own assistants, he has doubts, he makes mistakes, and, usually, he overcomes them. Must reading for football fans.Book Details
Published
July 1, 1994
Publisher
Harpercollins
Pages
320
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780060170431