{"id":80968,"date":"2015-12-03T08:30:20","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T16:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=80968"},"modified":"2015-12-03T08:30:20","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T16:30:20","slug":"lowell-cohn-former-49ers-coach-bill-walsh-had-healthy-attitude-about-officiating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=80968","title":{"rendered":"Lowell Cohn: Former 49ers coach Bill Walsh had healthy attitude about officiating"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lowell Cohn writes<\/a>: During the year I researched my book about his return to Stanford football \u2014 1992 \u2014 Walsh would take me places or put me in situations he wanted me to see, understand and write about. Sometimes, he didn\u2019t say what he was doing. He just presented me with life unfolding.<\/p>\n

One time, he was explicit. This was not about officiating. I\u2019ll get to that. It was just before Big Game at Memorial Stadium and he was disgusted with the facilities for the visiting team at the old stadium, now spiffed up. He took me by the arm, showed me the two toilet stalls for an entire football team, both stalls without doors, showed me toilet water flowing along the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an insulting locker room,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a sophomoric trick to present a team with something like this. The Pac-10 should say you have two years to bring it up to standard. But they don\u2019t care about the players. They wonder where they can hold their meetings next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, so you have an idea about Walsh, how he showed me things. Cut to the Blockbuster Bowl against Penn State, Jan. 1, 1993, at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla. Stanford won 24-3. Walsh and I were alone before the game in the coaches\u2019 room, a sterile, small room with cubicles. The other coaches already were on the field, but Walsh lingered, sitting in a chair. I didn\u2019t know why we weren\u2019t outside with everyone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t get nervous for games anymore,\u201d Walsh confessed, his voice dreamy. \u201cThat\u2019s neither good nor bad. I just don\u2019t get nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pretty soon, the head official walked into the room. Oh, Walsh had been waiting for him. And I had been waiting for him without knowing it. Walsh did not stand up for the official. They did not shake hands as I recall. The official asked in an official voice if Walsh planned to run any special plays, gimmick plays, stuff like that. The official wanted to know what was coming so he and his crew wouldn\u2019t assess a penalty because they saw something they didn\u2019t understand, hadn\u2019t been prepared for. Turns out this is standard procedure, but I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Walsh mentioned one play where the offensive tackles split off the line. \u201cWe like to play around with that,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cWe don\u2019t expect much from it.\u201d Then he described a few play-action passes in an uninterested, pro forma way. The official made a mental note, turned around and walked out. When the official was gone, Walsh said to me, \u201cThat\u2019s so the officials won\u2019t screw it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had been with him for months and never remembered discussing officials. So, I asked about penalty calls. He stood up \u2014 wearily, I thought. \u201cPenalties are like the weather,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s going to rain, I don\u2019t say, \u2018It\u2019s raining. It\u2019s unfair.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lowell Cohn writes: During the year I researched my book about his return to Stanford football \u2014 1992 \u2014 Walsh would take me places or put me in situations he wanted me to see, understand and write about. Sometimes, he … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80969,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80968\/revisions\/80969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}