Some Questions for 49ers Reporter Kevin Lynch

In February I talked with long-time 49ers reporter Kevin Lynch, now with the San Francisco Chronicle, about the 49ers’ dynasty, especially the 1988 49ers. The full interview is in the appendix to my e-book about the ‘88 49ers. You can buy that e-book through Lulu.com here. In these excerpts, we talked about Bill Walsh and [...]

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Brian Pariani

Pariani came to the 49ers as a scouting assistant in 1990. He was a native son, born in San Francisco, then moving north to Kentfield and playing three sports at Marin Catholic High School. He was an offensive coaches assistant for the 49ers from 1991  through 1995, then went to Denver and won two Super [...]

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Carl Jackson, 49ers Assistant Coach

Carl Jackson was a coach with the Iowa Hawkeyes for most of his career, including all of the ’80s and the first half of this decade, but he left Iowa for San Francisco in 1992 to serve as running backs coach. He left the 49ers after 1996 to go to Texas and coach Ricky Williams. [...]

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George Seifert

Seifert is a San Francisco native: he was an usher at Kezar Stadium in 1957 as a high school senior at Polytechnic, across the street from Kezar, and watched the 49ers lose in the playoffs that year, 31-27 to the Detroit Lions. Lynn Stiles, another former 49ers assistant coach, said: “It’s damn near a love [...]

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Mike Shanahan

Shanahan joined the 49ers as offensive coordinator at the end of January, 1992, to replace Mike Holmgren after Holmgen departed for Green Bay. Shanahan had been fired from positions as Raiders coach and, about 10 days previously, Broncos offensive coordinator. It’s an interesting coincidence that both Holmgren and Shanahan have departed, at least for the [...]

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Pete Carroll

Before he went to the New England Patriots or USC, Carroll was the 49ers’ defensive coordinator for 1995 and 1996. In August 1998, speaking before an exhibition game between the Patriots and 49ers, he said: “This game is of special interest to me. It’s personal because my family and friends will be there, going back [...]

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Bill Walsh

I figure that anyone who’s arrived here will already know some things about Coach Walsh, but here are some items that might be new. At one awards banquet in Rocklin, at the Rocklin Bar and Eatery, some time in the mid ’80s, Joe Montana, John Ayers and Randy Cross were eating fried chicken with cold [...]

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Mike Holmgren

The just-retired Mike Holmgren, a 49ers assistant coach from 1986 to 1991, first as quarterbacks coach, then, starting in 1989, as offensive coordinator, once said of Bill Walsh: “I always said he was an artist and all the rest of us were kind of blacksmiths, pounding the anvil where he was painting the picture.”

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Sam Wyche

Sam Wyche became the 49ers quarterbacks coach in 1979, not long after ending his NFL career. Since then, he’d opened up a chain of seven sporting goods stores, tried his hand as a broadcaster, and spent some time raising two children. He’d met Walsh in 1968, when he was a rookie quarterback for the Cincinnati [...]

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Lynn Stiles

Lynn Stiles had helped coach UCLA in the early ’70s, coached San Jose State in the mid to late ’70s (he coached Steve DeBerg there), helped coach the Philadelphia Eagles for the first half of the ’80s, and coached the Cal defense for a couple years before he joined the 49ers as a special teams [...]

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