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DENVER (AP) -- San Francisco offensive lineman Thomas Herrion collapsed in the locker room and died Sunday morning, shortly after the 49ers played the Denver Broncos in a preseason game. He was 23. Herrion, a 6-foot-3, 310-pound guard, was on the field for San Francisco's 14-play, 91-yard drive that ended with a touchdown with 2 seconds left. Players had finished listening to coach Mike Nolan address them in a postgame meeting when Herrion collapsed. Medics administered CPR on him and took him to an ambulance that rushed him to a nearby hospital. About three hours later, 49ers spokesman Aaron Salkin...

National Football League News Wire The following stories are the most recent transmissions from ESPN.com wire sources Sunday, August 14, 2005Ex-NFL player Robbins arrested on marijuana charge - AP (1:47 PM ET)Panthers, at almost 100 percent, are excited after preseason win - AP (1:25 PM ET) Raiders assistant taken to hospital after fainting on sideline - AP (2:08 AM ET)UNDATED: yards receiving. - AP (1:39 AM ET) Saturday, August 13, 2005NFL Preseason Capsules - AP (11:38 PM ET) Schottenheimer sticking with errant kicker Kaeding - AP (10:15 PM ET)Panthers retire Mills' jersey at halftime - AP (9:50 PM ET)Without Owens,...

It was a simple, passionate idea: create nurturing, secure homes for abused, neglected, and abandoned children trapped in California's foster care system. The goal: to end the instability that many face when they are tossed from one family to the next. But turning this inspired vision into the Children's Village of Sonoma County has taken nearly eight years of toil by the project's founder, Lia Rowley, and legions of volunteers, including ex-49ers quarterback Joe Montana, his wife, Jennifer, and their two teenage daughters. Groundbreaking for the Children's Village, a cross between a group home and foster care, is planned this...

The prequel to the now-infamous 49ers Gone Wild video hit the airwaves Tuesday night, and while it's not nearly as risque or racially charged as the one that gave the team a national black eye last week, the inspiration for that disaster is plain to see. This video, made nearly two years ago and obtained by television station KRON, includes a dose of bathroom humor, a lap dancer burying a Niners staffer's head in her bosom and the team's outgoing public relations chief and producer of both tapes, Kirk Reynolds, with a protuberance in his pants. Reynolds made both the...

49ers owner viewed tape 5 months ago but didn't take action - The San Francisco 49ers' humiliation over their sex-drenched "training" video was a public-relations disaster that the team had plenty of time to see coming. But, coincidentally or not, it wasn't until the time that a "Deep Throat" mailed the explosive tape to The Chronicle and the San Francisco mayor's office -- and threatened to send it along to the National Football League -- that the team got off the dime. Five long months passed from when owner John York saw a piece of the video until the day...

Team's in-house training video includes lesbian porn, racial slurs, barbs at Newsom. It was meant to be funny -- but no one is laughing now in the San Francisco 49ers' front office over an in-house training film that featured off- color racial jokes, lesbian porn, a spoof of gay marriage and a trio of buxom, topless blondes frolicking with team public relations director Kirk Reynolds. The 15-minute video, some of which was filmed in the City Hall office of Mayor Gavin Newsom -- who comes in for a few unsubtle swipes -- was intended as a primer on how players...

Coach Mike Nolan recently petitioned the NFL to allow him to wear a suit on the sidelines during game days.

Enough already. Where are the moderators that are letting these dang threads from this Zot wanna bees going on and on and on. The one up now is at 7,000 plus. Another one was at over 64,000 the last I looked. Don't just boot the idiots, pull the threads they start too!

49ers fire head coach, general manager 1/5/2005, 9:18 p.m. ET By GREG BEACHAM The Associated Press SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Coach Dennis Erickson and general manager Terry Donahue presided over some of the darkest days in the proud history of the San Francisco 49ers, who lost games, good players and incalculable respect in recent years. They insisted they had a plan to restore the franchise to glory, but owner John York decided it's time for a whole new plan. York fired Erickson and dismissed Donahue on Wednesday, just three days after the 49ers finished with the NFL's worst record....

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) -- The San Francisco 49ers fired coach Dennis Erickson and dismissed general manager Terry Donahue on Wednesday, cleaning house just three days after the once-proud franchise finished with the NFL's worst record.Owner John York announced the changes to his team, which went 2-14 to match the worst record in San Francisco history.Erickson went 9-23 in two seasons as Steve Mariucci's successor, never reaching the postseason. He won two national championships at the University of Miami during a successful college coaching career, but is 40-56 in six seasons as an NFL head coach in San Francisco...

We all peaked too early, and now we're stuck. We all figured out, pretty quickly as these things go, the 49ers are the most ridiculous franchise in the National Football League because the people who run it don't much care they run the most ridiculous franchise in the National Football League. So, now where do we go? How do we keep explaining the obvious without seeming as if we're just re-explaining the obvious? I mean, this is the murder mystery in which the murderer is identified in the fifth paragraph, so there now isn't a whole lot of reason to...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison aimed his famously barbed tongue outside the technology industry Wednesday, taunting the owners of the San Francisco 49ers for refusing to sell the "worst team in football." Ellison, renowned for ridiculing Oracle's rivals, made the off-the-cuff remarks in response to a question from a 49ers fan attending Oracle's annual customer conference in San Francisco. The fan, wearing a 49ers cap, asked Ellison -- one of the world's richest man -- to consider buying the NFL team. Echoing remarks he made at Oracle's annual shareholder meeting in October, Ellison lamented that he can't...

unnngh...

Browns quarterback Jeff Garcia says a comment made by ex-teammate Terrell Owens implying that he is gay is ridiculous and untrue. In an interview with Playboy magazine that hits newsstands Friday, Owens was asked if he thinks Garcia is gay. Owens responded: "Like my boy tells me: If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, by golly, it is a rat." Garcia responded to Owens' comment after practice Wednesday without mentioning the wide receiver by name. "It is really a waste of my time to sit here and to have to answer to such ridiculous, untrue comments...

NEW YORK: As a girl, she vowed that she would marry an American footballer, but she has ended up helping to run the country instead. Now there is speculation that Condoleezza Rice may fulfil both ambitions after she invited a handsome sportsman not once but twice to the White House as her date. The gossip began when Gene Washington, a former player with the San Francisco 49ers, turned up at a formal dinner for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines just over a week ago. Noticeably, Rice, the US national security adviser, had also invited him to dine with the...

<p>Granted, there is upheaval in the world and there are battles where a great deal is at stake -- life itself. All the more precious, then, the minor skirmishes on the home front that mean a great deal in a small way and remind us of how lucky we are to feel innocent hatreds, from summer to summer, at the ballpark.</p>

Wednesday, January 15 49ers release Mariucci from final year of contract -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ESPN.com Steve Mariucci is out as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. 49ers general manager Terry Donahue told ESPN.com's John Clayton today that Mariucci has been released from the final year of his contract and no longer is the team's head coach. Sources told Clayton that there were philosophical differences between Mariucci and John York, the owner's representative, about Mariucci's role within the organization. Sources said that Mariucci had been asking for the title of vice president of football operations. Former Vikings coach Dennis Green and 49ers...

<p>The Steelers have lost eight of their past 10 meetings with Tennessee and were physically manhandled -- Bill Cowher's words -- by the Titans during the regular season.</p> <p>And they are playing just six days after their emotional playoff victory against the Browns with a secondary that has injuries and other problems. No team had a better finish to the regular season than the Titans, who won 10 of their final 11 games after a 1-4 start. But the Steelers have never lost a playoff game to a division team (OK, the Titans qualify are a former division mate). After coming back from 11- and 17-point deficits in their past two games, they are not about to panic against the Titans. OK, the Steelers have yet to win a road playoff game under Cowher (0-2). But they seem to respond when nobody gives them a chance.</p>

<p>GEORGE BUSH never saw the final vote totals from Florida and said, "Bummer."</p> <p>The Soviet basketball team members didn't think about how they won their 1972 Olympic gold-medal game over the U.S. and said, "Bummer."</p> <p>Bill Belichick after the Tuck Game, or Chuck Noll after the Immaculate Reception? Are you kidding?</p>

To err is human.. Having watched football for many years, I can recall on numerous occasions where a team was placed in a 3rd down position to kick a game winning field goal. Many of these games were won, and many were lost, but never has so much controversy erupted as in the 2002 playoff game involving the San Fransisco 49’ers versus the New York Giants. In case you did not have an opportunity to watch or listen to the game, or have been living in a different country, I will include a brief recap of the final ensuing moments....