Free Republic

If there were a Mount Rushmore for football coaches, the four heads would be likenesses of George Halas, Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi and Bill Walsh. Mr. Walsh, who died of leukemia Monday at age 75, is the one whose record would need the most justification to future generations of football fans. After all, of the four, Mr. Walsh had the fewest career victories--102, counting postseason games, to go with 63 defeats and one tie. And he won the fewest number of championships, three. (Halas won six in his 40 seasons; Brown had seven in 21 years: four with the old...

(07-30) 11:50 PDT -- Bill Walsh, the imaginative and charismatic coach who took over a downtrodden 49ers team and built one of the greatest franchises in NFL history, has died at the age of 75. A master of using short, precisely timed passes to control the ball in what became known as the West Coast offense, he guided the team to three Super Bowl championships and six NFC West division titles in his 10 years as head coach. The 49ers had been wrecked by mismanagement and unwise personnel decisions under former general manager Joe Thomas when owner Ed DeBartolo Jr....

Bill Walsh, the groundbreaking football coach who won three Super Bowls and perfected the ingenious schemes that became known as the West Coast offense during a Hall of Fame career with the San Francisco 49ers, has died. He was 75. Walsh died at his Bay Area home early Monday following a long battle with leukemia, according to Stanford University, where he served as coach and athletic director. Walsh didn’t become an NFL head coach until 47, and he spent just 10 seasons on the San Francisco sideline. But he left an indelible mark on the United States’ most popular sport,...