by Bill Walsh
In the locker room my comments were honest in describing what was at stake, and it wasn’t the final score: “Some of you may think we have already lost this game,” I began. “You might be right. We may lose this afternoon, and if we do, I can live with it. This is only a football game. However, if we go down, you must decide how you want it to happen. How do you want to go down? Nobody would blame you for coasting the rest of this game, for throwing in the towel. And in fact, when you come back here in sixty minutes, only you will know if you did; only you will know if you let New Orleans continue this assault or if you stood your ground and fought back. Frankly, I care a lot more about how we lose than if we lose. Gentlemen, in the second half you’re going to find out something important; you’re about to find out who you are. And you may not like what you find.”
That’s all I said. No rah-rah speech along the lines of “It’s never over ’til it’s over!” No angry shouting about lack of effort or stupid mistakes; no threats. I simply pointed out that we had arrived at an important threshold of discovery—that moment when you find out what you’re made of.
When I finished my brief comments, there was complete silence. We looked at one another—Dwight Clark, Freddie Solomon, Lenvil Elliott, Earl Cooper, Randy Cross, Keena Turner, Joe Montana, Dan Bunz, and all the others—in a way that probably happens in the military before the battle; you’re looking into one another’s competitive souls.
I turned and left the room while our assistant coaches gathered with their own units to go over changes to be made in the second half. Those tactical changes were not significant. The big change had to be in their attitude.
What I had attempted to do was remind our guys of the Standard of Performance that I had been teaching from the day I arrived. Among the multitude of rules, concepts, and prescribed attitudes it embraced was the matter of poise: Even in the worst circumstance (and this was pretty close to being the worst), do not unravel mentally or emotionally; continue to fight and execute well, even if the cause appears to be lost; act like professionals.
“Who are you?” I asked them. I wanted to know; in the second half I found out. The 49ers outscored the Saints 28-0 and won the game in overtime on Ray Wersching’s field goal, 38-35. At the time, it was considered the greatest comeback in the history of NFL football. And it was not a fluke. Our team had resisted the temptation to perform the dance of the doomed.
The second half of the game demonstrated to me that the values, rules, and ideals I had been inculcating for the previous eighteen months—the Standard of Performance—were beginning to sink into the consciousness of the team, defining us to the core.
Among other things, I had taught players—those who needed to be taught—to comport themselves in a manner that demonstrated pride, poise, and a determination to never, ever quit, even if we trailed by a hundred points.
Your competitor must never look at you across the field, conference table, or anywhere else and conclude, “I not only beat you, I broke your spirit.” The dance of the doomed tells them they’ve broken your spirit. That message can hurt you the next time around.
And almost always there is a next time around.
Use the Four Most Powerful Words
You need to stretch people to help them achieve their full potential. Joe Montana and Steve Young are quarterbacks who came to the 49ers with the highest personal expectations of themselves; neither lacked in confidence, and both believed they could do just about anything. I let them know I thought they could do even more than anything. You can do the same with your own talented staff and personnel.
The most powerful way to do this is by having the courage to say, “I believe in you,” in whatever words and way are comfortable for you. These four words—or their equivalents—constitute the most inspirational message a leader can convey. There are many different ways to do it, but the fundamental and underlying message must always be the same: “I believe in you. I know you can do the job.”
Few things embolden and create self-confidence in a person like hearing those words from an individual whose judgment he or she respects, especially if that person is you, his or her boss.
Joe Montana—perhaps the greatest quarterback in the history of professional football—was not highly sought after by NFL teams when he graduated from Notre Dame. While he personally had a strong assessment of his own talents, most scouts didn’t share his opinion. When they saw him play, they did not see a future NFL superstar.
His performance in college, while brilliant at times, was inconsistent. He did not have a strong arm and was rather slight by NFL quarterback standards (at 6 feet 2 inches and 185 pounds, he looked like a Swedish placekicker). Additionally, Joe didn’t exude the “presence” usually associated with dominating team leaders; he was almost shy.
Consequently, when it came to quarterbacks that year, Phil Simms was the guy everybody wanted, and Joe was still available in the third round of the draft when the 49ers picked him up. (Prior to my drafting Joe, my friend and fellow coach Sam Wyche tracked him down in southern California for a workout. We flew to Los Angeles International Airport and took a cab to a little public playground nearby. When Joe started throwing the ball, I knew immediately that he was very special—poise, nimble feet that reminded me of Joe Namath’s exquisite footwork, and a “look” I liked when he threw the football, even though his strength was not the long pass.)
While he came to us with great confidence and competitive instincts, Joe Montana didn’t envision four Super Bowl rings in his future, nor that he would become a shoo-in for the NFL Hall of Fame. Regardless of the opinion Joe Montana had about his future when it came to Super Bowl rings, I let him know in word and deed that I believed in him, his potential, and his value to our team. Our relationship focused relentlessly on improving and perfecting his physical and mental skills, pushing to a higher level and nourishing his self-confidence so he could realize his optimum potential. I want to be clear that Joe believed in himself—very much. My role was to reinforce and expand that confidence and teach him how to translate it into performance at the highest level.
Joe absorbed this ongoing support and teaching and saw that I was ready and willing to work hard with him in bringing forth his best effort. For this same reason, most quarterbacks I’ve worked with have also done very well, often becoming ranked as some of the best performers in their league. My first QB was Greg Cook with the Cincinnati Bengals, who soon led the league in passing efficiency. Next came Virgil Carter and Ken Anderson, who became rated at or near the top of the league in this same important category. Later, Hall of Famer Dan Fouts of the San Diego Chargers made huge improvements in his skills as a passer under my direction. When I coached at Stanford University, Guy Benjamin and Steve Dils led the NCAA and Steve Stenstrom broke all Pac-10 Conference records for passing efficiency.
Of course, the great Steve Young, who followed Joe Montana as the 49ers’ starting quarterback, went from languishing in Tampa Bay to setting NFL records that put him in the Hall of Fame.
This pattern of significant improvement in quarterbacks—and I could give multiple examples at other positions and among our staff—was not an accident. Even though each man had different strengths and weaknesses (and all of them had problems that needed fixing), even though each had a different mixture of confidence and uncertainty, they all got one fundamental message from me: “I believe in you.” I said it, meant it, and had the expertise to teach them how to get better and better.
It’s true with starting quarterbacks and backup quarterbacks; it’s true with salespeople, department heads, staff members, and virtually everyone else we work with. As a leader you must have the strength to let talented members of your organization know you believe in them—nurture their belief in themselves, teach them what they need to know, and then watch what happens. It’s amazing and one of the things I love most about leadership—teaching a person how to reach higher and higher, to achieve great things with his or her talent.
And al
ways keep this in mind: Nobody will ever come back to you later and say “thank you” for expecting too little of them.
Extreme Effort Requires Extreme Prudence
Aggressive leaders—effective ones—push individuals hard, and then we push harder, knowing that one of our responsibilities is to get that extra effort necessary for an organization to achieve top results. A good leader believes that he or she knows the secret (or secrets) for bringing a group up to maximum productivity, and in fact, if you don’t know how to do it you’ll soon be gone.
However, it’s just as important to understand that “extra effort,” in whatever form it takes (mental, physical, emotional), cannot be sustained without eventual damage and diminishing returns. There has to be a very acute awareness on your part as to the level of exertion and the toll it’s taking on those you lead. A head coach is no different from a CEO or department head in needing to know when it’s time to let up a bit, allow for recharging of the internal batteries of those on your team.
One of your great challenges is finding the middle ground between the well-being of the people who work with you and the achievement of your goals. My observation is that many leaders have risen to the top in part because we work “too hard.” That’s one of the reasons we got to the top in the first place. It’s only natural that we think everybody should follow our extreme example. Most, however, do not desire to become consumed by work, to let it virtually take over their lives. That’s just a fact.
The art of leadership requires knowing when it makes sense to take people over the top, to push them to their highest level of effort, and when to take your foot off the accelerator a little. If your team is constantly working on adrenaline, in a crisis mode, running as hard as they can, they become vulnerable. When an emergency arises, when the competition suddenly presents an unexpected threat, your team has no next level to step up to, no reserves to draw on. The best leaders are those who understand the levels of energy and focus available within their team. They also recognize which situations require extreme effort and which do not. Knowing the difference ensures that your organization is fresh and fully able to perform at its uppermost levels when it’s necessary.
In my own estimation, I was extremely good in this area, adept at knowing when to push very hard and for how long and in what manner. The one time I really missed the boat on it probably cost us a Super Bowl and almost got me fired.
During my ninth year as head coach of the 49ers, NFL players went on strike after the second game of the season. It was not unexpected by our organization, and we did an excellent job getting ready for the consequences of having the regulars walk out. However, when the strike ended and they returned, there was a lot of pent-up anger and emotion that came out; some were extremely upset with me for decisions I had made; others were angry at the NFL and/or their teammates. It was an emotionally bruising return to action, but somehow we came through it in great shape and won nine of the next ten regular-season games—overall the best record in the NFL at 13-2 (the strike caused the cancellation of one regular-season game) and designation by many as the odds-on choice to win Super Bowl XXII. And now it was time for me to prepare our team for the play-offs leading to the championship game.
For the first time in my career, I did something I had never done before; namely, during practices I ran our team into the ground. I’m still not sure what I was thinking when I pushed the team to their limits in those days prior to our NFC play-off game against the Minnesota Vikings, but it was fatal.
We had lost in the first round the two previous years, and that had been very hard to take. Perhaps I decided subconsciously that this time around I was just going to have to push them harder in areas I felt needed improvement—deep passes, for example. But there were always components of our game that I felt could be improved. That was nothing new. In this instance, however, I began driving the team harder and harder, offensive players especially, until ultimately they were essentially exhausted at the worst possible time: They were about to face a very strong Minnesota Vikings team with a defensive line that had come into its own during the season; the Vikings meant business.
This game, obviously, was a situation that called for stepping it up, extra effort, extreme exertion. Unfortunately, our guys, Jerry Rice, for example, were still physically and mentally worn down because of the grueling nature of my ongoing pre-play-off workouts. We got beat because we were beat. There was very little left in the tank by the opening kickoff. Minnesota won 36-24, but the game may not have been as close as that score suggests.
Eddie DeBartolo was furious and seriously considered firing me. He was correct in the sense that it was my poor leadership judgment that had been responsible for our bad performance. It was my fault. I had strayed from my instincts and understanding that when it comes to demanding extreme effort, a good leader must exercise extreme prudence.
This is one of the most difficult areas of leadership. By instinct we—leaders—want to run hard all the time; by intellect we know this is not possible. Reconciling those two positions in the context of leadership is an ongoing challenge. I believe the one time in my career when I didn’t successfully reconcile the two, it cost us a championship.
It’s an easy trap to fall into—pushing your team to the brink and then over—because there is comfort in knowing that if we are defeated, at least we worked—and worked our team—as hard as possible. For a hardwork ing leader that’s easy to do. What’s difficult to do is recognize when extra effort, extreme exertion, working “as hard as possible” starts to produce diminishing returns.
The Bubba Diet: You Can’t Transplant Willpower
Bubba Paris is a man whose outstanding talent and potential for greatness were exceeded only by his big heart and large appetite. While he had a great college career at Michigan and was a valuable member of the 49ers, I tend to think his craving for food eventually cost him his job in the National Football League.
Ideally, Bubba’s best weight was at something less than 300 pounds, but his voracious eating habits skyrocketed him into the vicinity of 350 pounds and beyond, dramatically reducing his quickness and stamina. Adding to the urgency of the issue was the fact that doctors were telling him, “Mr. Paris, you won’t live past the age of fifty if you don’t lose weight.” With 49er training camp workouts being conducted in hundred-degree heat at Sierra College in Rocklin, California, I worried that Bubba might not even reach forty if he didn’t get his weight under control.
Consequently, our nutritionist and team trainers worked conscientiously with him during camp and encouraged Bubba to eat fewer fries and more fish, less pie and more pasta, Diet Coke instead of double-thick chocolate shakes.
Bubba was trying to get with the program, but it just didn’t seem to be working—the weight wasn’t coming off, in spite of the obvious fact that he was also giving it his best effort during practice and at the training table. This became very frustrating for us, and I came to recognize that a metabolic issue was the probable explanation for all the extra weight and his failure to lose any of it by the end of training camp. I was convinced of it. What more could Bubba Paris possibly have done to lose weight? Well, I found out.
On the Saturday morning when we broke camp to head back to San Francisco, the maid’s supervisor in charge of the dormitories—a stern woman who reminded me of the head nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—came to my office. “Mr. Walsh, I think you should take a look at how some of your athletes live,” she announced. Uh-oh.
Dutifully I followed her to Bubba’s room in the dorm—empty now. When I entered, there was a pleasant surprise. “What’s the problem here?” I thought to myself. “Nothing’s broken. Very clean. No holes in the wall. Looks good.” I smiled and nodded politely in her direction. Maybe I’d misunderstood. Perhaps the problem was with some other player’s room, one of those who occasionally got overly rambunctious. I was wrong.
Solemnly I watched as she marched over to Bubba’s closet and opened the door. Sh
e reached inside, flipped the switch, and turned on the light. I took a look.
There, stacked one on top of another in the back of the closet, were scores of grease-stained, extra large, red-striped Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes—the empty remnants of all the terrific meals Bubba had smuggled in during the past few weeks. Crumpled up and scattered around the closet floor were KFC napkins, empty soda cups, straws, even a couple of dried chicken bones that had also been left behind—final evidence of an appetite out of control.
Bubba was eating like a bird at the training table, but the dinner bell didn’t really ring until he got back to his dorm room.
All of this was a good lesson for me: Willpower was not a commodity I could simply hand out like a couple of aspirin tablets.
Whether it’s a 350-pound tackle, an employee, or a child, we must try our best to encourage, support, and inspire, but eventually—ultimately—people must do it for themselves. No one else can do it for them, including you, regardless of whether you’re a head coach, CEO, manager, nutritionist, or doctor. A closet floor covered with KFC boxes reminded me of that.
Nevertheless, I’m happy to report that Bubba Paris has gotten a certain amount of control over his weight problem and is leading a much healthier lifestyle—too late to extend his successful football career, but hopefully in time to extend his life.
“Conventional Wisdom” Is an Oxymoron
Coaches and scouts in the National Football League view the raw speed demonstrated in the forty-yard sprint as a litmus test of a receiver’s potential, a tried-and-true tool in deciding whether to draft him. Do a good time in the forty and you’ve probably got a job; less than that and you may have to look for another line of work.
I took a somewhat different view. I valued blazing speed but also prized what I call “functional” speed—how fast a player can move with a ball in his hands after he’s in stride. To my thinking, that’s how it’s usually done in a game. Because of my unconventional philosophy, I was able to see the potential in a young man who became the greatest receiver in NFL history.
