49ers Clubhouse - Dave Wilcox

By all accounts, Dave Wilcox was one of the guys that played the hardest. For 11 years he terrorized opponents fron his left side linebacker position. He a fixture in the Pro Bowl from 1967 to 1974. Dave Wilcox thinks it's hard to know what it takes to be a good linebacker. He said the first thing is to be a little crazy. Then you have to be aggressive, but not too much becouse you have to be able to react to things as they happen. Mental preparation is also very important for a linebacker and that was one of the traits that made Wilcox a stand out. Once the game started he did everything at 100 percent. He was a perfectionist, he hated to lose, when he was on the field he always thought he could beat anybody. Dave Wilcox remember the 49ers defense as a solid unit in the early 1970s under coach Dick Nolan. He thinks that from a defensive standpoint Nolan was a good coach. Althought Wilcox was part of the 49ers teams that lost two Championship Games to Dallas and one playoff game, he feels no animosity against them. He admits, however, he was crushed when they lost in the 1972 playoff. One of the most satisfying wins in Wilcox's career came in the 1970 playoff game against Minnesota. The 49ers were appearing in their first playoff in 13 years and only the second as a member of the NFL. That game was played in Minneapolis at a temperature of 10 degrees. He remember that "Nobody gave us a chance in that game, but we went out and beat them. It was gratifying". Three years ago Wilcox insisted he wasn't obsessed with making the Hall of Fame. He thought the voting members of the Football Writers of America forgot about him, but he knew he had the credentials. Of course he never campaigned for Canton, and deciding to stay tucked away in Oregon didn't help keep his name in headlines. So his former 49ers teammates came to his testify about Dave's toughness. Now 48 years old, Wilcox and his wife Merle still live in a log cabin in his native state Oregon, some 15 miles outside of Eugene.