Donahue lowered bar in coaching search
February 13, 2003
By Skip Bayless
Mercury News
I apologize. I approached this coaching search upside down from the way 49ers General Manager Terry Donahue did. I arrived at Wednesday's five-star hotel introduction of new Coach Dennis Erickson thinking this might be an attempt to put lipstick on, well, a skunk.
I was wrong. For Donahue, this was truly a spare-no-expense celebration. At the Four Seasons in San Francisco, he kicked off the noon media extravaganza by proclaiming this a great day for the city and the team.
All I know for sure is that it was a great day for the G.M., the first of the Terry Donahue Era. Please, no more questions about who's in charge of the football operation. Donahue is. No more snide remarks about a dysfunctional front office. In Donahue's tunnel vision, it's now a well-oiled machine with a new cog.
That's all Donahue wanted, a coaching cog. A coach he can sometimes coach.
No dynamic personality. No star coach. No media manipulator. No overly ambitious climber angling for personnel power. No threat to Donahue's domain. No more Steve Mariucci.
Obviously, no Jimmy Johnson or Dennis Green or Bob Stoops. No way Johnson or Green were on Donahue's list. A team source said the 49ers checked through a third party on the interest level of Oklahoma Coach Stoops. But this smacked of trying to convince fans sights were set higher than they actually were. The 49ers had to know Stoops would have wanted too much power and money -- at least $4 million -- to fit into what Donahue calls ``our structure.''
Stoops wasn't interested.
``I told you from the start,'' Donahue said, ``we were looking for three things -- leadership, someone who would fit into our structure, and a ball coach. We found that man. Dennis Erickson is a heck of a ball coach.''
No doubt he can game-plan, call plays and manage a game. No doubt he's perfectly content to make $2.5 million -- more than double his $1.1 million at Oregon State -- to keep his mouth shut and just coach ball. No doubt he's willing to inherit the offensive coaches under contract, keep the 49ers' terminology and change very little except perhaps to go deep a little more.
But my definition of leadership differs greatly from Donahue's. He means clock management, getting the ball early and often to Terrell Owens and going for the throat with a lead. He means football-coaching leadership.
At Miami and Oregon State, Erickson often recruited and skillfully utilized talent with gray-area character. But he couldn't always control his players' on-field celebrating or off-field law breaking. At Seattle, where his four Seahawks teams went 31-33, his players sometimes ran over him, breaking team rules or playing more as individuals. Especially on defense, those underachieving teams were as talented as any in the NFL.
But Donahue seemed only vaguely aware of all that. To Donahue this is irrelevant irony: While he said ``character remains our No. 1 priority in drafting,'' he hired a coach who didn't always value character in recruiting. Donahue's view: He'll keep drafting high-character players for Erickson to coach.
Erickson had better hope they have more ability than last year's first-rounder, Mike Rumph, whose character also was perhaps overestimated by Donahue. Rumph is contesting a DUI.
Was Donahue concerned about Erickson's past problems with alcohol? ``Nobody's perfect,'' Donahue said. ``We're completely comfortable with all that.''
All that really matters to Donahue is what he experienced firsthand in 1988. Erickson brought his Washington State Cougars to Los Angeles and knocked off Donahue's UCLA team, then ranked No. 1. You might say Erickson won this job that day.
``Dennis is very aggressive on offense and defense,'' said Donahue, who wasn't always pleased with Mariucci's attack mentality.
Was Donahue apologetic about pursuing a coach who had just committed to 21 new recruits? No, he seemed surprised that anyone would be offended by this. He said he always warned his UCLA recruits to choose a school and a recruiting class, not a coach. Donahue's attitude: No matter the timing, how could any coach not consider the San Francisco 49ers?
Was Donahue apologetic about having to sneak around to interview college coaches? No, he said, ``These coaches have programs to protect.'' Donahue considered his search ``fair and methodical,'' not surreptitious and beneath the 49ers' dignity, as some observers did.
The low point: The indignant statement released Monday by University of Washington Coach Rick Neuheisel, who played and coached for Donahue. ``Slick Rick'' insisted he had not been contacted about the 49ers job. But a team source confirmed Neuheisel was in Santa Clara on Sunday interviewing with all the team brass.
No matter. Neuheisel had a little too much Mariucci in him and no NFL experience. He would have been viewed as ``Terry's boy.'' Erickson, a rough-hewn, low-ego 55-year-old who knows his NFL X's and O's, is the safer choice.
Silly me. I got caught up in how Tampa Bay's Glazer family fired their Mariucci, Tony Dungy, and spared no expense in going after Bill Parcells, then Jon Gruden. I got sidetracked by how Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who tried coaching cogs for six sorry seasons, finally admitted his mistake and sprang for Parcells.
That, I thought, was what the 49ers deserved.
But their structure tells you Donahue is at least as valuable as the coaching cog. By Donahue's definition, Erickson is a great choice. In my misguided view, the 49ers deserved better.
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