At a time when the sports leagues are under seige from drugs, gambling and violence, the loss of one of the really "Good and Decent Guys" in the game seems to hurt a lot more.
However, the other way to look at the death of Bill Walsh today, is that sports fans, especially football fans, have a chance to recollect and reminisce about a football genius that was both intellectual and classy.
It’s hard to imagine Bill Walsh ever leading a team who’s star players flirted with the law, or engaged in all out illegal behavior. You think of "Walsh’s guys" – Montana, Rice, Craig, Lott, Clark, Young, etc….guys you couldn’t root against even when you were supporting another team.
Over the weekend, babeball inducted two of their own high-class players into their Hall of Fame – Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn. When reading the Sunday features about these two gentlemen of the game, it was difficult not to make mental comparisons to the players today that would fill their shoes. Besides someone like Ichiro and Craig Biggio, it’s hard to imagine who will be grabbing the torch.
But back to football – where the Walsh legacy will live on thanks to the long list of Bill’s apprentices who went on to long coaching careers in the NFL. Perhaps more and more of these coaches will remember back to lessons Walsh taught, choosing players who love football and achievment, and see that long-term financial rewards come from being good people and players at the same time. Maybe the fans will start to look to Lindsay, Paris and other Hollywood convicts for their crime fix, and revert back to admiration of the players who excel on the field and serve as good role models without trying to.
If there’s anything the loss of Bill Walsh this week can remind us, it’s that good guys win lots of games. And fans spend a lot of money to watch teams win games. Maybe losing one good guy this week will help teams and players look to character as an imprtant trait, and we’ll soon be able to look back at last week as the low point in professional sports, the point where things actually turned around.
