On the New Coach, Ray Ratto, and Giving York a Break

From sf49ers.com Q and A on hiring a new coach:

RE: Looking for a new coach or GM first?

"We think at this time of the year - by going after the head coach first - that it gives the 49ers the best opportunity to get a look at the best candidates and the most candidates so that we can use the NFL experience and the winning tradition to make sure that we get the right coach to get us back to winning."

--John York
January 5, 2005

OK, so here's my take, for what it's worth.

If York and his staff really went through "the best and the most" candidates for the coaching position, and came out at the end with Mike Nolan, then its another case in point of how the mighty have fallen. Time was, working for the San Francisco Forty-Niners was the plum position, one that everyone halfway qualified would have jumped at.

For the record, I've got nothing against Mike Nolan. I'm sure he's a stand-up guy, who's always wanted to be a head coach in the NFL; who stood in the back of the room when his dad held team meetings and ran film, etc.; who has football in his blood, genes, chromosomes, etc. Seriously. I'm certain that, given the nice things said about him all over the Niner's official website (everything but curing cancer and ending world hunger), he's been a good defensive coordinator and a good assistant. I'm sure he pays his taxes on time, checks his tire pressure regularly, buys Girl Scout cookies every year, and never speeds. I imagine the guy is aces. The jury is out, of course, on his coaching skills, and will be until the season gets underway.

That being said, I tend to think like Ratto in this case, that he may have leapt toward a head coaching position in the NFL by telling himself a story that this is the chance of a lifetime, blah, blah, blah, ignoring the facts that we've laid out for him to consider, along with the semi-fat salary and the rest of it. His genuine affection for the Niners may have dimmed his ability to consider all of the ramifications (for himself and the team) before making his decision. It happens all the time, in all types of workplaces.

Mr. Ratto asks us in today's column to lay off the Yorks for awhile, on the logic that we've said it all already and he ought to be given a chance to make good on his promises, Well, with all due respect to Ray (about whom I said yesterday-"that guy can curmudge like no other curmudgeon anywhere"), my experience over the past few years--particularly this last one--leaves me feeling completely unable to give Dr. York even a microscopic break. He took my team apart. He put it on life support. He dismantled it slowly, ignoring the pleas of far smarter people than me while he did it. Methodically. Without passion. The guy is a sociopath among sports franchise owners.

Good for you, Coach Nolan for giving it a go, and vaya con dios. No one will be happier than me if and when the Niners recover. I never asked to become skeptical about this team and its chances. I could never have imagined it happening. I make no claim to a journalist's objectivity--I'm just a fan. Now that Dr. York has "done unto" me and all othr Niner fans, Ray, you'll just have to forgive my need to hang onto my skepticism for a while yet-it's all that's holding me together.