The great experiment ended when Bill Walsh stepped down as head football coach at Stanford.
"I just felt this was an appropriate time to move to another phase of my life," Walsh said at a press conference on Monday. "Anyone who looks at my chronological age would have no trouble understanding that."At this point of my life, the head coach's salary and the trappings that go with it are not that important to me." Walsh will turn 63 Wednesday.
Ted Leland, the university's athletic director, said Walsh will remain at Stanford with the title of assistant to the athletic director for special projects. His duties will include fund raising, participating in a coaching-development project and helping to initiate a sports institute. Walsh also may run a quarterbacks' camp and continue a minority coaches' school, which he began last spring.
People close to Walsh said he was worn out by the last two seasons, in which Stanford had a combined record of 7-14-1. Several times near the end of the 1993 season and again this year, Walsh confided to friends his fear that he lacked the energy to lead the football program.
"Maybe I'm just getting too old to do this," Walsh told his assistant coaches at a staff meeting Monday morning. He apologized for several emotional outbursts during the season, one in which he reportedly hurled an eraser across a conference room and then stormed out.
Walsh's wife, Geri, and his close friends have apparently been encouraging him to step down.
Walsh returned to Stanford before the 1992 season. His move back to college came as a shock to most football fans. He had won three Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers and was voted Coach of the Decade for the 1980s. At the press conference announcing his return, Walsh quoted the late philosopher Joseph Campbell, saying, "This is my bliss."
And it was blissful in his first season. Under his leadership, Stanford went 10-3 and beat Penn State in the Blockbuster Bowl. But when his senior class graduated, Walsh was left with inferior talent.
After Stanford lost to Cal in the 1993 Big Game, someone yelled at Walsh, "You're no damn genius." This bothered Walsh for several weeks.
When Walsh's team faltered this year, there were stories of a division between upper and lower classmen on his team. "I had hoped to do better this year," Walsh said.
"I have learned to live with those things (losses). They're not, in my mind, shameful. I do believe I did an effective job."
Leland said he will begin a national search for a new head coach as soon as possible.
The coaching vacancy comes at a time when major universities invite prospective student athletes to visit their campuses. Stanford has eight recruits visiting this weekend, 18 the next.