Frontpage Features

BY RON BARR

The day before the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis, the NFL and the selection committee will announce the inductees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  Once again, Ed DeBartolo, Jr. is a semi-finalist.  From a list that includes Bill Parcells, Tim Brown, Cris Carter, Andre Reed, former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and others, between four and seven candidates will be elected.  Certainly any of these names are worthy of induction.  But, it’s now time to acknowledge DeBartolo with this honor.

For 23 years, between 1977 and 2000, DeBartolo resurrected a moribund San Francisco 49ers franchise and re-built it into a winning organization that won 5 Super Bowl Championships and set the standard for excellence in professional football.  With his hiring of Bill Walsh, they re-defined the way the game was played, how to build and manage a successful football organization, how to make players feel they weren’t simply an athletic commodity, and healed and re-inspired a community’s spirit.

By any measure and definition of what qualifies a person to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, DeBartolo qualifies.  The numbers speak for themselves.  The DeBartolo owned 49ers had one of the greatest dynasties in the NFL and sports history during the 1980s and early 1990s, winning five Super Bowl Championships including four in the 1980s.  In fact, the 49ers are the only team in NFL history to appear in more than one Super Bowl without ever losing.  With DeBartolo funding and molding the 49er organization, and Walsh drafting young, talented players, signing free agents and coaching, they changed the way the game was played, how winning organizations are built and set the standard for success and excellence on and off the field.  And, from DeBartolo’s ownership era came 7 Hall of Famers-Walsh, quarterbacks Joe Montana and Steve Young, wide receiver Jerry Rice, defensive backs Ronnie Lott and Deion Sanders and defensive lineman Fred Dean.

DeBartolo’s Hall of Fame qualifying credentials extend beyond the playing field.  While his astute hiring of Bill Walsh changed how the game was played, it also brought a new excitement to NFL fans and helped increase attendance across the league as other teams replicated the 49ers exciting, wide open, West Coast offense.  It’s fair to say the 49ers success and style of play was instrumental in pushing the NFL and pro football past Major League Baseball as America’s number one fan favorite sport and most financially successful sport.

On a personal level, I witnessed DeBartolo’s human touch on his players, the fans and the entire San Francisco Bay Area.  When one of his players, Jeff Fuller, was hurt in a game that immediately ended his career, DeBartolo was in the ambulance with him to the hospital and set up an annuity fund to take care of Fuller’s needs for life.  He was always gracious and giving when it came to making sure that kids who couldn’t afford a 49er ticket got them.  And, when the Bay Area suffered through the gut wrenching, emotional trauma of San Francisco mayor George Moscone’s assassination and the mass murder of many Bay Area residents at Jonestown in Guyana, it was the 49ers first Super Bowl win and ongoing success that helped ease the pain and bring the community back together again.

DeBartolo is out of the game now, but his contributions to it during his 23 year ownership not only resulted in his team’s great success with 5 Super Bowl Championships and 6 players and a coach going to the Hall of Fame, but also it led to a more exciting brand of football and greater league success.  DeBartolo contributed to the game in a manner that is worthy of his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and now is the time to do that.

Ron Barr is an Emmy award winning writer and the host of the nationally and internationally syndicated sports talk show, Sports Byline USA.