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One Tough Customer Outspoken Niners assistant Bobb McKittrick is battling cancer and liver disease with the same fierce determination that made him one of the best coaches in the gameBy Michael Silver
They were embattled behemoths in big trouble, and they felt like the smallest men on earth. Late in the third quarter of a game against the Eagles on a chilly September afternoon in Philadelphia 10 years ago, Harris Barton and his fellow San Francisco 49ers offensive linemen trudged off the field with their heads down and their ears pricked. Joe Montana, the Niners' fine china, had been sacked eight times. The Eagles led by 11 points, and censure was a certainty: Coach George Seifert's face was convulsing like Mick Jagger's, offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren was growling into his headset, and offensive line coach Bobb McKittrick was preparing to vent his frustrations. As the linemen took a seat on the bench, McKittrick stared down at veterans Guy McIntyre, Bubba Paris and Jesse Sapolu and said calmly, "You three might want to start praying about now." Then he turned to Barton. "And Harris," McKittrick added, "if you know a Jewish prayer, you might want to say it." Without swearing, getting personal or raising his voice, McKittrick, a former Marine who makes Chris Rock seem vague and indirect, had delivered a sharp motivational message. The linemen buckled down, Montana threw four touchdown passes in the fourth quarter, and San Francisco won by 10. The next day McKittrick called Montana into an offensive line meeting and apologized for the breakdown in protection. Montana shrugged it off, but word got around, giving players another reason to respect a man who may be the most successful position coach of his era. In a business in which coaches get relocated, recycled and removed as a matter of course, McKittrick, 63, has been the Niners' offensive line coach for 20 seasons. During that time San Francisco has won five Super Bowls and put together the most successful two-decade run in NFL history, and the fact that McKittrick has been entrenched in the same job throughout that span, under three head coaches, is not accidental. In addition to routinely milking exceptional production out of players overlooked or cast off by other teams, McKittrick has been the glue that has held together the Niners' vaunted West Coast attack. Bill Walsh, recently rehired as San Francisco's general manager, says McKittrick "has developed more offensive line knowledge than anyone, ever. The continuity of the line, its consistent ability to protect the quarterback and open running lanes, has been the cornerstone of the 49ers' success over the past 20 years, and without Bobb, I don't think it happens. His men have played longer, with better technique, more production, fewer injuries. In every possible category you can measure, he's right at the top." The Niners are so queasy about the notion of ever working without McKittrick that they told him he'd have a job for life when he was mulling an offer to become the St. Louis Rams' offensive coordinator after the 1994 season. He recently signed a two-year deal, and in the weeks leading up to the draft, he was busy breaking down film on top line prospects -- an endeavor that in most years is about as fruitful for McKittrick as Academy Award voters viewing Brian Bosworth movies. The San Francisco brass concentrates on drafting talent at other positions and relies on McKittrick to excel with lesser-regarded linemen. Few coaches have done so much with so little, but no one is taking McKittrick for granted anymore. In January, four days after the 49ers were eliminated from the NFC playoffs by the Atlanta Falcons, McKittrick received a medical double whammy: Doctors told him that he had cancer and that he needed a liver transplant. McKittrick, whose colon was removed 17 years ago after precancerous cells were detected, has a malignancy on his bile duct. He has begun undergoing radiation and chemotherapy at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. He needs a liver transplant because he is suffering from cholangiocarcinoma. He is on a waiting list for a new liver. While his relatives, friends and colleagues are worried sick, McKittrick, predictably, has been calm, even upbeat. Though down 20 pounds from his normal 200, he insists on keeping the bulk of his coaching responsibilities, faithfully reporting to work with the catheter used to administer chemotherapy treatments sticking out of his left arm. "It's a difficult situation," he says, "but I went through six weeks of boot camp, and it can't be any worse than that. I think I can go through anything -- and it sure beats the alternative." On a mild Monday afternoon in late March, McKittrick walks into the three-bedroom house in San Mateo where he and his wife, Teckla, have lived since 1979. "You've got this place freezing," he tells her before leaving the room to turn up the heat. "He's cold," Teckla says to a visitor. "Now can you tell something's wrong?" Raised in Baker, a northeast Oregon farm town where the winters are frigid, McKittrick developed a stubborn resistance to cold at an early age. He unfailingly wears shorts and a T-shirt to even the most bone-chilling practice sessions, and when the 49ers travel to colder climes, McKittrick packs lightly. During a Monday-night game played in freezing rain at Chicago's Soldier Field in October 1988, McKittrick wore a short-sleeve shirt but no jacket. At one point his teeth were chattering so much that he was unable to enunciate a running play to Walsh, who subsequently decreed that all coaches must cover their arms during harsh weather. When the Niners returned to Chicago the following January for the NFC Championship Game, McKittrick complied with the new policy by donning a windbreaker -- on a day in which the windchill factor reached -47[degrees]. At such moments McKittrick, with his shaved head and stocky frame, seems to be as much caricature as character. "Everybody notices the physical part, but when it comes to emotional strength, he's probably the toughest person I know," says Seifert, who now coaches the Carolina Panthers. "He has an ability to deal with things that would shatter most people." After having his colon removed, McKittrick wore a colostomy bag for a year before a second operation allowed him to discard it. "He had this device strapped to his hip," Seifert says, "and I'll never forget the sight of him running onto the practice field holding that bag so it wouldn't fall. How devastating and emotionally trying that must have been. Had it been me, I don't know that I could have coached again." McKittrick's toughness is rivaled only by his bluntness. "He's brutally honest with me, too," says Teckla, who married Bobb in 1958. "It's one thing when he tells me my hair looks funny, but I'm constantly worried he's going to get fired [for speaking his mind]." Barton says he and other linemen used to write down some of McKittrick's more eye-opening statements. "One of the classics was when we drafted this 6'7" guy named Larry Clarkson [in '88]," Barton says. "Every day in training camp [defensive end] Charles Haley would run around him, then so would the second-teamer, and Larry would end up on the ground. Finally we're in a meeting one night, and Bobb says, 'Jeez, Larry, I don't think you have the coordination to take the fork from the plate to your mouth.'" As harsh as he sometimes sounds, McKittrick gets away with it, partly because he can take criticism as unemotionally as he dishes it out. He regularly challenges his bosses in meetings, but, says Seifert, "after a while, that becomes part of the charm of the man." McKittrick says one reason he has not sought jobs with bigger titles is the political correctness he associates with such roles. "I'd rather teach than be an administrator," he says. "I don't like a lot of the things that administrators have to do." While some head coaches might view vocal dissent as a threat, at least one of McKittrick's friends -- a man who had some pretty decent success as UCLA's basketball coach from 1949 to '75 -- believes it's invaluable. "An assistant coach who's afraid to speak his mind isn't very helpful," says John Wooden, who grew close to McKittrick during the latter's stint as a Bruins football assistant from 1965 to '70. "A head coach should never want a yes-man: He'll just inflate your ego, and your ego's probably big enough as it is. An assistant as bright as Bobb could only be an asset." Honest as he is, McKittrick could not bring himself to tell Teckla about his cancer. He found out shortly before they embarked upon a nine-day trip to visit their two sons, in Oregon and California and, not wanting to spoil the vacation, stayed mum. For all of Bobb's sensible stoicism, Teckla is his polar opposite, an emotional worry-wart who sheds tears as readily as some people clear their throats. They met as Oregon State undergrads at a study table, conversing for 20 minutes in a group setting. "The next day," Teckla says, "he told someone he had met the woman he was going to marry." Together they've had more of a life together than most coaching couples, sharing a passion for history that has inspired vacations to places like Normandy and Russia as well as cruises on the Danube and the Baltic Sea. In late January, McKittrick returned from his vacation and went back to work, figuring he'd break the news to Teckla that evening. Before he could, however, he received a frantic call from her: An oncologist's assistant had phoned the McKittrick house to confirm an appointment. "My wife was in tears for the next two weeks," Bobb says. "She hears cancer and immediately thinks, You're going to die. That's not the way I'm approaching it." McKittrick's approach to life has never been orthodox. In seventh grade he added a third b to his first name because, he says, "I just wanted to be different." A high school valedictorian who was also a decorated student at Oregon State, McKittrick was persuaded by Tommy Prothro, his coach when he walked on as an offensive lineman for the Beavers, to return to his alma mater as an assistant after his three years of service in the Marines. McKittrick followed Prothro to UCLA, the Los Angeles Rams and then to the San Diego Chargers, where he and fellow assistant Walsh became friends. When Walsh was hired as 49ers coach in 1979, he asked McKittrick to come along. McKittrick compares Walsh's recent return to the 49ers, who had been reeling from front-office turmoil, to Churchill's reign as Britain's prime minister during World War II. "He had been out of favor," McKittrick says, "but when the Nazis were threatening to overrun Europe, they turned to him for his dynamic leadership, and he held them together." McKittrick is not only a voracious reader of nonfiction but also a genealogy freak who serves as an unofficial historian for his hometown. He also keeps a meticulous journal designed to "give my [two] grandkids an idea of what my life was like." According to his good friend, Loring De Martini, McKittrick's life is easy to describe: "Bobb is almost a saint. He's a guy who has never willfully done a wrong thing." Not everyone would nominate him for sainthood. Drawing on some of the blocking methods he learned from Prothro, McKittrick recruited relatively small, agile linemen and taught them techniques -- the cut block, the reverse-shoulder block, the chop -- most of which were legal, at least when executed perfectly, but which infuriated opponents. After a 1985 game, Los Angeles Raiders defensive lineman Howie Long charged after McKittrick in a tunnel at the L.A. Coliseum and vented; the two haven't spoken since. In his book Dark Side of the Game, former Falcons defensive lineman Tim Green referred to McKittrick as Dr. Mean. McKittrick notes that in recent years, at least a third of the teams in the NFL have adopted his controversial techniques. "Those big, tough guys on defense want to play our strength against their strength," he says. "I'd rather play our strength against their weakness." McKittrick's supporters far outnumber his detractors. Holmgren, 49ers coach Steve Mariucci and Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan credit him with helping them assimilate Walsh's concepts, and Raiders coach Jon Gruden, who began his NFL career breaking down film for McKittrick in 1990, refers to McKittrick as "my idol, the best coach I've ever been around." Shanahan says McKittrick, with whom he worked for three seasons as a San Francisco assistant, "has forgotten more football than I know, but what really stands out is his incredible work ethic. He leaves no stone unturned, and that's why everybody considers him the best in the business." Alas, McKittrick's prowess as a coach is not at the forefront of his friends' minds. Call someone looking for a quote, and instead of answers you get questions: How's Bobb? Is he going to get his liver? The answers are unclear, but things could be better. The chemotherapy has sapped McKittrick, and last weekend he was hospitalized with a 104[degree] temperature. He has another worry. In mid-March, Teckla was rushed to Stanford's emergency room with what doctors feared was a heart attack. It turned out to be a problem with her gallbladder, which is scheduled to be removed in early May. The doctors would like Bobb to finish fighting the cancer before replacing his liver, but he's one of many on a waiting list, and the timing is largely out of their control. Recently McKittrick was at Stanford shuttling between appointments when a team of physicians tracked him down. They ushered him and Teckla into a room and informed them that a liver had become available. The chief transplant surgeon, Carlos Esquivel, then explained the various risks, including the possibility that Bobb could die on the operating table. The doctors said they needed a decision within two hours. Teckla broke into tears. Bobb stroked her hand, calmly questioned the doctors and finally said, "Let's do it." He was told to return to the hospital later that afternoon for surgery. Teckla worried that he had rushed his decision, but Bobb said, "I made a life-altering decision 40 years ago in 20 minutes, and I haven't regretted it." He was sitting in the living room of his house when the phone rang. A nurse told him the doctors had found the liver to be unsuitable. When he repeated the news, Teckla's knees buckled and she fainted. Bobb took the news in stride. "He has incredibly tough skin," Barton says of his coach. "It's a crisis situation, but he won't show a weakness." Barton lets his thought hang for a moment; it occurs that he might want to say a Jewish prayer right about now. "Believe me," Barton says, "I will." He won't be alone. "When it comes to emotional strength, he's probably the toughest person I know," Seifert says of his former assistant. "Teckla was in tears for two weeks," says Bobb. "She hears cancer and immediately thinks, You're going to die. That's not the way I'm approaching it." McKittrick "has forgotten more football than I know," Shanahan says, "but what really stands out is his incredible work ethic." Issue date: April 26, 1999
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