Back To School

The vineyard should yield a hundred cases a year. "Walsh Wine sounds kind of flat." says Geri, who is ready to start designing a label. "We'll have to think of another name."

It is tradition on game days that anyone can join the Stanford players as they walk the quarter mile from Encina Gym, where they dress, to Stanford Stadium. Before the Arizona game, as the helmeted, scarlet-and-white-clad athletes passed adoring kids and tailgating families, they seemed suspended a finger's breadth above the earth. Perhaps it was just that they wore long cleats. You found yourself with Keena Turner and Wilson, both former 49ers, both brand-new Stanford assistant coaches.

"A lot of people were upset at Bill hiring us without coaching experience," said Turner. "But it's just a case of his vision, nothing new. It's like back in '82 when he put in three rookie defensive backs, and we won it all.

"The fun did leave for him near the end with the 49ers," continued Turner, who kept in touch with Walsh. "I just felt it was so stupid, considering what we'd been through together, to feel any reason we couldn't be lifetime friends."

Some hours later, well after the game, linebacker Ron George, an All-America candidate, is one of the last players to make the long walk back. He will not hear any listing of reasons why Stanford was at a disadvantage in the game.

"If you believe, as a player," he says in a fine wild rush, "that Arizona was fresher because they had a week off, or that we were down after playing Notre Dame and UCLA, you begin to look for excuses, and then you forget the inner element that got us here. What's hard is asking yourself, as I often do, What do I play for? A lot of the reason is in playing well, and a lot is in the win. When you don't get the prize.... I mean, it's a fleeting prize at best. How long does it last, an evening? So you honestly think, Why am I doing this? As long as I've played, I always forget that I will be eager again by next Monday."

The fans have thinned. "You want every fan to be as consumed by the fire of the game as you are," says George, "and of course not all of the fans at Stanford are. There are a lot of other fires here."

Thirty yards ahead, Bill and Geri Walsh walk hand in hand, apparently wordless, their privacy intact. You ask George, this fount of honesty, how Walsh is doing. "We don't talk about the coaches much," he says. "But for some reason, some players sat last week and tried to figure how much of our going 5-1 was us and how much was them. We took a lot of credit, sure, but we had to admit that Coach Walsh is a teacher at many levels. Of coaches, of players, of the community. Look, all our players got here because we had a thirst for the game. So Coach Walsh stays excited with us because he's excited about teaching. I mean, what's hard about seeing that?"