SEATTLE — It was a game he could have missed, maybe should have missed.
Really, who would have blamed San Francisco 49ers coach Mike Nolan for skipping Monday night’s game against the Seattle Seahawks, given the death of his father — former NFL head coach Dick Nolan — one day earlier?
Yet there he was, striding the sideline at Qwest Field, just as he does every week of the NFL season. Just as his dad once did at head coaching stops in San Francisco and New Orleans.
Dick Nolan, who was 75, died Sunday at an assisted-living facility near Dallas, where he had lived in recent years. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and prostate cancer, and had rarely been seen in public in recent months.
“I thought about him before the game,” Nolan said, minutes after Seattle’s 24-0 victory. “I might have thought about him once or twice during the game. But to be honest with you, I probably did that in a normal week.
“But I don’t want to make this all about me because it’s not,” he said. “Our football team lost a game for an entirely different reason. … I’d rather just keep it on a team level, if you don’t mind. I think that’s more accurate for us all.”
A six-game San Francisco losing streak had to be weighing on Nolan’s mind Monday, but it couldn’t have matched the weight on his heart. Dick Nolan was not only Mike’s football mentor, but also one of his closest friends. When his health permitted, he frequently attended 49ers practices and games, lending expertise and support to his son.
The aggravations and ecstasies of football can best be understood by those inside the game. Dick and Mike Nolan had always been there for each other, sharing their highs and lows at many times over the years. A father-son tandem of generational football wisdom.
And maybe that’s why Mike Nolan decided to coach on Monday. Because his father, also a coach, would have understood.
Dick Nolan spent his entire professional life in football. A native of White Plains, N.Y., he went on to the University of Maryland, and then to nine seasons in the NFL as a safety for the New York Giants, Chicago Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys from 1954-62.
After retiring as a player, he became an assistant to Tom Landry with the Dallas Cowboys for six seasons. He then became the 49ers’ head coach from 1968-75, and his teams in 1970 and 1971 were a win against the Cowboys away from reaching the Super Bowl.
Mike, the third of six Nolan children, got his start in football as a 49ers ballboy during his dad’s years there. It was a moment of great pride for the two of them when Mike was named the team’s head coach — replacing Dennis Erickson — in January of 2005.
Later that summer, in his first game on the 49ers sideline, Mike wore the championship ring his father had won as a defensive back with the Giants in 1956. The younger Nolan won his head coaching debut, 28-25 over the St. Louis Rams.
Before Monday’s game, as the teams warmed up at Qwest Field, Nolan was approached by several Seahawks coaches and players, all with words of condolence.
Among them, Seattle head coach Mike Holmgren.
“I went through this with my mom a couple of years ago,” Holmgren said, “and it’s hard.”
Holmgren grew up in the San Francisco area and was a 49ers fan in the Dick Nolan era. He remembers 1970 and 1971, when the 49ers faced the Dallas Cowboys in championship games for the right to advance to the Super Bowl.
“Those playoff games against Dallas, I was there and I remember them,” Holmgren said. “And (Dick Nolan) did a great job of coaching the 49ers. He was a great player and a great guy. I enjoyed him.”
By deciding to coach against the Seahawks “maybe it gave him some time to take his mind off it a little bit,” said Seattle linebacker Julian Peterson, who played for Mike Nolan in 2005 before coming to Seattle as a free agent. “Just going back to what you normally do. But it’s always tough when somebody that close to you dies. And I knew he was very close to his father.”
Mike Nolan missed team practices on Friday and Saturday to be with his father in Texas, but joined his team in Seattle on Sunday.
“As soon as we got off the plane, he let us know what had happened,” said linebacker Derek Smith. “But that he was still going to coach the game.”
The 49ers wanted to win for a lot of reasons, most obviously a six-game losing streak. But several players also said how much they wanted to win for their coach.
“I wanted to win this game for the sake of winning because I always want to win,” said San Francisco tight end Vernon Davis. “But when I heard about coach Nolan’s father, I was definitely more eager to win. I had plans that if I scored I was going to give the ball to him in honor of his father.”
“I know it’s tough because I’ve been through it, playing (last season) when my mom passed,” said running back Frank Gore. “It shows a lot of heart and how much he really cares about us to come out here and still coach. It’s tough, but I’m happy that he did. I just wish it would have come out better.”
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