Friends Who Happen to Coach : Raiders’ Mike White and Bill Walsh Do Talk Some Football, but the Relationship Goes Much Deeper Than That

Heads turned when Bill Walsh, who had coached the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl titles, strode onto the field last month at the Oakland Raiders’ Oxnard training camp at the invitation of new Coach Mike White.

But White insisted that Walsh wasn’t there to retool the Raider offense.

“When Bill came to Oxnard, we talked some football, but it was more of a friendship type of thing,” White said.

Walsh, 63, and White, 59, who were assistants together at Cal and Stanford, have been friends for 35 years.

“We got into coaching at the same time and our families are close,” White said. “It may sound corny, but we raised each others’ kids. We shared a lot of growth together.”

The families even vacationed together at Lake Tahoe.

“Bill doesn’t know how to drive a boat very well,” White said. “I’ve had to bail him out a few times. My son, Matt, has always been Bill’s unofficial boat resource. When Bill went to buy the boat, Matt helped him. When he got repairs, Matt had to do it. The first time he tried to start it, we had to help him.”

Now Walsh, enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993, was returning the favor, helping White get started in his first NFL head coaching job.

Although White has changed the Raider offense, installing a short passing attack similar to the one Walsh used with the 49ers, Walsh downplayed his role.

“I don’t know if I’ve helped out,” he said. “I’ve talked to Mike on occasion, but he’s doing everything very, very well. I’m not part of their staff in any way. I do root for him and have a lot of feeling for him.”

John F. Kennedy was running for president when their friendship began.

They were assistants at Cal from 1960-62, under Marv Levy, now coach of the Buffalo Bills.

“We both felt that at some point, we’d be head coaches, but we were thinking college in those years,” Walsh said. “Mike, naturally, wanted to be the head coach at Cal some day.”

They worked long hours for little pay.

“I think I was making $7,500 a year,” Walsh said. “I think I was making more than Mike, although he’d never admit it. I think he was making $7,200 a year.”

Walsh sensed early that White had a bright future.

“He was a dynamic guy, just terrific,” Walsh said. “He had a lot of charisma and charm, as you might guess. He had a magnetic personality, and he was a terrific coach.”

White and Walsh coached at Cal together for three years before Walsh left to become an assistant to John Ralston at Stanford.

Then they recruited against each other intensely for a year.

“It was Watergate kind of stuff,” Walsh said. “It was dirty-trick recruiting between Mike and I. We were pulling out every stop in recruiting.”

Then White followed Walsh to Stanford in 1964. Dick Vermeil, who went on to coach at UCLA and with the Philadelphia Eagles, and Jim Mora, now coach of the New Orleans Saints, were also on the staff.

White, Walsh and Vermeil often took their wives wine-tasting in the Napa Valley.

After visiting several wineries, they would unwind at one of the many mineral baths in the area.

“It wasn’t unlike us to try 20 different types of wines between the three of us and our wives,” White said. “And then we’d go to one of those mineral baths and we’d be the ones doing handstands in the hot tub.”

They worked as hard as they played.

“They were bright young guys that you knew would go far in the profession,” said Ralston, now the coach at San Jose State. “I stayed out of their way and tried to put rope around them and hold them back a little bit.

“They had tremendous enthusiasm and a great work ethic. They were very creative guys who were executives in their own right. They both had executive talent. I knew that they would eventually hit the height of the profession.”

White became a head coach first, when he was hired by Cal in 1972.

Walsh, meanwhile, paid his dues in the NFL, spending 11 years as an assistant with the Raiders, Cincinnati Bengals and San Diego Chargers before he was hired as Stanford’s head coach in 1977.

Walsh and White coached against each other in 1977, Walsh guiding Stanford to a 21-3 victory in the Big Game.

“It was a weird feeling, coaching against one of your best friends,” White said. “It was fun, but I don’t even remember the score of the game.”

White and Walsh were reunited when White became Walsh’s administrative assistant with the 49ers for one season before leaving to become head coach at Illinois.

After White was fired by Illinois in 1987, Walsh persuaded Raider owner Al Davis to hire White as an assistant.

White thought then that he would never be a head coach again.

“As the years went on, I doubted whether I’d have an opportunity to be a head coach [in the NFL],” White said. “I thought time would pass me by. In this business, you’re a hot item or you’re not, and I certainly wasn’t a hot item.”

But White succeeded Art Shell as coach of the Raiders last February, and one of his first moves was to call Walsh.

“I haven’t talked technical football with him at all,” Walsh said. “Whatever he’s had is his. I haven’t been a real factor. Early on, we talked organization and practice planning, but as far as his offense, I haven’t had any real involvement.”

Said White: “When Bill came to Oxnard I was more interested in hearing his evaluations of the people that we have, rather than him drawing a play on the board. That’s not what I would expect out of Bill.

“Bill and I talk philosophically. We talk about trends and developing a style of passing that your personnel is good at. That’s probably more important to me than anything. And that’s why my relationship with Bill has been strong. I try to dig those things out of him, rather than a play.”