San Francisco 49ers: Ex-Owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. Deserves Hall of Fame Call

This Saturday, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will announce who will be enshrined as the class of 2012. The 17 finalists include several spectacular former players, both offensive and defensive. They also feature one of the most reputable coaches in NFL history—Bill Parcells—and one of the NFL’s most successful team owners, Eddie DeBartolo, Jr.

If the Hall of Fame voters get it right, DeBartolo will earn a spot among football’s immortals.

Before the most recent successes of last season, the 49ers were one of the more respected and esteemed franchises in the league, coinciding with the ownership DeBartolo, from 1977 to 2000. There was the NFL-record 16 straight seasons with 10-plus wins. The five Super Bowl titles. The revered Mt. Rushmore of NFL greats: Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott and Bill Walsh.

The architect of the San Francisco 49ers’ dynasty was DeBartolo himself. He was the mastermind behind it all, the man who built San Francisco’s accomplishments from the ground up.

True, DeBartolo did not play a single down during those Super Bowl victories. He didn’t draft Jerry Rice out of timbuk-Mississippi Valley State. He didn’t ignite the trade for Steve Young in 1987. And yet every 49er during the 80s and 90s knows that DeBartolo was the reason for all of the organization’s achievements.

He was the perfect blend of hands-on-hands-off as an owner. He let the right people do what they were supposed to do, trusting the appropriate football personnel to make the right decisions themselves. It obviously helped that he employed The Genius, Bill Walsh, as the head coach in 1978.

Apropos to the Bay Area’s template, the Niners were somewhat of a start-up company when DeBartolo became the team’s owner. Walsh was the software engineer with the great website idea for a West Coast offense; while DeBartolo was the venture capitalist who provides the playful, creative and effervescent corporate atmosphere.

Make no mistake, however—DeBartolo demanded and expected success. But it was that balance of stern team goals in a loyal and warm work environment that made the 49ers a cut above all other franchises.

His early business acumen and savvy was honed while working in his father’s own successful company. With his background in his family’s business, DeBartolo made it a focal point to bring and cultivate that same comfort and familiarity to his Niners. It was a family atmosphere up and down and throughout the organization—in the locker room, in the front office, on the football field, in the Candlestick Park parking lot.

It was his caring persona—and business model—that turned the San Francisco 49ers into the most desirable team to play for. It was his generosity and kindness that turned his players and employees into family members. And it was his intense desire and faith that turned the entire franchise into the most successful dynasty in football history.

Clearly, DeBartolo set the standard for running a sports team. He wasn’t overly involved with day-to-day personnel moves (Dan Snyder). He wasn’t the face of the franchise (Jerry Jones). He didn’t micromanage (Al Davis). And yet DeBartolo never hid in the shadows and escaped responsibility. He never took too much credit when they won, and he never shied too far away from blame when criticism was warranted.

Today’s football owners sometimes seem out of the loop or right dab square in the middle of a knot that they can’t get themselves out of. Meddling in player acquisitions, throwing money in the wrong directions, misfiring on coaching changes, they treat the franchise as a cash cow instead of a workplace of friends and family. They make decisions based on the bottom line, not from the heart, not with the best interest of the people and players who are the team itself.

Those actions do not equate to decades of success and multiple championship appearances. Those are not the actions of Eddie DeBartolo, Jr.

The 49ers franchise was the epitome of both a successful team and a successful family business. They were the paradigm that all other teams aspired to over the past couple of decades. And the fact that the Niners’ dynasty crumbled and legacy paused when DeBartolo sold the team in 2000 shows the greatness of DeBartolo’s imprint on the organization.

That it has taken nearly 12 years to achieve a modicum of the same level of success that the team reached annually with DeBartolo at the helm demonstrates how he impacted the Niners and the rest of the league.

Lott, Montana, Rice, Young all having been enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the past 10 years. They obviously represent some of the greatest talents on the football field. That so many players within the past 30 years are even eligible to be enshrined into football’s greatest brotherhood is a testament to the man that helped bring them all together.

It would only be appropriate to see the father of the Niners during their glory years take his place among the sport’s greatest influential members.

Here’s hoping that Eddie D gets his call to the Hall on Saturday.