Walsh, one of only 21 coaches enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the only one nicknamed "The Genius,". He was known for his revolutionary offense, "cerebral practice regimens" and keen eye for talent, among many other things.

"Bill was blessed with one of the greatest gifts you can have, which is the ability to see the future potential of another human being. It just so happened that football was his expertise," Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young said in a recent interview. "He saw in me much more than I ever saw in myself, well before I ever had a chance to understand it. That is the ultimate compliment to the word 'coach.' There's nothing more a coach should be than to see the full potential of a player unfolded. I am eternally grateful to Bill Walsh."

At Stanford, three generations of student-athletes called Walsh "coach." He served as an assistant coach in the in the mid-1960s, and as head coach in the late 1970s and again in the early 1990s.

"Like the rest of the world, Stanford knew Bill Walsh as a great coach," said university President John Hennessy. "But we also knew him as much more than that: a true leader to his colleagues and a role model for the young men and women he worked with. His loyalty to Stanford was absolute, and he returned again and again to support the university long after he moved beyond his head coaching duties. Stanford is fortunate that he chose to give so much to the university and we will long remember his integrity, dedication and sense of values."

Walsh will be remembered as one of the greatest offensive minds in football history, particularly when it came to tutoring quarterbacks. He coached three Hall of Famers--Dan Fouts, Joe Montana and Steve Young--as well as former Cincinnati All Pro Ken Anderson.

At Stanford, the novel offensive strategies that would later come to be known as the "West Coast" offense originated as the "dink and dunk" offense, said former Cardinal quarterback Steve Dils, '78, who played for Walsh in 1977 and 1978.

Dils said Walsh emphasized the positive--what players could do to get better--instead of dwelling on what they were doing wrong. Still, Walsh was an exacting coach.

Dils said many coaches cared only if a quarterback completed a pass during practice--not how they did it. That wasn't good enough for Walsh, who scrutinized every aspect of a throw--timing, body mechanics, footwork, trajectory--and made Dils run the pass pattern five or six times until it was perfect, then said, "OK, that's right, now do it again."

Dils, who later played professional football in Minnesota, Los Angeles and Atlanta, said he played for some very good coaches. But none compared to Walsh.

"I learned more in two years from Bill about being a quarterback than I did in the rest of my 10 years in the NFL," said Dils, who now works in Atlanta for Grubb & Ellis, a commercial real estate advisory firm. "He taught me so much about the game."

In 1978, in a column in the San Francisco Examiner about the Stanford team, Frank Blackman described Walsh as the "life of the party" on the football field.

"His Stanford team, and the teams he directed as offensive coordinator in the pros at Cincinnati and San Diego, all have one thing in common," he wrote. "They're fun to watch."

It was a winning strategy for Walsh, who led Stanford to two bowl victories--the Sun Bowl in 1977 and the Bluebonnet Bowl in 1978.

The following year he left Stanford for an opportunity he had long coveted--head coach of an NFL team. In this case, he took over the then-woeful San Francisco 49ers and orchestrated one of the greatest success stories in the history of professional sports. In 1979, he took over a team that went 2-14 the previous season and transformed it into a Super Bowl champion in just three seasons. Under Walsh's direction, the 49ers won three Super Bowl titles (1982, 1985 and 1989), made seven NFC postseason appearances and claimed six NFC West Division Championships. He was twice named NFL Coach of the Year (1981, 1984) and was later named NFL Coach of the Decade for the 1980s. He resigned as head coach in 1989.

Aside from transforming the 49ers into one of the NFL's most dominant teams, Walsh was equally influential and innovative off the field. In 1987, Walsh launched the first minority coaching fellowship program to create more opportunities for minority coaches. The first two participants were Jerry Brown and Tyrone Willingham, now the head coach at the University of Washington. Marvin Lewis, head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, was selected by Walsh as a coaching fellow the following year in 1988. The league later implemented the program with all of its teams.

For a time, Walsh worked as a football analyst for NBC. But he couldn't stay off the field for long. In 1992, he returned to Stanford as head football coach. Lowell Cohn, author of the 1994 book Rough Magic: Bill Walsh's Return to Stanford Football, compared the press conference in Burnham Pavilion to a coronation of the blue-eyed, white-haired Walsh, who was cheered by 600 people--fans, alumni and staff--and more than six dozen reporters from around the country.

During the 1992 season, the Cardinal team achieved its first 10-win season since 1940, earned its first top-10 ranking in more than 20 years and won the Blockbuster Bowl. The next two years Stanford stumbled, with a 4-7 record in 1993 and a 3-7-1 record in 1994.

In 2002, Walsh began teaching a course on sports business management with Professor George Foster at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 2003, Walsh, Foster and former Stanford wide receiver Gene Washington combined to create the annual NFL-Stanford Executive Education Program, designed to develop and deepen the core business skills of league executives. Later, with a Harvard professor, Walsh and Foster wrote The Business of Sports: Cases and Text on Strategy and Management, published in 2005.

Walsh rejoined the Stanford Department of Athletics in early 2004 as special assistant to the athletic director, a position he held until his death--first under Leland, then Robert Bowlsby. Walsh helped with fundraising, gave coaching seminars and helped recruit athletes.

His reach in college athletics had extended beyond Stanford in recent years. In 2004 Walsh helped restore strength to the San Jose State University athletic department and football program by leading the committee to hire Thomas Bowen as director of athletics. Less than a month later he recruited Dick Tomey to become head football coach. Tomey has turned the moribund program into a winner, posting a 9-4 record and New Mexico Bowl crown in 2006. It was the university's first bowl game appearance in 17 years.

Walsh shared the secrets of his coaching philosophy and winning strategies in books. In 1990, he teamed up with sportswriter Glenn Dickey to write Building a Champion: On Football and the Making of the 49ers. Seven years later came Bill Walsh: Finding the Winning Edge.

He also took a lead role in expanding the sport globally. In 1994, Walsh was instrumental in the establishment and management of the World League of American Football, which later became known as NFL Europe.

Walsh's impact on the coaching industry is apparent by the rise of former assistants, players and people who have come under his influence, including Dennis Green, Mike Holmgren, Mike Shanahan, Ray Rhodes, Jeff Fisher, Sam Wyche, Rod Dowhower, Bruce Coslet, Sherman Lewis, Brian Billick, Gary Kubiak, George Seifert, Jon Gruden, Paul Hackett, Tom Holmoe, Dwaine Board, Bobb McKittrick, Bill McPherson, Steve Mariucci, Tom Rathman, Jim Mora, Greg Knapp, Harry Sydney and Tom Lovat.

Walsh, who was born in Los Angeles, played wide receiver at San Jose State University, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1955 and a master's degree in 1959, both in education.

Warner was hired by the University of Georgia as its new head football coach in 1895 at a salary of $34 per week. For the 1895-1896 academic year, Georgia's entire student body consisted of 126 students. This was Georgia's first year in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, a conference that it founded along with Alabama, Auburn, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Vanderbilt. Warner's first Georgia team had 3 wins against 4 losses.

The following year, Georgia rehired Warner and the team had an undefeated season (4 wins and 0 losses). While at Georgia, Warner also coached Iowa State University.  He coached teams from two schools simultaneously on three occasions: Iowa State and Georgia during the 1895 and 1896 seasons, Iowa State and Cornell in 1897 and 1898, and Iowa State and Carlisle in 1899. Warner's Iowa State record was 18-8-0, bringing Warner's total lifetime record to 337-114-32.

After his stint in Georgia, Warner returned to Cornell to coach football for two seasons. He then coached at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania from 1899-1903, returned to Cornell for three seasons, and returned again to Carlisle in 1907. During his second tenure at Carlisle, Warner coached one of the most famous American athletes, Jim Thorpe.

In 1914, Warner was hired by the University of Pittsburgh, where he coached his teams to 33 straight major wins and three national championships (1915, 1916 and 1918). He coached Pittsburgh from 1915 to 1923 to a 60-12-4 record.

The next team Warner coached was at Stanford University from 1924 to 1932, where his teams played in three Rose Bowl games, including the classic 1925 Rose Bowl game against Knute Rockne and the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. Warner added a fourth national championship in 1926.

Warner's final head coaching job was at Temple University where he coached for 5 years until retiring in 1938. He served as advisory football coach for several years at San Jose State College after his retirement from Temple.

Warner brought many innovative playing mechanics to college football:

• the screen pass
• spiral punt
• single- and double-wing formations
• the use of shoulder and thigh pads.

-- Courtesy Wikipedia

Jim Plunkett played at Stanford as quarterback during the 1968, 1969, and 1970 seasons. He completed 530 of 962 pass attempts in his collegiate career for 7,554 yards and 52 touchdowns, setting then school records in every category. During his time at Stanford, Plunkett played with other All-Americans such as Don Parish, Jeff Siemon, Malcolm Snider, and Pete Lazetich.

Plunkett remains in Stanford's history books for throwing the 2nd longest touchdown pass at 96 yards in 1970, the same year Plunkett was named 1st-Team All-American. The football great finished his career at Stanford with a school and NCAA record 7,887 yards in total offense. He went on to become the number-one draft pick in the NFL in 1971. Besides being elected to the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame, Plunkett was elected to the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 1989 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

In 1991, Plunkett's jersey, number 16, became the 2nd to be retired in Stanford's history. The other, belonging to Ernie Nevers, is displayed in the Hall of Fame Room next to Plunkett's.

The actual Hesiman Trophy that was awarded to Plunkett during his senior season at Stanford is proudly on display in the Hall of Fame room. Jim Plunkett was the first and only Stanford player to win the Hesiman Trophy Award. His first place title was unanimous across voting regions and his deservingness was confirmed less than a month later, following his performance at the 1971 Rose Bowl. After completing 20-of-30 passes for 265 yards and scoring a touchdown, Plunkett earned MVP and led his team to victory over Ohio State in Stanford's first Rose Bowl since 1941.

For more information on Jim Plunkett, the history of the Heisman Trophy Award, and past Heisman winners and their statistics, visit http://www.heisman.com/winners/j-plunkett70.html.

Born June 28, 1960, in Port Angeles, Washington, John Albert Elway revealed his athletic prowess early in life.

John was such a strong and accurate passer in his Pop Warner league and elementary school days that, when he was ready for high school, his father moved the Elway family to the greater Los Angeles area, so John could play in the pass-oriented offense of the Granada Hills High School Highlanders football team. The move paid dividends as John completed 60 percent of his passes for 5,711 yards and 49 touchdowns over his four years of high school.

College or the big leagues?

In 1979, John was the highest recruited prep athlete in the nation. Tall, strong, and mobile when scrambling out of the pocket, college football scouts recognized John as a threat to score, through the air or on the ground, on any given play. He was also a highly touted baseball prospect, and was drafted out of high school by the Kansas City Royals.

Despite the allure of pro baseball, John elected to attend Stanford University, which was known for its high academic standards and its football team’s high-octane passing attack. By the time he finished playing quarterback for The Cardinal, John Elway held NCAA Division I career records for passing attempts and completions, and most games with more than 200 yards passing (30). Over four years, he passed for 9,349 yards and 77 touchdowns, earning All-America honors his senior year, and graduating in 1983 with a degree in economics.

Ironically, John’s final college game, against the arch-rival Bears of California, ended with one of the most famous plays in college football history. Following a field goal that put Stanford ahead by one with seconds remaining, Cal returned the ensuing kickoff, making five laterals along the way, for a game-winning touchdown as time expired. The Stanford band, which had already entered the field, bore the brunt of the Cal victory celebration.

-- Courtesy JohnElway.com