This is Grant Cohn, but some people call me Iggy. You can call me whatever you’d like. I’m your new 49ers blogger. I’ll be reporting and tweeting every day from training camp in Santa Clara as soon as it opens, whenever that may be. Until then, I’ll join Bob Padecky and Phil Barber in providing you with some blogging snack food to whet your appetite for the upcoming NFL season….
Back home in the South Bay after the loss at St. Louis, Patrick Willis unwound by surfing the Internet on Sunday night. It was when Willis clicked over to ESPN that he saw the news: his organization had fired Mike Singletary. “I called him right away, you know, because I wanted to hear it from him as opposed to hearing it in the news and all that stuff,” Willis said to the reporters still hanging around the media trailer Monday afternoon.
It’s easy to look at the broad-shouldered, barrel-chested and slim-waisted Hall-of-Fame middle linebacker and not see a legendary former player.
A day after Who’s Yahoo! and the Rat Alert, I stuck with on-the-field issues in covering the 49ers Friday. But Mike Singletary’s media meltdown – a fascinating give-and-take Thursday with host Dennis O’Donnell during the taping of his weekly KPIX pregame show – shouldn’t be ignored. For those still unfamiliar with the interview (click here), O’Donnell opened with a reasonable line of questioning. O’Donnell said he respected Jimmy Raye, but…
“You talk about being critical of the team. Should people be critical be of (you)?” The question was lobbed to Mike Singletary during his press conference Monday. And the subtext was obvious.
We have seen the State of the Franchise, and it is positively giddy.
“Tonight is not a pep rally,” coach Mike Singletary told more than 1,000 49ers season-ticket holders at the Santa Clara Convention Center this evening, but he could’ve fooled me. The coach, president Jed York and personnel chief Trent Baalke took turns bubbling with optimism, and the fans lapped it up. All that was missing was a bonfire, some pom-poms and parade floats making fun of the Cardinals, Rams and Seahawks.
It’s pretty clear that disgruntled NT Aubrayo Franklin will not be here in Santa Clara for the final day of minicamp tomorrow. But how about coach Mike Singletary?
As reported by NationalFootballPost.com, the United Way of Greater McHenry County in Illinois is advertising a fundraising event for Saturday, June 19, that includes a motivational speech by the 49ers head coach. It’s at the McHenry West High School campus from 12-3 p.m. local time, with Coach Sing speaking at 1 p.m.
That’s 11 a.m. California time, when the 49ers should be a half-hour into the morning practice.
I didn’t go to Family Day at Candlestick Park last Saturday, but I listened to part of the proceedings on KNBR. At one point, 49ers coach Mike Singletary was asked whether he was changing anything in his approach for 2010.
Singletary said he planned to talk to the officials less. He had a smile in his voice, and the KNBR crew chuckled. But I wondered whether there was some truth in Singletary’s pronouncement, so I asked him today after practice.
There was a lot going on in Santa Clara today, what with rookie offensive linemen getting first-team reps, Isaac Bruce getting “traded” to St. Louis, coach Mike Singletary waxing poetic about John Wooden and several prominent 49ers skipping the voluntary workout. Not to mention anxiety building over Tuesday’s vote a new stadium in Santa Clara.
Almost lost in the shuffle were these tidbits from the coach.
Both were coaches, but the similarities seemingly ended there. They came from different generations and different sports. One was born in Texas and found his fame in the Midwest. The other was born in the Midwest and became a legend in sunny California. Any connection was unlikely.
And yet earlier today, Mike Singletary began his Q&A session with local media by paying homage to John Wooden, the inimitable UCLA basketball coach who passed away Friday.
“He’s a man to me, in this field of coaching, that deserves all of the credit in the world,” Singletary said. “I think he did a tremendous amount of mentoring at every level. He’s the kind of coach that what he did reached boundaries outside of basketball.”
