BILL WALSH WAS a year into retirement from coaching when the call came.
He was working for NBC in 1990, fresh off a decade-long run that produced three Super Bowl titles for the San Francisco 49ers and cemented his place as one of football's greatest minds. Then New England Patriots owner Victor Kiam reached out with a proposition: run the franchise; coach the team.
"I told Victor that I was doing television and that if I had wanted to stay in coaching, I would have remained with the 49ers," Walsh later told The Boston Globe.