The final time that Bill Walsh coached an NFL game was on January 22, 1989, at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. It was Super Bowl XXIII, and we were playing the Cincinnati Bengals. Some think it’s the greatest Super Bowl ever played, and it might have been. Without question it was the best one I was ever involved in. And not just because it was my first one either.
All that craziness during the week, everyone wanting tickets, partying, and whatnot, I didn’t experience any of that in Miami. I was named to my first Pro Bowl that year, but I wasn’t a well-known guy, especially with all of the star power we had. That was fine by me. I didn’t have many friends and I wasn’t trying to make any more. My parents came, and I had two kids by then, so Karen brought my son and daughter, and that was about it. The guys I grew up with, my college teammates, every Tom, Dick, and Harry I met along the way, they didn’t have my number, and I wasn’t giving it out anyhow.
Since my first day with the team, Coach Walsh was always saying, “Champions behave like champions before they are champions.” And this was our chance to prove it. We didn’t exactly dominate the competition that season, going just 6–5 in our first 11 games before we started rolling and won four of our last five. We then defeated the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears in the playoffs by a combined 50 points, so we definitely peaked at the right time.
The big story that week in Miami wasn’t Joe Montana or Bill Walsh or Bengals quarterback Boomer Esiason. Nope, the story was Cincinnati’s rookie running back Ickey Woods and that “Ickey Shuffle” dance he did after touchdowns. He was just a rookie, and boy, let me tell you, he was a blazing back, just explosive. I was really impressed watching him on film.
Ronnie Lott laid the hit of the game on him. He came up from his safety position, and in one of those moments in time where it’s all slow motion, just hit Ickey, and he kind of fell backward like a tree. He hurt his knee in the second game of the following season and was never the same, but I always thought the beginning of the end for his career was that hit Ronnie gave him, which really changed the momentum of the Super Bowl for us.
My biggest memory, beside the outcome, was going up against Bengals left tackle Anthony Munoz all day. This man is one of the best to ever play offensive line. Some say he’s the gold standard. I wouldn’t argue that. I finished the game with two sacks, but I promise you every play was an exhaustive battle of wills. I have a ton of respect for Munoz, a fellow Pro Football Hall of Famer. I think he and former Rams tackle Jackie Slater were the two greatest offensive linemen during my time in the league.
Slater hit me so hard once that I saw Jesus Christ in all three forms. And after Slater did, he waved his finger at me like I’m a little kid. It was like, “I wouldn’t try that one again if I were you because I just flipped your ass.” I had tried running over the top of him. I’ve made some mistakes in my life, but that one ranks right up there. So I left the game after that hit and I went way down on the bench where the kickers were chilling. I sat down there and I tossed my helmet aside. I was contemplating whether I wanted to play this damn game ever again. I was thinking I should have been a farmer.
As I was pondering my future, my position coach, Bill McPherson —a good guy who we called Coach Mac—comes over and says, “You better get your ass back in the game or you’re going to be on the next bus to Gladys.” So I went back in the game. I didn’t want to go over to the side with Jackie, and neither did our other defensive end, Larry Roberts. Both of us lined up on the opposite side. I have no idea how the quarterback didn’t see this. If they had just run to Jackie’s side, they could have scored with Rerun from that show, What’s Happening!!, carrying the ball.
Instead, quarterback Jim Everett dropped back to pass, and I came off the corner unblocked and got a sack. That built my confidence up, so I went back to Jackie’s side. My plan going forward was to take a step out and just try running around him. I never wanted any physical contact with the man again. I was all for bringing some physicality to my game, just not so much with Jackie.
Anyhow, the Super Bowl against the Bengals was a close, hard-fought game. Neither team ever led by more than a score. They returned a kickoff for a touchdown in the third quarter and took a 16–13 lead late in the fourth on a field goal. I sat down on the bench and started crying. There was like three minutes left, and we were on our own 8-yard line. I was basically shaking my fist at God, asking, “Why did you bring me here to lose?” Like Coach Walsh told us, “The only yardstick for success is being a champion,” and I wanted to be a champion to show all of those people who had called me a bum. I wanted to show them who I really was. So there I was on the bench with my head in my hands. I was crying, sobbing, feeling like this was my fault, that I could have done more. Then I started hearing the cheers. That was me forgetting who my teammates were. That was me forgetting who my head coach was.
Of course, like I should have expected, Joe Montana was Joe, completing passes to Roger Craig and Jerry Rice like they were the only players on the field. Then finally, with the world expecting him to throw to Jerry, Joe finds John Taylor in the end zone for the winning touchdown. That’s why he’s the greatest quarterback ever. There is no debate in my mind. We won the game 20–16.
The lesson I learned from that is to believe in my teammates 100 percent, and I never doubted my teammates again. I never gave up on a game again. I never doubted that we couldn’t win from that point on, no matter how dire the situation. That drive, that win, that game strengthened my resolve because I took the coward’s way out by assuming we were going to lose. And, honestly, I was riding their coattails the entire season. Being able to play on that kind of team, the last one coached by Bill Walsh, that’s one of the great honors of my life.
Winning a Super Bowl changes who you are as a football player. It just does, and I’m pretty sure everyone who has won a championship would agree. It’s the respect from all of the other players and people in the league. They would come up to you, pat you on the back, and be like, “Yeah man, you got this. I wish I could win one.” That was the biggest thing for me. Once you win a Super Bowl, you’re a champion. The rest of your life, you are Super Bowl champion Charles Haley. That’s not just for the year after you win it either. It’s forever. Not much is forever in this world.
Know what was impressive? The coaches and players started talking about winning another one in the locker room right after the game. I remember Bill saying, even though he retired after the game, “Okay, you guys won this one. Enjoy it for the next 24 hours or so, but then it’s over and it’s time to win another.” That was always my mind-set, too, after winning that first one. With San Francisco and later Dallas, it was I won this, now it’s done, I want to get ready for the next game. If we won a regular-season game on a Sunday afternoon, I’m watching film of the next opponent that night. As I’ve said, I was a very introverted person during my career, and for the most part, I went to work and I came home. There wasn’t much partying or such. I might go grab a drink or two here and there, but that was about it.
After Coach Walsh retired, they hired my defensive coordinator, George Seifert, as the new head coach. Now, in retrospect, they could have brought in the ghost of Vince Lombardi or Moses, and I wasn’t going to be thrilled. At the time I was a petulant child. Being bipolar certainly wasn’t helping, but I was a long way from being diagnosed. I was a mess. I should have been the happiest man on the planet—and at times I was. Mostly though, I was miserable. Even on those rare days when I was smiling and telling jokes, I was dying inside.
There are a lot of stories about Coach Seifert and me involving the good, the bad, the more bad, the ugly, and the more ugly. I just want to say first that he’s a good man, a kind soul, and he deserved better than the abundance of shitstorms he was forced to deal with because of me. People fear what they don’t understand instead of trying to understand what they fear. And I was in constant fear. I didn’t know what was going on with me.
We were more or less unstoppable in 1989. We finished 14–2 and could have easily won them all. We lost those two games by a combined five points. The talent on that roster was really unfair. Joe was at the top of his game, and when he came off the bench, Steve Young was pretty solid, too. Imagine having those two quarterbacks on the same team.
The first year wasn’t that bumpy with George and me. We had known each other since I came into the league, though we didn’t talk much. He knew I knew what I was doing, and Bill told his assistants not to bother me much. I certainly don’t recall George ever saying anything negative toward me. Whatever he drew up, I did and I tried to do it to the best of my ability. He seemed good with that arrangement.
I have invented a lot of hate in my head over the years, and that was the case with Coach Seifert. I decided he must not like me because he didn’t talk to me over the years. But I would have found a reason to dislike whoever the new head coach was.
I played pretty well that season—10.5 sacks, scored my lone career touchdown on a fumble recovery—and we rolled once again through the playoffs. We outscored our three postseason opponents by 100 points, including a massacre of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV down in New Orleans. We won 55–10, and it wasn’t even that close. That remains the largest margin of victory in Super Bowl history. So yeah, we beat the crap out of them. I honestly felt sorry for Denver’s John Elway, who was a heck of a quarterback. He could extend a play as well as anyone I played against.
We had faced the Broncos the previous season and lost in overtime, but that helped me kind of understand what to expect with their offensive line. They were kind of well known for chop blocks, so once the game was out of control, I came out because I was tired of them trying to hurt me. I should also say that our offensive line did its share of cut blocking, too, so I’m not trying to call anyone out. It is what it is. For me cutting was the worst thing imaginable. Because I was so agile and mobile, I wasn’t bull-rushing anyone. I jumped over and around a lot of chop blocks in my career and tried to out-quick them as best I could.
My specific memories from that Super Bowl are really just hitting John again and again and him throwing a couple of picks. The man didn’t have a chance. We just kept hitting him. He was a tough dude. He stayed in there and took a punishing. Every time I turned around, we were scoring a touchdown. It was a three-and-out, touchdown, three-and-out, touchdown. If we kept our horses going, we could have scored 70. That’s crazy to think about, but we were on another level that day.
I never did much celebrating after we won Super Bowls. Maybe I should have. I would just kind of sit at my locker and watch everyone with their champagne. I’d maybe drink a beer myself, take the scene in. I put so much pressure on myself to win that I was always more relieved than jubilant. My teams were supposed to win, so if we didn’t, that meant I failed.
Honestly, I’ve never been a big drinker in general. I’m sure with all of those stories out there about me, people figured I was drunk half the time. I wasn’t. When I drink, I’m very, very passive. I don’t get angry about nothing. I just want to have fun. Everything in life is fun when I have a few drinks. Nothing brings me into rage-mode when I drink.
A big part of that, though, and I eventually realized this, was that the way I drank was probably different than anyone else you’ll ever meet. I would drink a few beers real fast or do a couple of quick shots and then I would stop drinking. I was scared that one of my teammates or somebody else in the place was going to jump me because they thought I was drunk, so I went home. That’s another example of how I lived in so much fear for most of my life. I just didn’t understand at the time that my teammates had my back; they were my friends. There is no greater bond than teammates. I just didn’t give anyone a chance to understand me—outside of Ronnie and a few others. I spent my career running away from those who were trying to just be my friend. That’s sad to look back on.
Here’s another example of where my mind was during those last few years with San Francisco. Each year, we would have a team bonding outing at Six Flags Great America in Santa Clara, which is where the 49ers headquarters was. And I happened to bump into Coach Seifert and his wife. And he introduced me to his wife by saying, “This is Charles. He never makes mistakes.”
This really pissed me off.
How ridiculous is it to have that set me off? The man takes the time to introduce me to his wife, which few coaches ever have, and gives me a great compliment, and I was all sorts of furious. As I walked away, I took what he said as he was telling his wife that I was dumb. There was nothing positive in my mind from his words. I was thinking negative, negative, and more negative. I always thought that people figured athletes were dumb, especially me, so that’s what I believed. It took me a while to figure out what people were really saying, long after my playing career was done, so I misinterpreted a lot of stuff. I also hated criticism, whether real or imagined.
Here’s how much I hated criticism. Know how I mentioned earlier that I knew everybody’s position and responsibilities on the field? Part of that was being able to help others, but to be honest, part of that was for me. If I knew what everyone was supposed to be doing on every play and I knew my job, then nobody could ever come and point the finger at me for making mistakes. I was motivated by the fear of criticism, which can actually be quite healthy. I, though, couldn’t tell a younger version of Charles that. I was mobile, agile, and violent. And I used all of those weapons against everyone they put in front of me. Unfortunately, that went for foes and friends alike.
Speaking of my short list of friends—maybe mentor-friend is a better way of describing him—I really need to share my feelings about the then-owner of the San Francisco 49ers, Eddie DeBartolo Jr., who to my delight recently joined me as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I was ridiculously spoiled in terms of my two NFL owners, first Mr. D. and then Jerry Jones with the Cowboys. I assumed every owner was like them because I had nothing to compare them to, but players talk—be it at the Pro Bowl, the Super Bowl, charity events, whatnot—and there were some owners who didn’t even know their players by name, let alone treat them like family members, sons really.
Mr. D treated us like the boys he never had—the best of us and the worst of us. That’s important. I was a pretty damn good football player as were Joe, Jerry, and Ronnie, but Mr. D treated the punter the same way. The last guy on the practice squad was treated with the class the Pro Bowl guys were. That goes a long way. Mr. D was so consistent, too. He held that line every day. The man didn’t have bad days. His idea of running a business was treating everyone like family. We were all in this together and not just the players. Ask his secretary, ask the public relations guy, the dude filling the vending machines at team headquarters. I promise you they all have a story about the kind of person Mr. D is.
A lot of teams in the 1980s were flying commercial and staying in mediocre hotels. Not us, not in the least. We practiced in the best facility in the league, top of the line. We rode the best buses and planes, stayed in five-star hotels, and all had single rooms. The food couldn’t have been better. Mr. D never cut a corner with his team to save a buck. The man had our backs, and we would have walked through fire to have his. To this day, there is nothing he could call and ask me for that my immediate reply wouldn’t be, “Yes, sir.” I mean, he could say, “Charles, I need you to jump out of a plane naked and land in the middle of Siberia,” and I’m stripping down before the phone call ends.
My first year in the league, even before my first game, Mr. D was great to me. He took me to Pebble Beach, he took me to Hawaii, he took me to Vegas. Hell, at that point, I hadn’t been to shit or shine, so going anywhere was a big deal, but especially those places. He even tried teaching me to golf, but I was horrible. And everyone kept yelling at me for driving the cart onto the green. They said I couldn’t drive on the green, but I said, hell, it’s all green.
Mr. D took care of my family, and he also gave me Bill Walsh. He was the man who hired Bill, and Bill was my game changer. So there’s a lot of love there, too. When Mr. D presented me at my Hall of Fame induction, he told this story, one I was actually going to tell. It happened late in the 1989 regular season against the Los Angeles Rams. The way he tells it, I was ejected from the game for unsportsmanlike conduct, and he came down to the locker room looking for me. And when he poked his head around the corner and said, “Charles,” I looked up and said, “They ejected you, too, Mr. D?”
It’s a funny story, but the real story is we were losing the game (we came back and won 30–27), and he put his foot through the Coca-Cola machine and then smashed the television. I saw that and was like, Okay, I’m going to shower. With my full uniform on. I just wanted out of there. I wasn’t coming out until he was gone. Oh man, he’s Italian, and they have some tempers. He was more pissed off than me, I can promise you that. For a guy like Mr. D, this rich and powerful owner and businessman, to take a nobody like me and put him under his wing, that says a lot. That says it all, really. I love him very much.
Of course, none of us knew it going in, but the 1990 season was the last hurrah for the nucleus of our dynasty. No one ever tells you the end is coming. It just kind of arrives. And you don’t really have any control over it. We kicked our usual amount of ass during the regular season, again going 14–2 and ended up hosting a heck of a New York Giants team in the NFC Championship Game. Including the playoffs, we were 39–5 in our previous 44 games.
We had played one another earlier in the year, one of the highest-rated Monday Night Football games ever in fact. We won that one 7–3. Both defenses were playing so well that we were all expecting another low-scoring game. And that proved to be the case with seven field goals and just one touchdown accounting for the scoring.
The big play, though, didn’t involve any points. It was a Roger Craig fumble with about three minutes left. We were leading 13–12 at the time and were at the Giants’ 40-yard line. We were so close to playing for our third straight Super Bowl. No team to this day has won three straight. Instead, the ball just kind of popped out of Roger’s grasp, and who else but Lawrence Taylor was right there to recover it. I think he caught it before the ball even hit the ground. He was so quick; his instincts and reaction time were unequalled.
The Giants picked up a few first downs and ended up kicking the winning field goal with no time left. We just couldn’t stop them. No three-peat. Party over. I remember that game so well, maybe more than any of my career. As a competitor, you always remember the losses more than the wins.
I have always blamed myself for that loss. Everyone talks about Roger’s fumble, but there was a play I should have made on that final drive. I was supposed to take the back—I think it was Dave Meggett, that little dude—and I rushed instead. He ended up catching the pass and picking up 10 yards. I just couldn’t get to the quarterback in time. I made a judgment call, and it hurt us. That was the first time I really remember having a mental block during a game, making a poor decision. Now, off the field, there were multiple mental blocks every hour. On the field, though, football decisions were a sixth sense for me because of all the film and preparation.
Joe ended up hurting his back pretty badly in that game and he missed the entire 1991 season. I would never play with him again. And the team didn’t re-sign Ronnie that offseason. He went to the Raiders, which really pissed me off. That’s what led to me self-destructing. Honestly, at the end, I’m not entirely sure I didn’t have a nervous breakdown. I was emotionally dead.
Losing Ronnie was a big part of it. That’s when the anger really started boiling. I couldn’t view it as a business decision. For me, that was personal. They let my best friend go, our team leader. Christ, the man had part of his pinkie amputated so he wouldn’t miss any time in 1986, and four years later, it’s “don’t let the door hit your ass on the way to the Raiders.” That just isn’t right.
Look, I was a head case. We know that. And it would have been so much worse without Ronnie. I’m not sure what would have become of my NFL career if Ronnie hadn’t been there when I arrived in San Francisco.
I like to break balls. That wasn’t part of the bipolar disorder either, as I’m still doing it nowadays on my medication, though to a lesser degree. I didn’t make fun of Ronnie, though, never. He was like a father, an older brother, and my own Yoda all in one. Friendships have always been so difficult for me. I was always second-guessing whether or not the guy was really a friend. I never did that with Ronnie, not for a second. No teammate ever influenced me more.
When Ronnie would mess with me, maybe in the film room or whatever, I would have to stand up and leave so I wouldn’t go after him. Then he would come find me and slap me on the head and say, “You can do better than that, than just running away. We’re friends. Stop being that way.” And I would be okay. Anyone else, Volcano Charles would have erupted. Not with Ronnie.
As a player Ronnie was my example every day of what I wanted to be. Some guys are walking around the locker room, on the practice field, and you can see they are going through the motions sometimes. It’s natural, really. Being a football player is just like any other job. There are certain days when you just can’t crank it up to that 100 percent level. But Ronnie cared just as much every single day. He was just as intense watching film on a Monday as he was in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. On the first day of minicamp, Ronnie was strapping on that helmet like it was his last day to play football. I don’t know how he possessed that kind of passion and drive 24/7/365, but he did. So I wanted to be like him. I tried my damnedest, too.
Know what else I took from Ronnie? And this is the greatest compliment you can say about an athlete: he played his best in the big games. Anyone can pick up a couple of sacks or big tackles against the Atlanta Falcons in September. Now where are you, come January? I want the January guys on my side. Ronnie is the best competitor and performer in big games that I ever played with, and I played with a lot of guys with busts currently residing in Canton.
I’m proud of my own record in big games, but that’s for other folks to analyze.
I arrived at training camp in 1991 full of piss and more piss. I was angry at the world, even more than usual. And in my mind, it was all because of George Seifert. He sent Ronnie packing, he injured Joe’s elbow, and now, he wanted me to step up and become a team leader. The nerve.
If I really look at the truth, Coach Seifert was trying to make me a better man. He wanted me to be a leader, which is what every great football player aspires to become, but everything that he wanted me to do, I didn’t want to do. If I would have listened to him, I would have retired as a 49er. I would have been there until they couldn’t drag me on the field any longer, but we just kept butting heads throughout the year. It was a mess. I was acting out more and more without Ronnie and Bill Walsh around. Those were the only two who could keep me under control.
I started really pushing my teammates—more so than ever before. In some ways, mostly on the field, I already was a leader. Off the field, I was the last person most of my teammates and coaches wanted to see. They think I was bad in Dallas a few years later? That was Gandhi on a hunger strike compared to me in 1991. A lot of guys, even football players, don’t like to be hit in the mouth. You know the Mike Tyson line, right, about how everyone has a plan until they are hit in the mouth? Well, it makes a lot of sense. Hit a guy in the mouth, and more than anything, he becomes afraid. I wanted everyone afraid of me before they had a chance to piss me off.
And some of them, especially that season, I would even pop in their privates. Guess what happens then? When I open my mouth, everybody covers up and they look at me scared 14 different ways until Friday. Some people might say that’s crazy, but you know what? You got to do what you got to do. It ain’t about playing nice. It’s about knocking Humpty Dumpty off the wall and tackling him. It’s about win- ning the war, not that one battle but winning that war. And the only way you can do that is through knowledge. That team didn’t have the knowledge we once did, and it showed on the field. We finished 10–6.
The nuclear explosion of all my meltdowns came in Week 5 when we were playing the Raiders and Ronnie in Los Angeles. We lost 12–6, which dropped us to 2–3. Hell, we hadn’t lost three games the whole year in each of the last two regular seasons. This was unacceptable. I was angry the entire game, though after the game I hugged and kissed Ronnie on the field. My rage subsided just for that instance.
If you have never suffered a breakdown of any kind, consider yourself blessed. Let me attempt to explain it. All your hate, all your anger, all your anxiety, all your hopes, all your fears, all your dreams, and all your nightmares converge as one with the emotions boiling until you really lose mental consciousness. It was an out-of-body experience, and I wasn’t in control.
I was so upset, so emotional that I was crying and shaking like never before. There was so much hate inside of me, and at that moment, it was coming out like never before. Teammates were trying to calm me down, and I was trying to hit them. Then Coach Seifert tried to grab my shoulder, and I was in such a rage, I kind of took a swing at him, too. I can’t believe I did that.
I was swinging wildly at that point and I ended up putting my hand through a glass window with that wiring stuff inside, so I cut my arm and wrist up pretty badly. There was blood everywhere. The doctors and everybody were saying I needed medical help, but I wouldn’t let anyone near me. I just sat there bleeding, feeling like whatever happened was meant to be. This was a full-fledged nervous breakdown.
Some of my teammates and a few of the doctors went to the Raiders locker room and found Ronnie. They knew he was the only one who could calm me down. It was so urgent that Ronnie had not even dressed. Well, Ronnie, who was still wearing a towel, came over, sat down next to me, and calmed me down enough to let the medical staff work on me. He actually held my hand while they were pulling the glass out and putting stiches in. I was still crying and shaking. Ronnie told me it was okay, that he appreciated how much I cared. As usual, he was the only one who understood me.
That was a tough episode for me. For the next few weeks, I was so emotional that I was crying all the time. My teammates started calling me “crybaby.” At that point I’m sure the 49ers were thinking it was time for me to go, but I finished the season and was there at training camp in 1992.
Another problem for me that last year with San Francisco was our new starting quarterback, Steve Young. I was never a fan of his when we were teammates. I thought he was arrogant when he was traded to us from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1987. He felt like we were his team when Joe was the captain of the team.
Steve just didn’t mix with us, you know what I’m saying? He never tried to be a part of the team by laughing and joking or whatever. I don’t like people like that, and maybe that’s why we butted heads or whatever. We definitely didn’t get along, not that I was really getting along with anyone my last season there.
I’ve seen Steve a few times since our playing days. I’ve seen him the last few years at the Super Bowl. And he was there when the 49ers presented me with my Hall of Fame ring, so we talked then. We’re good now. I know I didn’t play well with others back then. That’s all in the past. We’re done; we’re old men now. What the hell, right? Everybody goes through things, and time heals all wounds. I think everything is good between Steve and me.
Here’s the thing with me, especially back then. It was fight or flight, and I wasn’t going to flee. I stood my ground. There wasn’t anyone with that team, or in the NFL for that matter, who was going to do worse to me than my brothers had when I was growing up. Maybe everyone didn’t realize that I was prepared for whatever happened. That was my state of mind.
I was also going to speak my mind. I didn’t care if you were an All-Pro quarterback or the guy cleaning the jocks. I’d give both an equal amount of my wrath. I was also passionate, maybe more than I should have been, but you can’t control passion.
I was, still am, passionate about making sure everybody, doesn’t matter what side of the street you’re from, realizes that they can achieve greatness if they choose to work hard. That’s the part everyone has to buy into. You have to choose to work hard. You can’t just show up and hope for the best. I chose to be around champions, around Joe, Ronnie, Bill Walsh, but the dynamics had changed so much by 1991. There were guys not willing to put the time in for us as a team to achieve greatness.
Coach Seifert was a micromanager. He would sit there and clean his glasses for 10 minutes before starting the film and then over the course of two hours explain what everyone should have been doing on each play. He knew all 11 assignments and who should have been where. That always impressed me.
He was the defensive coordinator when I arrived in San Francisco and he amazed me in the film room, so I wanted to be like him. That’s where my motivation came to learn each position. My inspiration was his style of coaching. I tried to think like him, which was very detailed. And I did. I became immensely detailed about the mental aspect of not only my position, but also the entire defense. So looking back, we should have gotten along just fine. And we did for the most part over those first five years.
As for the official end with the 49ers, that came during the preseason in 1992. There was a game in London, and I decided to just be difficult. I wasn’t going. I told Coach I was staying home to have my knee scoped, but that was BS. That was kind of the last straw. You really can’t tell a head coach what to do. This was less than a year after the meltdown following the Raiders game, too. I think Coach told the media it was best for team chemistry, which I understood.
I knew the trade was coming; they were just trying to get the best offer. Playing-wise, I was in my prime. It was just all the other stuff. I remember going to talk with Bill Walsh, who was then the head coach at nearby Stanford University, a few days before the trade was announced, and as always, I asked him what I should do. He wouldn’t say.
It made me mad, but what he did say was pretty great stuff, especially looking back on it now. These words have always stayed with me. He said, “If I tell you to stay and you’re unhappy, you’ll hate me. If I tell you to go and you don’t have success, you are going to hate me. Charles, it’s time for you to grow up, son. Make a decision and deal with it. Make the best out of however this works out.”
The NFL Network did a beautiful documentary on my career in 2015, and Coach Seifert was nice enough to say that he made a mistake in trading me. He said he gave into his emotions at the time, that I had just become too disruptive to the team. He said he always liked me and that I was a great player for them. He also said he was sorry for having a weak moment. That was pretty powerful stuff for me. I definitely got a little teary-eyed hearing those words.
Let’s be honest, though. As much as he’s taking the high road, the reason I was leaving San Francisco was that I was an asshole.
George and I are okay now. We had a chance to talk when the 49ers were in the Super Bowl a few years ago in New Orleans. I told him that I was very sorry and about how much regret I have. We sat there for a while, and I just poured my heart out to the man. I wanted to make sure he knew I didn’t hate him. I hated me back then. I wanted to make sure we both left this world knowing what really took place and that he knew it was on me. If I had listened to George, he would have shown me how to be a great leader.
Every time I see George now, the first words out of my mouth after we shake hands and hug are “I’m sorry.” It doesn’t matter how many times we see each other for the rest of our lives, those will always be my first words. And he’s such a class act, he always tells me, “Yeah, you were tough, but I was a young coach and should have handled it better.”
He’s wrong. There’s nothing he could do, and I tremendously regret how I treated him and my 49ers teammates that last year or so.