[vc_row full_width=”” parallax=”” parallax_image=””][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”732″ border_color=”grey” img_link_large=”” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”full”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]By Ed Murphy
The guest speaker at our regular lunch meeting on January 29th, 2015 was our own member Ladd McKittrick. Since we were heading into Super Bowl weekend, we were fortunate to have someone with National Football League (NFL) experience to give us an insider’s perspective on professional football. Ladd grew up with football. He talked about his father, Bobb McKittrick, the offensive line coach for the San Francisco 49ers for 21 years before he died of cancer in March of 2000. Bobb was born in Baker, Oregon. He attended OSU, where he played guard on the football team. After graduating, he served as an officer in the Marines Corps for three years. He began his coaching career in 1961 as an assistant coach at OSU, his alma mater. Bobb later coached for UCLA and the Los Angeles Rams, as well as the San Diego Chargers, before joining the San Francisco 49ers team in 1979. Bobb McKittrick was part of the coaching staff, under head coach Bill Walsh, that led the 49ers to five Super Bowl wins during the time he was there. (Ladd says his mother still has his dad’s five Super Bowl rings).
Ladd says he was born at Camp Pendleton, but that his family moved around a lot because of his father’s coaching career. He played football at Granite Hills High School in El Cajon, California, where he graduated in 1980. He then went to Cornell, where he played football – but he didn’t like it, so he came back to Oregon and attended OSU. Ladd was the quarterback at OSU in 1983. If fact, he was quarterback in the infamous 0-0 tie Civil War game in 1983 (sometimes called the Toilet Bowl), when there was no overtime in college football. Ladd said he then taught and coached at American high schools overseas for a few years. He did not go on to play professional football, but he did help coach the SF 49ers. He was Training Camp Assistant for the 49ers in the summer of 1985, and Offensive Coaching Assistant in 1989/1990. (He said he was replaced by Jon Gruden). That was the year of Super Bowl XXIV, when the San Francisco 49ers beat the Denver Broncos to win the big game. He has the honor of wearing a Super Bowl XXIV ring, and has a game ball to commemorate the win.
To give us some perspective on the complexity of the game, Ladd shared with us several illustrations of different plays from the “playbook” used when he was part of the coaching staff. Players need to memorize all of the plays, running and passing, so they know exactly what they are supposed to be doing out on the field. They also need to know all the terminology, which he said is like a foreign language. Ladd guided us through some of the plays, both offensive and defensive, to give us an idea of all the options available to a team. For example, in the Super Bowl game, they had 112 different pass plays available. He also described what is known as the “west coast offense”, which is mostly about short, quick passes, with a standardized sequence and precision footwork for the quarterback. He said that was one of the things that made Joe Montana so great.
Ladd did not give us his prediction for Super Bowl XLIX. But it would have been hard for him or anyone else to predict the last 30 seconds of that game![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]