Alumni: The winningest coach in the NFL

The Art (and Sport) of Teaching

George Seifert BS'64 began his professional coaching career in 1977 as a defensive assistant to San Francisco 49ers’ head coach Bill Walsh. After nine years and three Super Bowl championships with Walsh, Seifert was appointed Head Coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 1989.

They were big shoes to fill for the unassuming defensive specialist and defensive backfield coach standing on the sidelines wearing his signature windbreaker and poker face, and not everyone thought he was up to it. “My wife told me, ‘George don’t screw it up,’” Seifert has reported, “so I did everything I could not to screw it up.”

Little did he know then that someday he would be first an assistant coach and then the head coach of his hometown team, accompanying the 49ers to two more Super Bowl wins for a career total of five.

Crossroads of the West

None of this was to happen until after college, however. The Friday before he enrolled in Cal Poly Tech, the University of Utah offered him a football scholarship. He took it. The freshman guard and linebacker found himself on a bus headed for Salt Lake City, the “crossroads of the west.”

At the U, early 1960s

When asked why biology, Seifert at first did not know what he wanted to major in, but due to the enthusiasm and expertise of his professors during his first year of general ed, he gravitated to zoology. He recalls stepping outside the old (and now raised) Ballif residence hall in his shorts with binoculars on a Saturday, kiting off to do field research while his “kibitzing” buddies, ready to party, chided him. He didn’t care. He loved the fact that he could step outside his dorm, just below Ft. Douglas, and almost instantly be in the mountains and among wildlife. Even in his shorts and with the friendly ridicule of his dorm mates, he was willing to follow his passion.

Seifert says he wasn’t much of a football player, but that he made a better coach, and it had to do with his time at the U. Following graduation in 1964, he entered a master’s program in physical education and was a graduate assistant for the football program. The very next year the Utah Utes beat West Virginia 32-6 in the Liberty Bowl, the first bowl game to be held indoors.

“I was always into football,” he says, but “I loved the teaching aspect of it.”

“I was always into football,” he says, but “I loved the teaching aspect of it.” At age 25, he was hired by Westminster College to reboot its football program, and he clearly had found his bliss. From there he followed U Coach Ray Nagel to the University of Iowa.

The Coach

After working as an assistant at the University of Iowa, the University of Oregon and Stanford University, Seifert was hired as head coach at Cornell University. Following Cornell, in 1977, Seifert returned to Stanford where he first met Bill Walsh, destined to become the legendary coach of the San Francisco 49ers. In 1979 he was offered the position as the coach of the defensive backs for the 49ers.

On Seifert’s 49th birthday, the 49ers won Super Bowl XXIII (January 22, 1989), and the following season he was promoted to head coach. Three superstars later—Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Steve Young—and the team had won two more Super Bowls, one in 1989 and another in 1994.

Seifert is one of only thirteen NFL head coaches with more than one Super Bowl victory and he still holds the record (98) for franchise wins and also the record for winning percentage (76.6%).

The Retiree

Today, Seifert lives with his wife Linda in Nevada where he has returned to nature through fishing and hunting. He loves getting into the outback where he has made friends with ranchers and gets to return to his zoological background, studying life all around him. It helps to have his trusty companions along with him, Cavalier King Charles spaniels Rusty and Dusty who, he says with affection, are just a couple of awesome “ragamuffins.”

It bears repeating, though, that the circuitous route from college football player and biology major at the U and then to the art (and sport) of teaching and coaching, was one that Seifert chose to embrace fully. There are many people, many former players and many fans—especially among the San Francisco “Faithful”—who are glad he did.

George Seifert with "ragamuffins"

The Philosopher

From his home base, split between Nevada and the North Bay, near where his two children and four grandchildren live, Seifert has watched with gratification as the University of Utah Football Program has expanded and grown into a “new environment.” He’s watched with interest as head coach Kyle Whittingham, despite heavy recruiting from other teams, decided to coach at the U, Seifert’s alma mater. The U’s first time ever at the Rose Bowl this past January, is strong evidence that, in the Pac-12 and nationally, the Utah Utes are a force to be reckoned with.

You can read an expanded version of this article at biology.utah.edu