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The Game Before the Money Football History Podcast

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Welcome to The Game before the Money podcast. An oral history of pro and college football. This episode, Dave Wilcox, a linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee. Hi, everyone. Welcome to The Game before the Money podcast. An oral history of Pro and college football. This podcast extends from the book The Game Before the Money. Voices of the Men Who Built the NFL, published by the University of Nebraska Press. My name is Jackson Michael, and I was very grateful to have a chance to interview Dave Wilcox for this episode. He’s a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s class of 2000. He played 11 NFL seasons as a linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers drafted him in the third round of the 1964 NFL draft out of the University of Oregon. His college teammate, Mel Renfro, was also selected in that draft. That’s two Hall of Famers coming from the same college team. Dave Wilcox will share some fun stories about that, as well as those San Francisco 49ers of the late 1960s and early 1970s under head coach Dick Nolan. Wilcox also has a great story about attending the 1960 NFL Championship game between the Eagles and Packers. His brother was a member of that 1960 world champion Philadelphia Eagles team. Like most of us, Wilcox grew up a big sports fan. So we’re not only going to get a player’s view of some great NFL moments, but we’ll also hear some memories of Dave Wilcox, the fan as well. He’ll also tell us a story about another Hall of Famer that he’s known since that player was a kid growing up in the Bay Area. Dave Wilcox grew up in eastern Oregon. He says the family listened to sports on the radio before getting their first television set. The family got that TV just in time to watch the famous 1958 NFL Championship game between the Colts and giants.

Growing up without TV

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
We used to listen to the baseball games on the radio, and I was like a Yankee fan because that’s what we got a lot of. We didn’t have a television when I was growing up, so we listened to the Indianapolis 500 on the radio and I remember the Giants and the Colts. That game was on TV and we’d get it from Boise. When we first got a TV in 1958, we must have hit the mother lode because we got a television and we got a party telephone at the same time,

Vale High School Football

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Wilcox tells us that he didn’t get the opportunity to play organized football until high school.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
I grew up in eastern Oregon, on the Oregon Idaho border, on a farm. I had some older brothers that played football in high school and my grade school I went to. There was eight kids in my eighth grade class, so we didn’t have football in grade school, but in high school, our team was pretty good in the 50s and 60s. One about four or five state championships finished second once, fourth once. So it was pretty good. We actually grew up wanting to play football because that way we didn’t have to get home from school to do all the chores.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Dave added that football didn’t get him out of doing any chores. It simply delayed the work. That’s life on the farm. And Wilcox said that he was thankful to grow up in that environment. The life not only cultivated a solid work ethic, but it also upped his strength for football.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Our workouts were lifting bales of hay and doing stuff like that. I don’t think we had weights at the school.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Wilcox attended Vale High School in Vale, Oregon. He said that although his high school graduating class was about 80 people, the school’s football team was a state powerhouse.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
My freshman year, we finished fourth. I believe it was, and my sophomore year we won the state championship. My junior year, we won the state championship, my senior year, we got beat in the final game. We were pretty good.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Wilcox’s high school junior season was 1958. In 2019, Oregon live on the website for the newspaper. The Oregonian named those nineteen fifty eight. Ale Vikings as one of the top 10 most dominant football teams in Oregon State history. A few other Vale teams also made the top twenty five list, including teams that either Dave or his older brother John played on. Dave Wilcox had several universities interested in his football skills. He runs down a list of some of his options.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Well, I had offers out of high school to go to Utah, Oregon, Oregon State. Washington had some feelers from USC and Arizona and all over the place.

Boise State football history

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Wilcox older brother John gave him some guidance based on his own experience. John Wilcox attended both Oregon and Boise Junior College, which is now known as Boise State.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
I had an older brother, John, who was four years older than I am. His first year, he went to University of Oregon and went for one term and then transferred to Boise. After the first term at Oregon, and he told me that, you know, you might want to think about going to Boise because going from Vale, Oregon, like we lived ten miles out of town and going from there to Eugene, Oregon was a major change. I’ll put it that way. And he says, you know, you just might think about going to Boise Junior College because they’ll kind of, you know, give you a step and then go to Oregon.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Wilcox said that the Boise State offense was a single wing type at the time. He played tight end on offense and defensive end on defense, playing 60 Minutes both ways back then at what was called Boise Junior College. Turns out, Boyce’s program had a personal connection to the University of Oregon, and that was the link in the chain for the Wilcox brothers to move between the two schools.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
A guy named Lyle Smith was a coach at Boise when I was there and my brother and a younger brother also, and him and a guy named Len Casanova, who was a coach at Oregon, were in the military together way back before the Korean War. They knew each other and they took care of each other, so it was good for me to go to Boise. You know, just kind of an easy step, if you would.

Attending 1960 NFL Championship

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Dave’s older brother, John Wilcox, played in the 1958 Rose Bowl for Oregon. He also played for the Philadelphia Eagles on their 1960 NFL Championship team. The Eagles defeated the Packers 17 to 13, and Dave got to attend that game as a guest of his brother, John, and he shares that story with us now.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
He sent me a plane ticket to come back to the Championship game. They played Green Bay and Franklin Field in Philadelphia for the Championship game, and he paid my way back there and I think I was there. Two days went to the game. He was like a backup offensive tackle on a backup defensive lineman. He was six five weight, about 240. Norm Van Brocklin was a coach of the Eagles at that time. He was an Oregon guy. But anyhow, after the game, we left and he had a friend that lived in West Virginia or something. We drove over there and then from there we drove all the way back to Oregon, and that’s the reason I went back there to help him drive home.

Pro Football salaries in the 1960s

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
This is a good time to mention why this project is called the game before the money. For those of you who might not already know. Pro football wasn’t always the big time money profession that it is today. Most players held jobs in the off season to support their families and to build careers outside of football, and that was true even in the 1970s and 1980s. Dave Wilcox is going to give us a fun example of his brother’s salary at the time and how winning that 1960 NFL championship game with the Eagles wasn’t just a once in a lifetime experience. It also brought a healthier paycheck than usual.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
He got drafted by the Eagles and he just played the one year, and I think his salary was like $4000 or something, and they won the Championship and they got a bonus check for $4500. So he made more on one game than he did a whole season.

Oregon football history

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Dave’s first season at the University of Oregon was 1962. At that time, Oregon was an independent. The Ducks spent five years as an independent from 1959 through nineteen sixty three, dating back to nineteen sixteen. All of the other years that the Ducks have. Played they’ve been affiliated with what is now the PAC 12 conference. But for the first five seasons, that that conference was known as the Athletic Association of Western Universities, Oregon played as an independent. Several of their opponents were still traditional Pacific Coast Conference schools, but Wilcox says Oregon played a robust schedule against teams from across the country.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
When I was at Oregon, we weren’t in any conference or anything, but we opened my first year at Oregon. We went to Texas to play University of Texas, played their opening game, and then my two years at Oregon, we played Texas, we played Ohio State. Back in Ohio State, we played West Virginia. Back in West Virginia, we played Rice and Houston, Texas. We played Indiana and Portland. And we played Penn State in Portland. I don’t know who made the schedule, but they they I guess they wanted us to play teams all over the country. And we did and we weren’t too bad in Ohio State. I’ll never forget that because we went out to warm up on the field and we had to be in the one corner of the end zone because there wasn’t room for us. They had so many players, they took up the whole field to warm up.

Oregon vs Oregon St football history

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
The Oregon Oregon State rivalry remained in full swing. The teams played on the final week of the nineteen sixty two season in Corvallis, and Wilcox remembers a big play he made against that year’s Heisman Trophy winner.

Terry Baker

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
I believe we played up in Corvallis and Terry Baker there again. He was a Heisman winner. That year, I believe I remember he also punted and I blocked one of his punts. Terry was an unbelievable athlete. He played basketball and football and was a baseball pitcher.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Terry Baker was the 1962 Heisman Trophy winner and Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. You can learn more about him and hear some of his remarkable stories on the Terry Baker episode of the game before the Money podcast that is episode number five of the podcast, which you can find at the game before the Money.com or on your favorite podcast app. Oregon State won that nineteen sixty two game against Oregon by three points, but Wilcox and the Ducks earned revenge in nineteen sixty three with a thirty one 14 win at home in Eugene. Nineteen sixty three was Wilcox’s senior season. He said his role changed a bit. His senior year,

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
We didn’t have any linemen. They want to know if I could play guard and I said, Well, I can play guard, but I need to play Defensive end and they said, OK, we’ll let you do that. So that was fine. But back then you played both ways, then down on kickoffs punts did everything,

Playing with Mel Renfro at Oregon

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
As I said at the top of the show. One of Wilcox’s teammates at Oregon also made the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Mel Renfro. Wilcox talks about Renfroe as extraordinary athletic ability and what it was like to play with him.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Mel, to me, was a great athlete. Unbelievable. He ran hurdles and track and long jumped and football. Main thing was when we were on offense, give Mel the ball and get out of his way and don’t screw him up there again. He ran the high hurdles and track, and that’s when the Bill Bowerman track thing at Oregon was just going like crazy.

1964 NFL Draft

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Both Dave Wilcox and Mel Renfro were drafted in the 1964 NFL draft. Remember, that was during a time when the NFL and the AFL competed with each other for draft picks as many players were drafted by both leagues. Scouts from both leagues went through a lot of shenanigans to keep their players away from signing with the rival league. Wilcox tells us a story of how the NFL tried to keep him and Renfroe away from AFL scouts.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
The 1964 draft was held in December of 1963. Franklin Mieuli owned part of the 49ers. He owned the Warriors, him and a guy named Red Hickey, who had been fired as a coach. They came to Eugene, Oregon, and told Mel Renfro and myself that they would buy us lunch. So they took us to this hotel, the Eugene Hotel, so we wouldn’t talk to anybody in the American League. Dallas was their time to draft, and they took forever and mail got tired of waiting and left and got in his car and drove back to Portland and then they drafted him and that was like the 29th player drafted in the NFL. I got drafted by the 49ers. I went back to the dorm and the dorm counselor or whoever was gave me a phone number and says Here the Houston Oilers called you on the payphone here in the dorm and you’re supposed to call them back. But we couldn’t sign or anything because we were playing in the Sun Bowl. We played SMU in the Sun Bowl.

1963 Sun Bowl

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Head coach Len Casanova’s Oregon squad defeated SMU twenty one to fourteen, powered by two touchdown passes by Oregon quarterback Bob Berry. Incredibly, the Sun Bowl wasn’t the only game that Dave Wilcox played that week. He played in the Hula Bowl in Hawaii just a few days later,

1963 Hula Bowl

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
After the Sun Bowl game, I got on the plane with Len Casanova, and a guy named Milt Kaneohe, who played at Oregon, and myself and Larry Hill, who’s also played at Oregon. Anyhow, we got on the plane. This is New Year’s Eve, and we fly to Honolulu because we’re selected to play in the Hula Bowl game. So we fly over there, get there, go to practice Wednesday and John McKay was coaching the team and he says, OK, I don’t want you guys running because you’ve been working out, so just stand over there and stuff. That’s okay. So that was, I believe it was on Wednesday. And then we practice the next day or two. And then we played in the game and I intercepted the pass and the game one was a defensive player of the game. And right after the game, we got on a plane turn around and flew back to Oregon. So it was an interesting challenge.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Dave Wilcox wasn’t the only future Hall of Famer playing in that nineteen sixty four Hula Bowl game. Carl Eller, Paul Krauss, Paul Warfield and Charlie Taylor are also listed on the rosters in the nineteen sixty four Hula Bowl program. Dave said that he even has a picture of himself with Carl Eller and Paul Krauss from that hula bowl. Wilcox added that Mel Renfro missed both the Hula Bowl and the Sun Bowl because of an injury. Dave Wilcox had a choice to play for the San Francisco 49ers or the Houston Oilers as both teams selected him in their respective league drafts. He said that Oregon head coach Len Casanova helped influence his decision, although part of the choice is tied to a neat story dating back to Wilcox’s time at Boise State.

Signing with 49ers rather than AFL

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Len Casanova, like I said, knew Franklin Mieuli, who went to school at Oregon and he kind of knew about the 49ers and we had heard about the 49ers, you know, Y.A. Tittle. And when I was a Boise Junior College, there were these two guys that played basketball at the College of Idaho. One guy’s name was Elgin Baylor, who later transferred to Seattle, and the other guy’s name was a guy named R.C. Owens, who also played football, and our C was with the 49ers. So we kind of followed them, I guess, maybe. But anyhow, I went to sign with the 49ers. You know, I talked to Len Casanova. He told me he thought it’d be best if I stayed out on the West Coast and go play with the 49ers and, you know, call Houston and tell them, thank you. And I did that.

1964 San Francisco 49ers

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
The 1964 San Francisco 49ers were coached by Jack Christiansen, the Hall of Fame defensive back who played for the Detroit Lions his entire career. To put things into perspective, the 49ers franchise was younger than 20 years old at the time, the team started in 1946 as a member of the all-American Football Conference, otherwise known as the AAFC, the 49ers finished two in 12 in nineteen sixty three and the team selected Dave in the third round and draft picks had a solid chance to make that starting lineup immediately. San Francisco took receiver Dave Parks with the first overall pick in the draft, and Parks immediately netted over nine hundred yards, receiving in nineteen sixty four. Dave Wilcox also earned a starting role at outside linebacker. He says. It was an easy adjustment, switching from the Defensive end position he played in college.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Middle linebacker in pro ball was similar to a defensive end in my college days. I didn’t want to be a defensive lineman because those guys are too big and mean. I guess I wanted to stand up and I wanted to keep everything in front of me so I could see it.

Intercepting Johnny Unitas

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Wilcox NFL career got off to a solid start in his rookie season of 1964. His first NFL interception came off one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. Johnny Unitas Dave recalls the play for us and says the Colts head coach Don Shula didn’t appreciate the young linebacker intercepting his star quarterback.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Yeah, I remember. I think it was in front of their bench where I got older, ran out of bounds or something, and I remember Don Shula was a coach and I ended up by him and he used some real bad words about me. And I said, Coach, I don’t think my mom would like those words you’re saying to me or something like that.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
That game was in Baltimore. The powerful Colts overcame Dave’s interception and won thirty seven to seven. Wilcox shared another memory of what it was like to play against the Colts in Baltimore, and this story literally adds insult to injury.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
When I was first started in San Francisco, we played the Colts back there and the horse would run around the track after they score a touchdown. And one of our guys got hurt and the doctor had him laying on the ground there and here they score a touchdown on the horse, steps on the guy.

Jim Marshall Wrong Way Run

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
The 1964 San Francisco 49ers finished the season with a 4-10 record. The team’s year included a very famous moment in NFL history, however, and it was a moment that went the 49ers way. San Francisco’s Billy Kilmer fumbled the ball and Minnesota Vikings Defensive lineman Jim Marshall infamously recovered the fumble and returned it the wrong way into the end zone for a 49ers safety. Wilcox remembers that game well enough to have remembered that the Vikings Carl Eller scored a touchdown on a fumble recovery just before that. You can read Carl Eller’s memory of that game and of that play in the book The Game Before the Money, which is available on Amazon.com right now. Dave Wilcox is going to share with us his memory of Marshall’s wrong way run from a 49ers perspective.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
So Marshall’s picks it up, starts run and everybody stops, except Bruce Bosley, who is our center. He’s chasing him — not to get him to drop the ball — but to congratulate him for scoring the safety for them.

Kezar Stadium

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
The Vikings ended up winning that game twenty seven to twenty two. The game was played in San Francisco at Kezar Stadium, which was the 49ers home field before the team moved into famous Candlestick Park for the nineteen one NFL season. Kezar was home to the 49ers dating back to the nineteen forties and the AFC. Wilcox shares with us a few memories about Kezar Stadium.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Oh, I was incredible. There was a long tunnel that went down to the field from the dressing rooms early in the year. Be all dusty down there so you stay in the tunnel while they introduced him and guys are coughing and squeezing. And then after the game, depending on what kind of game that John Brody had, people would throw stuff at him. When you’re leaving the game and they had to put a fence up over the top of the tunnel so that people couldn’t throw their beer cans and stuff at John. You never wanted to go off the field with Brody, whether you want or not, because somebody was going to throw stuff at him.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
And once again, I’ll note the 49ers finished Wilcox’s rookie season of 1964 with a 4-10 record under head coach Jack Christiansen and quarterback Jon Brodie. Wilcox already started proving his worth at linebacker by the nineteen sixty five season. He was a full time starter and San Francisco collected a winning record of seven six and won. The team enjoyed a four game win streak late in the season and then San Francisco played their second to last game of nineteen sixty five at Wrigley Field in Chicago against the Chicago Bears and rookie running back Gale Sayers.

Memories of Gale Sayers

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
You know, we we laugh about this all the time. I don’t know if the coaches didn’t like us or what, but I played in the game in Chicago and Wrigley Field on the infield dirt mud. I should say when a guy named Gale Sayers scored six touchdowns and I remember in our practices and stuff, see, okay, now when Sayers run this, I want you to do that. I’m going, “When Sayers does whatever he wants to do. I mean, we can’t do anything to stop him.”

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Gale Sayers six touchdowns in one game remains tied as an NFL record for most touchdowns in one game as of the start of the twenty twenty one season, he’s tied with Ernie Nevers, Doug Jones and now Alvin Kamara, who tied that record in Twenty Twenty. You can hear Doug Jones speak about his six touchdown game in Nineteen Fifty One on the game before the Money podcast featuring Doug Jones. That is episode number 17. Wilcox said he made light of Gale Sayers six touchdown today when the two players met each other at the Pro Bowl that season.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
I think it was that same year I got the go of the Pro Bowl and I remember walking into the locker room for the first time and Gale Sayers was on our team and I walked in to get my ankles tape and Gale Sayers is sitting on the table waiting to get his ankles taped. I said, Gale, my name is Dave Wilcox. I’d like to introduce myself. I’ve never got to see you close up before and just wanted to see what you looked like on the field and couldn’t get close to it.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
So there you have it from Hall of Fame linebacker Dave Wilcox. About the only way for a defensive player to catch up to Gale Sayers is in the locker room at the Pro Bowl. Wilcox made seven Pro Bowls in his illustrious career that led him to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He isn’t the only future Hall of Famer around the 49ers at that time. In fact, one future Hall of Famer was a youngster working as a ball boy for the team. Wilcox fills us in:

Hall of Fame ball boy

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
There was a young guy, who was kind of a pain in the butt, who was a water boy and had a bucket with dippers and stuff in it, and his name was Dan Fouts, Fouts told me that he’s the only Pro Football Hall of Fame ball boy.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Many of you, Bay Area listeners might remember Bob Fouts and Lon Simmons as radio announcers for the 49ers. Bob Fouts is Dan Fouts’ father, Dan Fouts, also was a camp counselor at a football camp that Dave Wilcox was affiliated with. And so as a modern shot, Lynn Swann was also part of that camp, as was Danny Ainge, who ended up playing both Major League Baseball and in the NBA. You could put together a winning team just from the future pro stars in that football camp. It’s pretty amazing that all of those paths crossed. Now, the San Francisco 49ers posted lackluster records early in Wilcox’s career, spent a couple of years hovering around the five hundred mark as well. The team improved under head coach Dick Nolan, who took over in 1968.

Dick Nolan hired as head coach

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Dick Nolan’s staff came in and changed things and you know, your whole scheme of stuff and had some really good athletes, you know, Gene Washington and receiver and and I think John David Crowe came about that time. They traded and got him as a running back. The defensive guys, we had Jimmy Johnson and I think it was a year or two later when said Rick Hardman and Tommy Hart, and those defensive ends kind of came along.

Jimmy Johnson Hall of Fame cornerback

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Jimmy Johnson is a Hall of Fame defensive back who played for the 49ers from 1961 through 1976. He is not the same Jimmy Johnson, who coached the Dallas Cowboys. Wilcox said that his teammate, Jimmy Johnson, was a type of player who we might call a shutdown corner in today’s game,

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
He would focus and the rest of the defensive guys, we knew if there was changes of defense and stuff, we didn’t have to worry about Jimmy just let him go cover. The guy would take care of everything else because we didn’t want to mess with his focus and concentration. He is a great athlete.

San Francisco 49ers division champions

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
The 49ers won their first ever division championship in nineteen seventy, despite the 49ers great history of having the million dollar backfield in the nineteen fifties and rosters dotted with notable stars throughout the nineteen sixties. Nineteen seventy brought San Francisco football fans their first ever division title, including their time in the AAFC. The 49ers won three straight division titles under Dick Nolan in 1970, ’71 and ’72. As of the start of the 2021 season, only one 49ers head coach has won more than three straight division titles and that coach is: Any guesses? George Siefert! Siefert won four straight division titles. Bill Walsh tied Nolan’s mark with three straight division championships. And for the record, that would have been my guess, Bill Walsh.

49ers Cowboys NFL playoffs

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Dick Nolan’s NFC West champions made two straight NFC Championship games. In fact, they were the first two NFC Championship games ever held that for the nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy one seasons, they lost both of those games to the Dallas Cowboys in nineteen seventy two. The 49ers played the Cowboys again in the playoffs, this time in a divisional round game that’s somewhat famous, as San Francisco had a twenty one to three lead in the second quarter and a twenty eight to 13 lead going into the fourth quarter at home before Roger Staubach rallied the Cowboys with 17 fourth quarter points to win and that was after the 49ers had beaten the Cowboys in Dallas thirty one to 10 during the 1972 regular season.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Yeah, we had some good teams and we always come up against those guys from Dallas, Texas, give us problems. But hey, we got to play in some Championship games and almost made it to the Super Bowl, but not quite. And they were a good team. They had a lot of good players and we just didn’t make the right choices or run the ball right or make the right tackle or something, but we had fun doing it.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Dave Wilcox retired from the game after the 1974 season. He told me that his knee doctor suggested that it was time to move on. Dave also shared with me that he had previously played through an entire season with a torn cartilage in his knee after a preseason injury. Eventually, it was time to move on from football. Wilcox went out with a bang, however, in the fourth quarter of his final NFL game. He intercepted a pass against the New Orleans Saints and charged his way into the end zone for a touchdown, a fantastic ending to a career that landed him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Dave Wilcox was part of the two thousand class, which included two more San Francisco legends Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
Being around the Hall of Famers in that same group is just unreal. You know, there’s some fantastic people and players and to be selected to do that. I mean, things have got to fall just right,

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Something that’s pretty amazing to think about. And it’s one of the great things about pro sports in America is that there was a time nineteen fifty eight to be exact, that a young Dave Wilcox watched the NFL Championship game on the first television set that his family ever owned. He was growing up in a small town in Oregon, watching Johnny Unitas rally the Colts to victory. And then fewer than 10 years later, Wilcox was actually playing in the NFL and made his first career interception off of Unitas later. Wilcox joined Johnny Unitas in the Hall of Fame. What’s also really neat is a Dave’s brother played in the nineteen sixty NFL Championship game just a couple of years after the family gathered around the TV to watch the nineteen fifty eight game. Dave also told me that he listened to Yankee games on the radio as a kid and wound up playing NFL games in Yankee Stadium, where he’d visit Monument Park. Before the game, he played against the Detroit Lions at Tiger Stadium with memories of listening to the national broadcast of the Lions Thanksgiving games on the radio. And later, Dave was part of a football camp that included Dan Fouts and Lynn Swann. And that’s not even the end of the story, as Dave’s son, Josh, played for the New Orleans Saints. Dave Wilcox says that he’s thankful for his football career and that he is a firm believer in team sports.

Dave Wilcox, San Francisco 49ers NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker:
So to do all the things I got to do, and stuff without football would have been kind of hard and there again, you know, the people you meet and the friends you have and all that with a lot of incredible year. And when when my kids were growing up, the only thing I said, You’re going to play team sports, you know, you can play golf if you want to or whatever, but you’re going to play team sports. And I just think that helps you in the time you’re growing up.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
And thank you for listening to this episode of the game before the money podcast.

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Special thanks to Dave Wilcox for interviewing for the

Football History Podcast Host Jackson Michael:
Game before the money. Future episodes of the game before the money will feature Denver Broncos legend Lionel Taylor and nineteen eighty two NFL MVP Mark Moseley. Dave Wilcox also shared some other great stories that I will bring to the podcast in the future. You can subscribe to the game before the Money podcast on your favorite podcast app or listen to episodes at the game before the Money.com, which also includes a lot of football history articles that you’re sure to enjoy transcriptions of. Some podcast episodes are also available at the game before the Money.com transcriptions are powered by our transcription partner sonix. That’s s o n i x visit sonix.A.I to learn more about their automated transcription services.

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