Yesterday, the gentleman who came to be called The Genius passed away from leukemia at the age of 75.

The importance of Bill Walsh to San Francisco sports, and the whole of the National Football League, cannot be overstated. He changed the game. He changed the sports landscape of the Bay Area. And he did it in a way that no one had ever done before: the philosophy of attack that became known as the West Coast Offense.

An innovator, a brilliant motivator, a ferociously-focused competitor with a sly sense of humor, Walsh was the man who rebuilt the San Francisco 49ers into the greatest American football organization that the NFL had yet seen.

Rare is the man who can outpace his own disappointment. Walsh chafed at being an NFL assistant for more years than he expected. He wanted to run his own squad. When he finally got his shot as a head coach in 1979 with the sad-sack 49ers, he was 47. It was later in the day than he'd expected to run a team.