Armed With Intelligence : Rejoining Walsh, Benjamin Took His Knowledge Back to College

There was no way Guy Benjamin could contain himself. Or wanted to. Heck, anyone in his shoes would have been equally tempted.

The place was venerable Notre Dame Stadium, sacred grounds of the hated or adored--there’s no ambivalence when it comes to this--Fighting Irish, on a postcard-perfect autumn afternoon last October. Many who eventually would form a sellout throng of more than 59,000 trickled to their seats as the Stanford Cardinal rushed the field for pregame warm-ups.

At one end zone, Benjamin, a Cardinal graduate assistant who works with the quarterbacks, surveyed the surroundings and realized he couldn’t let the opportunity slip away. So he grabbed a football, enlisted the help of wide receivers-tight ends Coach Mike Wilson, and uncorked several passes with the precision that made him arguably one of the best college quarterbacks of his day.

“Mike was running patterns and the team was watching us and laughing,” said Benjamin, a former All-City player at Monroe High. “The adrenalin was pumping and I was putting the ball right on the money and Mike was putting on moves. It was great. I never played at Notre Dame. When I’m coaching is when I really miss playing.”

Benjamin’s initial excitement spilled into the game and progressively gathered steam, as the No. 18 Cardinal upset No. 6 Notre Dame, 33-16, in what Coach Bill Walsh proclaimed “one of the greatest victories in Stanford history.”

And not far away, basking in the magic of the moment, stood the man whose rifle arm sparked the Cardinal in many of those memorable games.

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Until last year, Benjamin did not seriously think about coaching football. He graduated from Stanford in 1978 with a degree in political science and was teaching political economy and critical theory of sports at New College of California in San Francisco when Walsh returned to coaching, stirring Benjamin’s imagination.

Walsh, who coached Benjamin one season at Stanford and later in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers, had given up his job as a football analyst for NBC to return to Stanford. The two enjoyed many successful seasons together, including a Super Bowl championship, and remained friends. In fact, Benjamin helped research and edit Walsh’s book, “Building a Champion.”

Moreover, Benjamin was thoroughly familiar with Walsh’s complicated offensive schemes. And because he was taking a two-year leave of absence from teaching to pursue a master’s degree at Stanford in administration and policy analysis, Benjamin approached his old coach about helping out with the team. “I never really planned to be a coach at Stanford,” said Benjamin, who will turn 38 on June 27. “I thought if I could go to school and coach at the same time, great.”

Besides working with Steve Stenstrom and the other Cardinal quarterbacks, Benjamin is also an academic adviser to the players, serves as liaison between the team and the faculty, and handles some of recruiting. His teaching methods and philosophy in the classroom transfer to the football field.

“There are probably more parallels than people think,” Benjamin said. “Oftentimes, coaches are guys who love the game and they stay in it when they can’t play anymore. And I think many times there’s little regard for the great teachers. The real key is, can they make that transition to teach? One of the reasons Bill (Walsh) came back to college is to teach (football).

“I consider myself a teacher. Instead of politics and economy, I’m teaching quarterbacks using the same approach. . . . Of course, there’s a credibility factor. I couldn’t teach mathematics, but I can teach quarterbacks. I’ve got that knowledge and credibility and the kids respond to that.”

They also more readily welcome his suggestions, Benjamin said, because he tries to deal with the players by putting himself in their position when giving instruction. “You certainly see through that perspective,” he said. “That’s your reference point. I don’t know if I see myself, but I try to get myself in the quarterback’s shoes and ask myself how I would react to what a coach is telling me.”

That, in essence, is how the analytical Benjamin operates. A first-team academic All-American his senior year at Stanford, Benjamin always groomed his intellect as much as his football skills, which served him well when executing Walsh’s game plans.

And he continues to prod his mind by trying to sort out contemporary sports-related issues. Benjamin spends considerable time reading at the Half Moon Bay home he shares with his wife, Jill.

“I always try to find an existential meaning to sports,” said Benjamin, who chooses his words carefully. “I’ve always been interested in seeing if I can get people to look at sports in a different way, in a way that is more pure and more aesthetic, instead of seeing it as a business that is very exploitative of the players, especially young blacks.”

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Although the business of football has changed dramatically, the game itself has undergone on a minor metamorphosis since Benjamin first gained prominence as a “can’t-miss” standout at Monroe in the early 1970s, the halcyon days of prep football in the Valley and around Los Angeles.

Those were the glory days of Anthony Davis at San Fernando and Dana Potter at Granada Hills, of Vince Ferragamo at Banning and Warren Moon at Hamilton, of James Lofton at Washington and Wesley Walker at Carson. And of the most famous football player ever at Monroe.

The first time former Monroe Coach Harry Frum caught a glimpse of Benjamin, then a skinny ninth-grader at Sepulveda Junior High, came during tryouts for a non-contact passing league. Frum and Monroe co-Coach Ken McKenna could hardly believe their eyes--or ears. “He threw a ball past me and McKenna, and it just whistled,” Frum recalled. “We knew we had something special right then.”

That assessment proved right in Benjamin’s junior season in 1971, when he passed for more than 3,000 yards and led the Vikings to the Mid-Valley League title and their first City Section championship game, where they lost to Carson, 41-20. The setback came a few days after perhaps Benjamin’s guttiest high school game.

In the quarterfinals at Santa Monica College, Benjamin marched Monroe 96 yards with less than one minute to play to beat Ricky Bell-led Fremont, 15-13. Some of his timely passes went to Gary Bernardi, a senior wide receiver and tailback on that year’s team and now the recently appointed coach at Burroughs High. “We had a Cinderella team and he did a great job all year for us,” Bernardi said. “He was just precision. He hit me a couple of times for big gains (in the winning drive against Fremont).”

The following season, Frum believed the Vikings were poised to challenge again for the City title and the 6-foot-4 Benjamin would repeat and perhaps even improve on his All-City performance. Monroe gave it a chase but lost in the semifinals to Bell, 22-7. But the Vikings reached the semifinals without their leader.

In the second game of the season, against Hamilton, Benjamin suffered torn ligaments in his right knee and underwent season-ending surgery. Benjamin completed 32 of 45 passes for more than 400 yards in the only two games of his senior season, and Frum believed he was on course for a monster season. Instead, his prep career was over and his athletic future in jeopardy.

“I didn’t sleep at all the night he got hurt,” Frum said. And probably neither did the Stanford and USC recruiters who had the inside track in the Battle for Benjamin.

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With his knee mending and recruiters still hot on his heels, Benjamin chose Stanford because of the school’s well-known academic standards.

When he arrived in Palo Alto in 1973--he redshirted that season--Stanford already had a reputation for attracting and developing top quarterbacks. The incumbent in Benjamin’s first two active seasons--1974 and ‘75--was Mike Cordova, and soon the two were involved in a quarterback controversy.

After Benjamin played well in several games coming off the bench in 1975, some Stanford alumni and fans questioned then-Coach Jack Christiansen’s decision to start Cordova ahead of Benjamin.

The calls for Benjamin grew loudest after he engineered a stunning 13-10 upset of USC at the Coliseum. The sophomore quarterback came off the bench and hit 15 of 29 passes for 161 yards to rally Stanford.

The noise vanished the following season when Benjamin beat out the senior Cordova and finished with 1,982 yards passing and 12 touchdowns. In a 28-23 victory over San Jose State that season, Benjamin played more than half the game with a broken nose, sprained ankle and sprained thumb and still completed 25 of 41 passes for 277 yards and two touchdowns.

By 1977, his senior season, the accolades were commonplace. “Probably the best (quarterback) in the country,” said USC Coach John Robinson before the Trojans met Stanford that season.

The Trojans limited Benjamin to 208 yards passing and shut out Stanford, 49-0. But not many other teams were so fortunate. In a 24-14 victory over LSU in the Sun Bowl on Dec. 31, Benjamin capped a marvelous season by throwing for 269 yards and three touchdowns. He finished the season with 2,521 yards passing.

Benjamin ranks fourth in the Stanford passing list with 5,946 yards and third in touchdowns with 45 behind former Granada Hills High star John Elway (77) and Plunkett (52). His completion percentage (60.4%) is fourth best in school history.

All the success in college pointed to a promising professional career, but that never materialized for Benjamin. He was selected by Miami in the second round of the 1978 draft and played two seasons for the Dolphins. Benjamin then spent one season with the New Orleans Saints and was with the 49ers four seasons as Joe Montana’s backup. With one Super Bowl ring on his finger but with knees that were surgically repaired four times, Benjamin retired after the last operation during the 1984 season.

“At that point I was 29 years old and, to be honest, I had lost enthusiasm in sports,” Benjamin said. “I never really felt I had developed in other areas and I wanted to experience some of those things.”

The knee injuries prevent Benjamin from participating in too many sports--”I can’t play basketball anymore; I can’t jog. They swell up and it’s a little painful”--but he enjoys sailing. And, on some unforgettable Saturday afternoons in a storied place, he might even throw a pass or two for old time’s sake.