Donahue’s Big Game Now Is Figuring Out What Future Holds

Around the San Francisco 49er offices, when they ask Terry Donahue if he is going to the big game this weekend, he says he doesn’t have time to fly down to L.A.

That draws a big laugh.

There are no big football games in Los Angeles these days. Not even today’s UCLA-USC lowdown showdown, a pale imitation of the days when at least one of the teams could still smell the roses this time of year.

The big game around Donahue’s office this weekend is Cal-Stanford. Donahue is a Northern Californian now, living in Santa Clara, a new grandfather at 55, trying to launch a third career in unfamiliar territory.

After 28 years in college football--and an active participant in the UCLA-USC game as a Bruin player, assistant coach and head coach--and three years in the broadcast booth for CBS doing college football, Donahue has broken into pro football.

He had flirted with it before. Donahue was a finalist for the Dallas Cowboys’ coaching job, but declined when he realized he would have to share the sidelines with owner Jerry Jones. Donahue also was interested in the San Diego Chargers when they had a job opening, but found that he didn’t have the required experience.

So he decided to get some at the knee of the master, becoming director of player personnel for the 49ers under General Manager Bill Walsh.

Although only a 197-pound defensive tackle in his playing days, Donahue broke into UCLA’s starting lineup as a walk-on.

As tough as that might have been, it couldn’t have been any harder than walking into the 49er front office the year the bottom fell out.

The Ram-49er game was a premier attraction in the days when the Rams called the Los Angeles Coliseum home. It was every bit as big as UCLA-USC, once attracting 102,368 at the Coliseum. That was in 1957 and it remains the NFL record for a regular-season game.

Then the Rams left the Coliseum, left Southern California and took a left turn into oblivion under the misguided leadership of owner Georgia Frontiere while the 49ers ruled the NFL under the sideline guidance of Walsh and George Seifert and the on-field leadership of quarterbacks Joe Montana and Steve Young.

But when the teams line up Sunday at 3Com Park, it will be the St. Louis Rams with the best record in the NFC, 7-2, occupying the 49ers’ old position atop the NFC West, while San Francisco struggles along at 3-6.

Which leaves Donahue in limbo.

On one side of him is Walsh, who said before the season that he was planning on sticking around three years. Assuming that Young-- inactive after having suffered one concussion too many--retires after this season, might Walsh move up his timetable?

And then there is the incumbent coach, Steve Mariucci. The Bay Area rumor that Donahue would replace him began in September.

Donahue dismisses such talk and goes about his business of working with the scouts, attending some college games himself and preparing for the 2000 draft.

But he knows that most people consider him to be in a holding pattern.

“That is the perception,” Donahue said. “People have had perceptions about me most of my adult life, and sometimes they are inaccurate. If my current situation creates uneasiness in some people, I can’t help it. I can’t control what people’s perception is. All I can do is to be loyal, work hard and be an asset to the 49ers.

“Of course there is speculation that I am going to be the next coach. That will continue to fester. Will things change? I don’t have a crystal ball.

“I came up here with the idea of learning pro football administration so that I could be in a position someday to be a general manager. Bill Walsh asked me to come up here and work with him. He is not going to be here a long, long time. He has said that publicly.

“I didn’t come up here with the distinct promise that I would be general manager of the San Francisco 49ers. But I have enough confidence that if I was put in that position, I could be effective in fairly short order. At least I hope so.”

Donahue admits he misses coaching.

“You can’t coach for 20 years and not miss it,” he said. “Broadcasting was really fun too. I enjoyed that. This has been a different arena. I’m learning about salary cap and agents. It’s all hard, but it’s educational. It’s fun. I am getting a different perspective, the back end of football, the behind-the-scenes stuff.”

Crystal ball or not, it is safe to predict Donahue won’t be returning to UCLA. He had a chance to be athletic director when he left the coaching ranks but wasn’t interested.

Even his connection to UCLA’s biggest annual afternoon, the USC game, is fading.

“This is my fourth year away and it’s four times easier than it was,” he said. “Every year, it seems like I remove myself more and more. But you never ever leave it completely. You just don’t take a game like that out of your soul. They can talk about Cal and Stanford up here, but in my heart, there’s only one big game. I’m a Bruin and I’ll be dying for that final score to come in.”

STILL COACHING

It was Donahue who gave quarterback Cade McNown the chance to break into the national spotlight, making him a starter at UCLA at 18.

Donahue has watched in agony from the sidelines as McNown has gone through one personal crisis after another, from his connection with a man once convicted of racketeering to his ill-advised stonewall about his use of a handicapped-parking permit at UCLA.

Donahue has continued his relationship with McNown, now a Chicago Bear, by phone.

“He is not a bad kid,” Donahue said. “Sometimes he just uses bad judgment or listens to the wrong people. It’s difficult, but I have tried to counsel him.”