Bill Walsh’s legacy and achievements are well-documented at the pro and college levels, but in talking to two of his former players recently, Walsh’s impact was just as great at the high school level.
Walsh began his coaching career at Washington High in Fremont in 1957 and coached three seasons before being hired as a Cal assistant under Marv Levy.
For the record, before Joe Montana, Steve Young, Dan Fouts, Ken Anderson and even Steve Stenstrom and Steve Dils, and all the other great quarterbacks Walsh coached, there was Hiro Kurotori.
Kurotori, a retired county roads worker who lives in San Jose, was Walsh’s first quarterback. In Walsh’s first game, Washington upset host Mountain View 11-0 with Kurotori throwing a 36-yard touchdown pass to Grady Hudson. The other two scores came on safeties, both punt snaps that went out of the end zone.
Kurotori, who spent his early childhood in a Japanese internment camp in Gila River, Ariz., was more of a runner in the offense that Walsh first established, the Split-T. But after Kurotori bruised his collarbone early in the season, Walsh switched to junior Bob Hidalgo, who was a superior thrower, and moved Kurotori to wingback.
It was the first time Hidalgo had played quarterback, but he learned from Walsh and got a scholarship to University of Hawaii, where he started one game as a freshman.
He transferred to San Jose City College and then became a small-college All-America at Colorado’s Adams State. Hidalgo received a tryout with the Denver Broncos before settling into a 39-year career as a P.E. instructor, business teacher and coach at San Leandro High. He is now retired.
“At that time you didn’t throw the ball that much,” Hidalgo said. “We threw the ball 18-20 times a game. It wasn’t the same type of thing he had in San Francisco, but probably was the start of something like that.”
Walsh sent four players into pass patterns — two flankers, a tight end and slotback. Most defenses didn’t have enough defensive backs to cover that many receivers, especially when Walsh flooded three of those receivers into a specific zone.
“A lot of teams hadn’t seen things like that,” Hidalgo said. “They had a lot of trouble covering us.”
Hidalgo also pointed out another innovative strategy used by Walsh, something he called the “Elephant Series.”
Before the days of linemen such as William “The Refrigerator” Perry lining up in the backfield, Walsh used 250-pound tackle Steve Barnett and other big players.
Walsh lined up three large backs two yards behind certain spots in the line — the guard, tackle and tight end — all to one side of the quarterback. There were no backs behind the quarterback and two tight ends.
All would run down the line and the quarterback could hand off to any one of them or keep it himself. A fifth potential ballcarrier was the end, who would come around on the option.
“The guy was always thinking X’s and O’s,” Hidalgo said. “He lived and slept football.”
Washington hadn’t won a league game in three years when the Huskies went 3-3-2 in 1957, and then won the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League East Division title in 1958. In his final season there, James Logan High opened, taking all of his returning players except the kicker, and Washington went winless in league play.
“He was a very confident person,” Kurotori said. “And he instilled that type of confidence in his team. People always say, ‘You were very fortunate to play for him.’ And they were right.”
Despite the success he achieved in a Hall of Fame career, Walsh never forgot Washington High. In 1998, he organized a reunion of those teams and told his players that he wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did in football if it wasn’t for them.
“He always had the time for us,” Hidalgo said. “And never forgot your name.”
