DeBartolo Still Has Football in His Sights

He is a five-time Super Bowl champion and a confessed felon, a beloved team owner who built the San Francisco 49ers into a crown-jewel NFL franchise, then handed them over to his sister in one of the darkest periods of his life.

Now, a decade after his team made its last Super Bowl appearance, Eddie DeBartolo is giving thought to getting back in the game. Last year, when Malcolm Glazer considered buying the Dodgers -- a move that would have required him to sell the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because of NFL cross-ownership rules -- DeBartolo, who lives in Tampa, Fla., made an inquiry about buying the Buccaneers.

“I have some very substantial good friends in Tampa that wanted to join me in a purchase,” DeBartolo said in a recent interview with The Times. “At the time, they wanted me to be the managing general partner. It never came about and it’s probably best. Obviously, they’ve won a Super Bowl, Jonny Gruden’s there, and they have no intentions of selling.”

DeBartolo, 57, has essentially been out of football since 1997, when federal authorities notified him that he could be indicted on criminal charges in connection with a gambling investigation in Louisiana. He pleaded guilty in October 1998 to a felony charge of failing to report that Louisiana’s former governor, Edwin Edwards, had extorted money from him to win a casino license. The NFL then fined DeBartolo $1 million and suspended him for the 1999 season.

But DeBartolo wasn’t around as an owner to serve that suspension. In April 1999, he was sued for $94 million by the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp., the family company run by his sister, Denise DeBartolo York. DeBartolo countersued. When the haggling was done, Denise wound up with the team -- now run by her husband, John York -- and Eddie had the real estate end of the corporation, a development company with holdings of close to $1 billion.

“Obviously the incident in Louisiana is something that happened. It’s over,” DeBartolo said. “I think what I did in San Francisco is totally separate. They can’t even be connected. But sometimes I sit back, and the situation was very tough on me, my family, everybody.”

DeBartolo said he was given the choice of taking the team or the real estate company, and decided to give up his passion so he could spend more time with his family and recover from all the “ups and downs” of more than two decades of ownership.

“It came down to a point where Denise and I had to make a decision,” he said. “I didn’t give it more than a 15-minute thought process.”

Six months earlier, he’d called the trial in Louisiana “a little piece of hell,” and vowed one day to return as owner of the 49ers. He now looks at the experience as a painful but necessary life lesson, and says he cannot envision ever owning the team again.

“Sometimes there’s a blessing in disguise,” he said. “Maybe it was time [to leave]. I’ll never forget what Joe Montana said to me. We were riding in the car in Canton when he was being inducted [into the Pro Football Hall of Fame]. We were just talking about football and him. He said, ‘You have to be like me. Put football in the rear-view mirror.’ And he was right. You really savor all the things that happened -- the bad games, the good games, the relationships. But, you know, maybe it was time.”

It’s rare that DeBartolo speaks publicly about his last years as team owner. He said he had given fewer than five extensive interviews since 1997, and his longtime attorney, Aubrey Harwell, was on the line during his hour-long interview with The Times.

DeBartolo has a satellite dish and still watches every 49er game, but he feels no real connection to the franchise that he ran for 23 seasons. He still owns a luxury box at Candlestick Park and some seats in the stands, but the only time he has been to a San Francisco home game in recent years was in November, when the team retired Ronnie Lott’s number.

“There were people at the time who were concerned about the kind of response Eddie might get at that game,” Harwell said. “When he walked out there, the crowd started chanting, ‘Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!’ It was wild. That pretty much was a litmus test of how the fans feel about him.”

At least one NFL owner, Dallas’ Jerry Jones, said he would welcome DeBartolo back into the league if he ever wanted to return.

“I know from my perspective that I would embrace him,” Jones said. “I would encourage others to do the same thing. He just really did everything that he could possibly do to win. It was no holds barred. You say, ‘Surely everybody wants to win.’ And they do. But he used everything that he could to make that team successful, and, consequently, he’s got five Super Bowls to show for it.”

As fan favorites go, York resides at the opposite end of that spectrum. He is cheap, his critics say, and there is a popular perception that he and his wife have, as one Bay Area writer put it, “turned Camelot into Kmart.” There are stories about the franchise counting water bottles [which a 49er spokesman said was untrue], charging coaches for postage, and making staff double up in hotel rooms on the road.

“All I can say is, that’s John,” DeBartolo said. “That’s his management style. Everybody can’t run things the way that we did. There’s a lot of people in the league that probably have that same philosophy. And there’s a lot of people in the league that have the same philosophy I had.”

He later added, “I probably went that extra step, always. Can I say that that bonded the team more with me? I think it did. In fact, I know it did. That doesn’t mean that John won’t be successful with his management style. Have I ever seen anyone build a winner with that management style? I’m trying to think ... I don’t know.”

DeBartolo said he speaks with his sister once or twice a week but seldom comes in contact with York.

“I don’t pick up the phone and call him, nor does he pick it up and call me,” he said. “If we’re at functions -- the last time I saw him in person was at my two nieces’ graduation [in June]. I wished him well. I told him I thought they were going to have a decent season.”

York, who declined to be interviewed for this story, is operating under much different guidelines than the free-spending DeBartolo. For one thing, there’s a salary cap, and teams are penalized for even minor violations of that.

Last season, for instance, the NFL instructed Kansas City Coach Dick Vermeil to take back a $500 bottle of wine he’d given to Morten Andersen after Andersen had kicked the winning field goal against Oakland.

Also, the 49ers are among the lowest revenue producers in the league because of their stadium situation. An argument also can be made that San Francisco has spent the money, but simply poured too much of it into the wrong players.

The 49ers have a winning record under the new ownership (39-31) but have been unable to establish the consistent winning San Francisco fans expect. Since York took over, the team has finished 4-12, 6-10, 12-4, 10-6 and 7-9.

The abrupt firing of Steve Mariucci as coach after the team had advanced to the second round of the playoffs in 2002 only heightened some people’s disdain for York. An entire city, it seemed, longed for the DeBartolo days.

“Those were halcyon times,” former 49er quarterback Steve Young said. “It was unbelievable. It was awesome. It was a unique place in sports history. It was a ride. Anyone that was a part of those years has the same memories. We had an owner that was passionate about winning football games. You can’t ask for more.”

But they got more -- and so did their families. One scout’s wife recalled the distinctive blue boxes from DeBartolo that would arrive at their home every Christmas. One year, it was a crystal ice bucket from Tiffany; the next, it was a set of matching glasses.

There was the scout who got the unsigned card over the holidays -- traceable only by the postmark -- with five crisp $100-bills in it. Or DeBartolo’s bringing his personal chef aboard the team’s chartered plane to prepare all that prime rib for the players and coaches. When players were injured during a game on the road and had to stay behind for treatment, DeBartolo would send his private jet to shuttle them home.

When the 49ers won the Super Bowl in January 1989, DeBartolo flew every player and office staff member, and their guests, to Youngstown, Ohio, his hometown. There, he had a banquet prepared by some of the top chefs from around the country, among them the pastry chef from the Beverly Hills Hotel and the head chef from the Mayfair House hotel in Miami. On his hotel pillow the night before the banquet, each player found a portable CD player, a decanter of perfume and bottle of cologne, a bottle of champagne, and Godiva chocolates in a cut-glass vase.

The next year, when the 49ers won the Super Bowl again, DeBartolo flew everyone to the Westin Kauai in Hawaii for a week.

“I just went up to him and said, ‘Mr. DeBartolo, thank you so much for letting us trespass in your world,’ ” said Kathy Gruden, mother of Jon Gruden and wife of former 49er scout Jim Gruden.

Brian Billick, coach of the Baltimore Ravens, was once assistant public relations director for the 49ers. He and his bride were having a difficult time scraping together the cash to make the down payment on their first house. One day, Keith Simon, then the team’s director of finance, handed Billick a $25,000 check from DeBartolo with instructions to pay it back when he could.

“That’s something you remember,” Billick said.

And it was typical of DeBartolo.

“If you were with him, you had a hard time paying for anything,” center Randy Cross said. “It’s just the way he did business. He was taught by his dad that if you treat people the best and expect the best, you can be reasonably sure you’ll get it.”

Word spread quickly around the league. Players wanted to play for him. But it wasn’t always that way. When his father bought him the team in 1977, DeBartolo was 30 -- younger than some of his players -- and regarded by many fans as a spoiled brat. The 49ers finished 5-9 in his first year and 2-14 in his second. His popularity dipped even lower when the man he installed as general manager, Joe Thomas, drove out popular coach Monte Clark.

In his first season as owner, DeBartolo walked into the upper deck to pose for a picture and someone hit him in the head with a full can of beer. It dropped him to one knee.

“At least he could have drank it first,” he told a reporter later.

Another time that season, he got a rude greeting at Candlestick.

“I was walking up one of the ramps, and there were two guys that were running down the ramp, and a guy spit right in my face,” said DeBartolo, a 5-foot-7 tough guy who got into his share of tussles in his younger years. “And I mean spit. I was so shocked, I didn’t even try to go after the guy.”

Soon enough, the 49ers were knocking the spit out of opponents, and a dynasty was born. Being a 49er meant trying to fill the shoes of the guy who came before you. Coach George Seifert had to fill Bill Walsh’s shoes. Then, Mariucci had to fill Seifert’s. Young had to step into Montana’s; Terrell Owens did the same with Jerry Rice’s.

But, as York might attest, the biggest shoes to fill in the building also happen to be the smallest.

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DeBartolo’s 49ers

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* The purchase: The San Francisco 49ers were founded in 1946 (joined the NFL in 1950) by brothers Anthony and Victor Morabito, who sold the franchise to Edward DeBartolo in 1977. Edward Jr. was appointed chief executive officer.

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* The success: From 1981, the 49ers won 13 NFC Western Division titles, five conference championships and five Super Bowl titles -- 1981 (Super Bowl XVI), 1984 (Super Bowl XIX), 1988 (Super Bowl XXIII), 1989 (Super Bowl XXIV) and 1994 (Super Bowl XXIX). San Francisco became the first NFL franchise to win five.

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* The charges: Late in 1997, Eddie Jr. learned he was under investigation for his dealings with former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards in procuring a riverboat gambling license. Shortly thereafter, DeBartolo resigned as CEO of the 49ers.

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* The deal: On Sept. 25, 1998, DeBartolo cut a deal with prosecution, agreeing to plead to a lesser crime, pay a fine, and testify against Edwards.

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* The penalty: On March 16, 1999, the NFL declared his suspension through the 1999 season and imposed a $1-million fine. The league also put DeBartolo on lifetime probation.

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* The ruling: NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said the penalties were imposed for “conduct detrimental to the interests of the NFL and professional football,” a violation of the NFL bylaws. Tagliabue said DeBartolo had lied to the league when it inquired about reports that he was getting involved in a riverboat gambling venture in Louisiana.

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* The transfer: Transfer of ownership from DeBartolo to his sister Denise DeBartolo York was approved by the NFL on May 23, 2000.