San Francisco 49ers and the All-American Football Conference (AAFC)

  When World War II ended in 1945, the Bay Area was booming. Thousands of veterans were returning and opportunity was in the air. The vegetable gardens south of the city were bought up by Henry Doelger, whose thousands of side-by-side homes at Westlake Village inspired Malvina Reynolds to later write Pete Seeger's song, "Little Boxes." People were hungry for football as many of the local colleges had disbanded their football programs during the war. The All-American Football Conference was formed the next year, 1946, with eight teams. They wisely placed teams in cities where the NFL already had teams to give them competition. The AAFC consisted of the Baltimore Colts, Brooklyn Dodgers, Buffalo Bills, Chicago Rockets, Cleveland Browns, Los Angeles Dons, New York Yankees, and San Francisco 49ers. FINDING A COACH 49ers fans affectionately regard Bill Walsh as the king of coaches. Well, fans, we had a guy in 1946 who had silver hair like Bill. In fact, his nickname was the Silver ... (link)