Jerry Rice

1962-

American football player

When you mention "the greatest football player ever," you will find many different ideas about who that might be. Jerry Rice, however, will always be near the top of the list. Playing the bulk of his years with the San Francisco 49ers, a powerhouse of a team that won a record five Super Bowls over the past twenty years, Jerry Rice is still a force to be reckoned with.

A man who has dominated the record books, his accomplishments could fill up an encyclopedia. The most prolific pass receiver in professional football, Rice forces teams to change their defense and double-team him, because he's not only a threat to catch the ball, but he's liable to tack on major yards once he pulls the ball in.

Growing Up

Jerry Rice was born on October 13, 1962, in Crawford, Mississippi, to Joe Nathan and Eddie B. Rice. His father was a mason, and as a kid, Jerry Rice helped haul bricks and mortar when his father had too much work. He grew up with five brothers, with whom he began playing sports, and learned early on the value of playing and having fun, but also about hard work, thanks to his father's insistence that he give it his all.

Like many kids, when Rice got bored, he wasn't immune to getting into trouble. This penchant for trouble is what eventually led him to a career in professional football. Were it not for his attempt to skip school one day, we might never know Jerry Rice's potential. He told the Los Angeles Times that he had "never had any intention of playing football" until the vice principal caught him sneaking out of the school and then, after catching Jerry in a footrace, hauled him back to the gym. As punishment for his attempted truancy, Rice was ordered to go to participate in football practice. "He made me go out for the team," Rice told the Los Angeles Times, "and that's how I started playing the game."

As a high school student, Rice he was a versatile player, moving around on the field and trying out most every position. Not many colleges showed interest in him as he entered his senior year, however. Except for Archie Cooley,

with Mississippi Valley State (MVS), a small NAIA school in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He thought he saw something in Rice, and he wouldn't be disappointed.

Rice attended MVS and majored in auto-technology. During his college career he caught an amazing fifty-one touchdown passes, and over the course of his junior and senior seasons would average two touchdown receptions per game. In his best and final season, 1984, Rice put up statistics that he'd rival in the pros. That senior season, he pulled down 112 passes, netting 1845 yards, with an unbelievable 28 of those catches for touchdowns. He accomplished this in only eleven games (Rice's team averaged over fifty-nine points a game that year).

Superstar in the Making

Some say Rice wasn't fast enough to be a star receiver in the National Football League (NFL), but San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh selected Rice as the 16th pick of the first round. "Jerry's movements were spectacular for a pass receiver," Walsh told the Los Angeles Times. "He'd been catching 100 passes year after year. We felt that if they'd throw to him that much.… he must have the basic instincts for the job."

Yet in his first few games, people wondered about Walsh's decision. In Rice's rookie season, he dropped fifteen passes, but this was due to the complicated 49ers offense, and soon, after he got over the learning curve, he started hanging onto the passes. By the end of the season, Rice had caught passes for 927 yards and three touchdowns, on the way breaking the 49ers single game receiving record with a 241-yard game. He earned a spot on the NFL's All-Rookie Team.

Rice continued his dominance in the NFL, teaming up with Joe Montana to become one of the most successful quarterback/receiver duos in the history of the game. The 49ers had won the Super Bowl the season before Rice joined the team, and Rice wanted to be a part of that. He wanted a ring of his own.

He wouldn't have to wait long. His team, with two Super Bowls in the past six seasons, would become "the team of the '80s," as the 49ers returned to the Super Bowl after the 1988 season, beating the Bengals 20-16 in Super Bowl XXIII. Rice was voted the game's Most Valuable Player.

That was the third Super Bowl for the 49ers in the 1980s, but it wouldn't be their last. In the next season, Rice led all NFL receivers with seventeen touchdowns, and helped his 49ers, which had amassed a 14-2 regular season record, return to Super Bowl XXIIV, which they won. Scoring the most points ever in the most lopsided victory in Super Bowl History, Rice and his teammates blew away the Denver Broncos 55-10. Jerry Rice caught seven passes for 148 yards in the game.

Rice and his team would fall one victory short of making it to the next Super Bowl, but that season he led the NFL in catches (100) and receiving yards (1,502) as well as receiving touchdowns (13). After Joe Montana hurt his back, the 49ers continued to pile up winning records, but for several years they seemed to fall just short of the Super Bowl.

Then, Rice and the 49ers returned to Super Bowl XXIX in 1995, facing off against the San Diego Chargers. Though Rice had been sick the night before the game, and although still weak before game time, he played, and went on to catch ten passes for 149 yards and three touchdowns as his team won a record fifth Super Bowl, 49-26. This put Rice in the record books as the man with the most Super Bowl touchdowns (7) in the history of the NFL.

Chronology

Related Biography: Coach William Earnest "Bill" Walsh

From 1979 until his retirement in 1989, Bill Walsh led his team, the San Francisco 49ers, to three Super Bowl victories. He created an NFL team that came to be known as "team of the eighties," adding, in the middle of the decade, Jerry Rice to an already successful formula. With one Super Bowl victory secure, the addition of Rice to the mix netted the 49ers two more championships before the Walsh decade expired.

Walsh, a native of Los Angeles, California, was born on November 30, 1931. Though he has been in sports his entire life, he wasn't a standout athlete by any measure but played football at San Jose State University in the early 1950s. After service in the military, he returned to complete a graduate degree in Education while working as an assistant coach for the football team.

Bill Walsh began his pro football coaching career as an offensive backfield coach for the Oakland Raiders in 1966. From 1968-75, he would spend eight seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals as their quarterbacks and receivers coach. Then, after a few seasons at the college level, as Stanford's head coach, he took on the position as head coach with the 49ers, in 1979, giving rise to an era of dominance that has been matched by few teams in the history of the league.

With license to build the team the way he saw fit, Walsh invented an incredible team. He led his 49ers to the National Football Conference (NFC) Championship in only his second season as head coach. Then, following the 1984 season, piloted the franchise to its first championship with a victory in Super Bowl XIX over the Miami Dolphins. His team that season went 18-1, the second best in NFL history, setting Super Bowl records in several categories.

Jerry Rice, coming out of Mississippi Valley State University, wasn't heavily favored in the 1985 NFL draft. But Walsh saw something in the receiver and drafted him. Walsh has been labeled a football genius by many (though he denies it) and told the Los Angeles Times that, "Jerry's movements were spectacular for a pass receiver, no matter the level."

When Walsh retired from the NFL after the 49ers' third Super Bowl victory in 1989, he returned to Stanford for several seasons. In 1999 he made his way back to the 49ers, this time as their General Manager. After the 2001 season, he stepped down as GM and now serves as a consultant for the organization.

Rice considered retiring after that third Super Bowl ring, but thought better of it and came back in '95. He continued to put up great stats, and soon became the all-time NFL reception leader with 942 catches. In 1996 he caught his 1,000th pass, still at the top in a sport where he should have been entering the twilight of his career. In 1997 it seemed his luck had run out when he injured his left knee in the first game of the season. Rice needed surgery, and it looked like he would be out for the season. But he hated the injury, and the cast bothered him so much that at one point, wrote Gary Swan of the San Francisco Chronicle, he "went into his garage at 3 am.… took a saw and cut the cast off."

Still Going Strong

Rice returned to the field at the end of that 1996 season in a December game against the Denver Broncos. It had been a remarkable recovery, and even more remarkable when Rice caught a touchdown pass, putting him over 1,000 points for his career. But the tackle in the end zone cracked his kneecap, and he was out of commission once more. He would return full-strength in 1998.

After the 2000 season, Rice left the 49ers, much to the chagrin of fans who'd spent fifteen years watching his every move on the field. Rice moved across the Bay and began the final years of his career with the Oakland Raiders. But neither the move nor age has seemed to slow down Jerry Rice, who, in 2002, was selected for his 13th Pro Bowl Appearance.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: Jerry Rice, c/o The Oakland Raiders, 1220 Harbor Bay Parkway, Alameda, CA 94502.

Career Statistics

SELECTED WRITINGS BY RICE:

(With Michael Silver) Rice, St. Martin's Press, 1996.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Dickey, Glenn. Sports Great Jerry Rice. Hillside, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, 1993.

Evans, J. Edward. Jerry Rice: Touchdown Talent. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1993.

"Jerry Rice." Sports Stars. Series 1-4.U•X•L, 1994-98.

Rice, Jerry, and Michael Silver. Rice. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.

Periodicals

Chi, Samuel. "Rice comes of age (40) with Pro Bowl No. 13.#x201D; Denver Post (December 20, 2002).

Fresno Bee (January 28, 1990).

Los Angeles Times (December 13, 1987).

Los Angeles Times (November 4, 1996).

Los Angeles Times (December 15, 1997).

King, P. "Rice suits Raiders fine: a star is reborn." Sports Illustrated (August 20, 2001): 68.

Sports Illustrated (September 28, 1987).

Sports Illustrated (December 15, 1997).

Sports Illustrated (November 29, 1999).

Swan, Gary. "Rice Wants to Cast Off Doubts." San Francisco Chronicle (September 20, 1997).

USA Today (November 4, 1996).

Washington Post (January 22, 1989).

Washington Post (January 23, 1989).

Washington Post (September 1, 1989).

Other

"Farewell Jerry Rice." List of accomplishments as a 49er. http://www.49erswebzone.com/rice/ (December 29, 2002).

"Jerry Rice." NFL.com. http://www.nfl.com/players.1291_bios.htm (December 20, 2002).

"Jerry Rice." http://pro-football-reference.com (December 20, 2002).

Sketch by Eric Lagergren

Awards and Accomplishments