Newsday (N.Y.): Frank Gore runs hard but speaks softly

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- He was dancing for a few seconds after scoring what would prove to be the winning touchdown in the NFC Championship Game.

Then, suddenly realizing it was out of character -- even when it meant a trip to the Super Bowl -- Frank Gore waved his arms as if to say "this isn't me" and stopped.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

SF Chronicle 49ers Insider: Tough but spectacular

By Art Spander
49ers Insider, San Francisco Chronicle iPad App

You watched, as much in dismay as disbelief. The 49ers were down by 17 points early in the second quarter.

Down against the Falcons, a team with the best record in the conference.

Down at the other team’s home, a domed stadium full of hysteria and great passing by the other quarterback.

Down but, despite the way many of us thought, not even close to being out.

“It’s hard to break us,” said Niners running back Frank Gore, the nonpareil. “We’re tough.”

Tough mentally, which is where it starts.

“We still had confidence we could beat those guys in their house,” said Carlos Rogers, the cornerback.

Tough physically, which is where it continues.

“There had been breakdowns in communication and coverage,” said Dashon Goldson, the free safety. “We did a good job of tightening up some things.”

A great job of holding the Falcons scoreless in the second half and, in the process, recording the third-biggest post-season road comeback in the 90 years the NFL has been in existence.

A spectacular job of defeating the Falcons, 28-24, in the NFC Championship at the Georgia Dome and reaching the Super Bowl a sixth time – where the Niners, coached by Jim Harbaugh, will face the Baltimore Ravens, coached by his brother, John.

Coaches talk of players who make plays.

Players such as Joe Montana and Dwight Clark who three decades ago combined for The Catch and altered the path of history for San Francisco football.

Players such as Ahmad Brooks who, on third down, and NaVorro Bowman, on fourth, broke up consecutive fourth-quarter pass Atlanta pass attempts.

Players such as Vernon Davis, suddenly rediscovered in an offense quite capable of adapting to the moment, who caught five passes for 106 yards. “It’s bigger than me,” insisted Davis. “It’s not about me. It’s about the team.”

Players such as Gore, who, with Atlanta having schemed to stop the expected running of quarterback Colin Kaepernick, ran for 90 yards and two touchdowns.

Players such as Kaepernick, the second-year quarterback, who after last week, when he rushed for a record 181 yards, this time carried only twice for 21 but completed 16 passes in 21 attempts for 233 yards and touchdown.

“The Falcons put a spy on Kaep,” said Gore, using football language for a defender assigned to keeping the quarterback from running. “We kept hearing all week how they were going to pound Kaep. He made the right decisions. I got the opportunities.”

On the CSN Bay Area post-game show, Clark, pointed out. “I thought it was a brilliant game plan. They came out in the read-option, and Colin made the right decisions. Even when they got behind, they didn’t panic and try to pass a lot.”

Atlanta certainly passed a lot. In the first half alone, quarterback Matt Ryan threw 24 times, completing 18, three for touchdowns. The Falcons appeared unstoppable.

“We had the jitters,” said Niners cornerback Tarell Brown. (So did Niners fans). “We knew it would be a challenge. We just settled down.”

Once they did the gloom started to settle in on Atlanta. A week earlier the Falcons had squandered a 20-point lead to Seattle but rallied to win. This time they squandered a 17-point lead, but it was to the Niners. To a franchise which after 18 years is back in the championship game.

The post-game locker room offered not only athletes in celebration but a glimpse into the past. There was Eddie DeBartolo, who owned the Niners when they won their five Super Bowls, presenting the NFC Championship trophy to his sister, Denise DeBartolo York, who owns the team today. And right there were Denise’s husband, John, at last a happy man, and his and Denise’s son – and Eddie’s nephew – Jed York, the Niners president.

There was a sense of solidarity and tradition, a feeling that after the lean years the restoration of the Niners franchise is all but complete.

“This is fun to be a part of,” said Justin Smith, the defensive tackle. He is playing with a torn triceps. He will need surgery. But he wasn’t going to miss being a part of scene. And he was a very big part of the success.

“We knew Atlanta had weapons all over the place. We knew they started fast. But we never got down and we won. It’s an awesome feeling.”

At halftime, Harbaugh, the coach was simply businesslike. It was Davis, the receiver, who was emotional, giving the motivational speech. Later he would shout out, “Kaepernick is the man.”

The 49ers are composed of a lot of men, symbolically as well as literally, a lot of people who never concede.

“Everybody goes through adversity,” reminded Patrick Willis, the All-Pro linebacker. “The way we came back makes it so more captivating.”

Donte Whitner, the safety, would say, “When we had to stop them at the end, there was a lot of pressure. We knew what was at stake.”

In three words, the Super Bowl.

Copyright 2013 San Francisco Chronicle

SF Chronicle: 49ers Insider: Frank Gore Is a Football Player

By Art Spander
San Francisco Chronicle: 49ers Insider

The accolade was simple yet elegant. “Frank Gore,’’ said his coach, “is a football player.”  From one man to another, from Jim Harbaugh, who believes in toughness and persistence, to Frank Gore, there could be no greater compliment.
 
A football player, a back who will run over you if he can’t run past you, a back who can block on passing assignments, a back who as time goes by never looks back and as his play Sunday showed, never looks bad.
  
The 49ers weren’t brilliant against Miami, but they were effective. They made enough plays to overcome both themselves and the Dolphins, gaining a 27-13 victory before the usual announced sellout of 69,732 at Candlestick Park.
   
Colin Kaepernick’s minor mistakes, a few overthrows that brought a few boos – hey, San Francisco fans demand much of their quarterbacks – and a fumble, were offset by a 50-yard touchdown run in the final minutes.
   
Rookie LaMichael James' awaited debut was satisfying, eight carries for 30 yards, some decent blocking and one reception. “It’s been a long time,” said James, the Niners’ second-round pick in April, “but great things come when you’re patient.”
   
The defense was the defense, allowing only a cumulative 227 yards to the Dolphins, although we’ll learn a great deal more about the Niners this Sunday night when they play the best offensive team in the NFL, the New England Patriots.
   
There’s not much to learn about Frank Gore but plenty to admire. His 63 yards on 12 carries, one of those over a yard for the 49ers' first touchdown in more than 96 minutes, lifted him above 1,000 yards rushing for the sixth time in eight seasons.
   
He’s been nicknamed “The Inconvenient Truth,” borrowed from the title of a book about global warming by another Gore, Al, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2000. But there’s nothing inconvenient about Frank, to the Niners’ thinking.
   
“Frank Gore had another phenomenal game,’’ said Harbaugh. “Some great running throughout the game. Blocking, everything that Frank does . . . Let me just reiterate this, Frank is a football player.”
  
Frank is part of the season James had not been activated. They play the same position, although at the moment very few in the NFL play it as well as Gore.
 
“He’s got tremendous ability and great heart,” said Harbaugh when asked about Gore’s endurance. “The assignments, the technique. He’s just on everything. He goes into every one of these games so on mentally.”
   
The talk is that 30 is the age of decline for a running back, who by then is starting to slow and beginning to take more hits. A man loses a step, and subsequently loses his job. Gore, at 29, won’t listen.
   
“When you (hear) everybody say, ‘When you turn 29, 30 you can’t do it anymore,’ when I got to 29, I told myself I’m going to overcome that.  And it’s all about training, training in the off-season, working, being smart during the week. And I love the game of football. I’ve been playing it since I’ve been four, and I’m just having fun.”
   
The Niners have used modifications of the Pistol offense that Kaepernick played at Nevada-Reno. “I don’t like it,’’ said Gore. He laughed. “No, it’s good. Kaep did a great job reading. He made the big play. Everything came toward me, and Mr. Everything did his thing.”
   
Not a bad nickname for Kaepernick, Mr. Everything, although with the Niners struggling to score, leading only 6-3 at halftime, for a while Kaep looked like Mr. Nothing.
  
“These games are really hard,” Harbaugh said in defense of his offense, and particularly his QB. “Miami’s a heck of a team. We knew they were going to be tough to move the football on.”
   
Said Kaepernick, asked the obligatory question whether he was pleased,  “I wish I had a few throws back, a few different decisions, but overall, yeah.”
  
He doesn’t wish he had different running backs, however.
  
“LaMichael,” said Kaepernick. "Very shifty, very fast. He opens up a lot of things for this offense. For Frank, a greater appreciation. I always knew he was a great running back. Being out there on the field and seeing some of the cuts he makes and how he protects in pass protection, I don’t think there’s another back like him in the league.”
  
When Gore, who went to the University of Miami and off-season lives in the Miami area, came out of locker room, he was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the print of a dolphin on the front, the dolphin’s tail up and head down.
  
“I know we had the Dolphins on the schedule,” Gore said, then smiled. “I’m not a planner, so I said, ‘We’ve got to flip them upside down when we play them.’ I was a Niners fan.”
   
More than that, he’s a football player. One of the best.

(ArtSpander.com Exclusive) The 49ers are making noise

SAN FRANCISCO -- The noise is there. It’s in the roaring of a crowd beginning to believe. In the ringing of a phone in a coach’s apartment at 2 a.m. In the footsteps of a running back as he darts 79 yards for one touchdown and sprints 80 yards for another.

The noise is there, 49er noise, reverberating through Candlestick Park, making people think, making people wonder, not ending any secrets but, still in a football season too young to fully understand, not eliminating all the doubts.

“Now everybody knows we’re for real.’’ Frank Gore said it. After he ran for 207 yards, including those two breakaways. “That was a great one, man.’’

Frank Gore was a great one. A great man. He sped through the Seattle Seahawks just often enough that, with an effective defense, the San Francisco 49ers could win Sunday, 23-10.

Could prove in a game that's supposed to be an early yardstick, against the team picked to win the NFC West, that the Niners indeed are for real.

They honored the past on Sunday at the 'Stick. Brought back former owner Eddie DeBartolo to celebrate his induction into the Niner Hall of Fame, named for his late father, Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. Mixed in with nostalgia was hope.

The Niners are 2-0, duplicating their start two years ago when head coach Mike Singletary was an assistant. And while Singletary insisted "the Niners must do a better job than we did today,'' one senses a different feeling about the 2009 team than the 2007 team.

Not a Super Bowl feeling, not yet, as in the Eddie D years, but a feeling of possibility, a feeling of anticipation. This is a better team than last year, than the year before, maybe than any year since 2002 when, under Steve Mariucci, the 49ers last qualified for the playoffs.

Gore is healthy again. Gore is in shape. Gore is the offense. “They can put an eight-man front,’’ said Jimmy Raye, the Niners’ offensive coordinator. “We’re not going to shy away. What we do is run.’’

Or if you’re Frank Gore, ring up Raye from a dead sleep a week ago Sunday night in the wee small hours. The Niners had beaten Arizona in the opener, but Gore had gained only 30 yards in 22 carries.

“He was bothered by the numbers,’’ said Raye, “the times he got hit in the backfield. He was feeling bad, wanted to know if he was missing some holes. He just wanted somebody to hug, rub and lie to him.’’

Gore wanted reassurance that he hadn’t lost the skills. Other excellent backs Raye had coached -- Earl Campbell, Eric Dickerson, Curtis Martin -- also had their bad days and restless nights and needed a kind word, a reminder that even the best stumble and are not perfect.

“You have to remember (Frank) didn’t play much this summer,’’ said Raye of the exhibition games. “So he expected to jump out last week like he did this week, and when it didn’t happen, he basically just needed someone to talk to.

“I knew last Sunday night his week of preparation would be different this past week. This was more than I expected, but you can’t factor in two 80-yard plays.’’

The first, the 79-yarder, came late in the first quarter and gave San Francisco a 10-0 lead. The other was on the opening series of the second half. The Niners led 13-10 at intermission. Eleven seconds into the third quarter, they led 20-10.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before,’’ said Niners quarterback Shaun Hill. His job primarily is to hand off to Gore or Glen Coffee and occasionally throw passes. Short, don’t-take-a-chance-on-an-interception passes.

Hill was 19 of 26, but only for 144 yards. Nostalgia? Sorry, not with 256 yards rushing and 144 yards passing, not with the franchise of Joe Montana, Steve Young and Jerry Rice. But you utilize what’s available, and what the Niners have is one of the NFL’s leading running backs. And late-night conversationalists like Raye.

“He’s got great vision, great patience and is a great pass blocker,’’ Hill said of Gore. “The offensive line was opening big holes. It was fun to see from the back end, seeing the same thing that Frank was seeing.’’

A week earlier, Frank was seeing red. “I told (Raye) I was kind of frustrated,’’ said Gore. “I was upset that we just couldn’t get anything going, but I was happy about the win, though.

“I had been training so hard. Things just weren’t clicking for me. I got injured the end of (last) season. I told myself I would dedicate myself. Go back to training at the University of Miami. I told myself I want to be one of the top guys in this league. I ran the dunes. I did a lot of work.’’

If the work didn’t prove rewarding in the first game, it definitely did in the second. So did the commiseration with Jimmy Raye long past midnight. Call him anytime, Frank.