We constantly search for interesting subjects and articles. Sometimes we are successful. Every once in a while an article just drops in our laps. An article so interesting we are amazed that we are the sole publishing agent. The following is not only a story of courage but an exhibition of writing talent that reveals the depth of education, the groundwork of which was laid at Lincoln High School.

         It was in 1958 that William W. (Bill) Fox S68 met his lifelong friend Patrick J. (Pat) Fahey S68 at Jefferson Elementary School on 19th Avenue. The two remained close friends through school even into San Francisco State College. Bill is proud of Pat's accomplishments in sports, playing varsity football as a sophomore, playing on the 1965 championship team, and being a two-year All-City shot putter and vying in the State Championship meet.

        But this article isn’t about Pat, it’s about Bill. It’s about pursuing a dream and cherishing every moment.

        You’ve read about Clubs in previous Logs. Bill and Pat belonged to a group that could loosely be considered a club. They called themselves The Rat Patrol, named after that ‘60’s TV action series of the same name. Bill says “The members of my class and the class of ‘67 would gather on Friday nights in the sand dunes on the site of what is now Saint Ignatius High School, at 38th and Quintara to drink beer and yell and scream. We’d get going pretty good until the cops would sweep their spotlights over the sand and we would scatter like rats, in all directions - hence the name The Rat Patrol.

        “A couple of times we’d get stopped by the cops and they’d take the beer we’d ditch. It wasn’t until I became a San Francisco Police Officer and started doing the same things (usually to SI guys) that I realized the cops kept the beer for their own later refreshment.”

        Bill remembers Miss (Homoiselle) Davis, English teacher, Mr. (Patrick) Gelardi, PE teacher and Mr. (Bernard) Miossi, Biology teacher, as being most influential in his learning process. Bill says, “They all shared a common teaching trait in that they all seemed genuinely interested in me and wanted me to do well. When you realize there were 3500 students attending Lincoln at that time, with usually 35 to 40 kids in each class, those were special teachers.”

        Bill met his wife quite by chance. That “chance” being purely coincidental. At that time, Bill had as he calls it, “one of those great jobs jocks get while in college - cleaning Candlestick Park after Giants games at $3.00 an hour. Not a bad wage for 1970!” He continues, “It was Saturday and it was Bat Day at the Stick and the Giants were playing the Reds and it went into extra innings. We were supposed to start work at 3:30 but with the extra innings it soon became 4 then 4:30 and then 5. My fraternity house - Kappa Phi Delta - had scheduled a party with the USF nursing sorority.”

        This is where “chance” came in. What is more important to a college student, cleaning a stadium or partying? Well, Bill got tired of waiting for the game to end and left to go to the party. He was soon very glad he did for this is where he met his future wife, Rosemary.

        The following is, in Bill’s own words, his story:

        I grew up with football and the 49ers. My Dad took me to my first game in 1956 when I was in the first grade at Jefferson School and the following year he got season tickets. R.C. Owens was my favorite player then as he (along with Y.A. Tittle) invented the famous Alley-Oop play that won several games in the last minute during that 1957 season.

        We lived on 23rd Avenue and for the next 13 years, until the 49ers moved to Candlestick Park in 1971, my Dad and I shared a special bond as we walked to and from Kezar along Lincoln Way on 49er Sundays, talking and dreaming about our team.

        I just loved the game and I finally got a chance to play when I got to Lincoln in 1965.

        Mike Holmgren F65, who went on to coach the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl win, was a senior that year and the starting Quarterback on the varsity. I guess because I was tall like Mike, the coaches made me the QB of the Soph-Frosh team. I had the thrill of a lifetime that year when they brought me up to the varsity for the Turkey Day championship game at Kezar and Lincoln beat Lowell for the AAA Championship 13-0!

        We had a good team in 1967, my senior year, I was the starting quarterback. We made it to the playoffs.

        My most dominant memory of playing football for Lincoln was the playoff game against Balboa contested before 5,000 people on Thursday afternoon, November 16, 1967, at Kezar Stadium. The day was one of those incredibly beautiful, pristine, clear blue November days in San Francisco with the late fall afternoon sunlight bringing  out all the full rich colors in the stadium.

        We were tied 7-7 with Bal at halftime with the winner going on to the Turkey Day game the next week. I can vividly remember coming out of the Kezar tunnel for the second half and running onto the deep rich Kezar grass. There was a chill in the air as the sun was going down and was casting long shadows on the field. As I stood on our sideline looking at the scene just before the second half kickoff I felt an incredible energy, focus and purpose. This was my “Nirvana!”

        Even though I was only 17 years old, I thought this was as good as my life could ever get and if life could grant me one wish it would be to spend the rest of my life in this environment. Unbelievably that’s exactly what would happen.

        We wound up losing the game 19-7 and a chance to play on Turkey Day but Balboa had a great team that year and they deserved to win the AAA championship the next week against Lowell.

        I continued playing football at San Francisco State with dreams of becoming an NFL QB - but it would never happen - I just didn’t have enough talent.

        After SF State I joined the San Francisco Police Department in 1972 and figured that would be my career for the next 30 years. It was a solid career job but I missed football and its challenges and the dreams of the NFL were long gone and football would be something only to be watched from the stands and on TV.

        Then Destiny and Fate or Divine Intervention intervened.

        In 1973, Rosemary gave me a 35mm SLR camera with a 50 mm lens for my 23rd birthday, and I began to take the camera with me to work on the midnight watch at Park Station. I would take snapshots of the guys at work then in the early morning hours I’d drive up to Twin Peaks and shoot pictures of the sunrises over the City. Those were rough and dangerous times in San Francisco with the Zebra Killers and Patty Hearst and the SLA, and photography became an emotional outlet for me.

        Nightly we’d deal with the dark side of life in San Francisco which, if you let it, could adversely influence your perspective about the World. What photography did was give balance to my life by forcing me, quite unintentionally at first, to see the beauty in the world through my camera. Meanwhile, on my watch at Park Station  were two cops who were in charge of the SFPD field security detail for 49er games at Candlestick Park. They’d seen me with my camera at the station and knew I loved football and the 49ers. They invited me down onto the field for the 49er/LA Rams game on September 30, 1973, to take pictures of them. After I took their pictures they let me stand along the sideline for the rest of the game trying to take action pictures.

        I’d never been on the field for an NFL game and the roar of the crowd and the intensity and speed of the game were almost overwhelming. In addition, I’d never taken sports action pictures before and hadn’t a clue of what I was doing! But I paid attention to where the “real” photographers were positioning themselves and soon I got a feel for trying to follow the action through the camera viewfinder and to release the shutter at just the right moment to capture the peak of action moments of the game.

        It was an epiphany! That afternoon, I instinctively knew I’d found the vehicle I needed to fill the football void in my life.

        I also soon realized that to successfully photograph the game required the ability to fully concentrate on the action despite the intense crowd noise and excitement of the game while possessing an acute sense of anticipation, timing and reaction. These were the same athletic skills required to play the game and, a big plus, you didn’t have to get hit!

        Now, I had a goal and challenge of trying to put myself in the right place at the right time doing the right thing to capture the peak of action moments which best represented the essence of the game. To do that would require the same dedication, determination and tenacity playing the game required.

        I was “stoked” and the next week I emptied out my bank account and bought a bigger lens and set out to try and improve my skills. Ironically, the next Friday Lincoln was playing at Washington in the Bell Game and I took my camera over to Washington field and said “hi” to my cop buddies guarding the field and walked down onto the sideline and started shooting.

        Amazingly, the fantasy wish I had that November day in 1967 of being able to spend the rest of my life in my “Nirvana” of high school and professional football had just come full circle!

        I spent the next couple of years working lots of overtime with the SFPD to feed my sports photography habit by purchasing better equipment and improving my skills. In addition, the quality of my images were becoming salable to the players, parents and newspapers. I inquired about working for the 49ers but was rejected numerous times stating they were happy with the guys they had. But I still had my SFPD connection at the 49er games, and I was able to sneak in and get my pictures.

        Then Destiny and Fate or Divine Intervention intervened again in 1975. In August, both the SFPD and SFFD went out on a four-day strike over money. After the strike there was a great deal of bitterness and resentment on both sides and for the first time I stopped enjoying the job. Paradoxically, at the same time, I was starting to find a lot of success with sports photography. I was selling lots of pictures to athletes, in all sports, and was given credentials to do big-time events at Cal and Stanford as well as being the team photographer for the old California Seals of the National Hockey League.

        In October of 1975 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors placed on the November ballot several initiatives to punish the cops and firemen for the August strike. In response, both the police and the fire unions assessed the memberships a days’ wages to fight the ballot initiatives. I was on my days off when the assessment came down and didn’t know about it when I showed up for work.

        Before starting street patrol all the cops on the watch would stand in a “lineup” conducted by the watch commander who would read all the recent crimes which had occurred in the district and other related department information. While reading the crimes that night, the watch commander suddenly stopped and singled me out in front of 20 other cops and said “By the way Fox, where’s your money to fight the ballot initiatives.” This took me totally by surprise because I hadn’t heard about the assessment. I was more upset at the tone of the watch commander’s voice which implied that I was holding out and wasn’t going to pay like everyone else.

        Destiny intervened!

        From out of nowhere I replied, “Well, I’m not going to pay that because I’m quitting this job!”

        The immediate reaction was one of shock - both by me and the others in the room! I couldn’t believe what I had just said because you don’t quit a career civil service job. But, then again, I was really infuriated when all the other cops in the lineup hooted unbelievingly: “Oh yeah, sure you are. What are you going to do?

        “By March 31, 1976, I’d used up all my vacation and sick time. After 4 years of service and at 25 years of age, I walked out of the SFPD. Shortly thereafter I married Rosemary and together we set out to start chasing dreams.

        The dream wasn’t to make a big pile of money or the insecurity of trying to be famous. The dream was just about taking sports photos and trying to live and be true to your essence. You have to believe in something.

        The thing I most intrinsically believed in and what has sustained me in the darkest of times was the belief that if I did things that came from my heart, that were genuine me and true to my essence, life would somehow, some way, some time, when it was most needed, life would take care of me.

        Destiny and fate or Divine Intervention?

        I met and married probably the only woman in the world who was self-contained and self-confident enough to buy into such a dream.

        We bought a house in Novato and started an incredible odyssey of her building her own career in health care management, which brought home a “real” paycheck, and me shooting games everywhere, any place, any time while caring for a new baby boy and later an adopted daughter.

        But I just loved the games and I loved the intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical challenge of trying to capture the peak of action moments and somehow, someway, it all held together.

        When I left the SFPD I lost my 49er access and was still being turned down for work by the team.

        Finally in 1984, the late Ed Salmina, editor of the Novato Advance, a weekly newspaper in town, requested photo credentials from the 49ers in my name to photograph games for the paper. I finally had a foot in the door.

        I’d paid my dues in eight years of doing hundreds of high school and youth league games all over the Bay Area. Literally, I was willing to low crawl five miles over broken glass if that’s what it took to do 49er games.

        Over the next three seasons, 1984, 1985, 1986, I was able to build a solid portfolio of images of Montana, Walsh, Rice and Lott. In addition I befriended Michael Zagaris, the 49er team photographer.

        Then, late in the 1987 season, a job with the team shooting all the black and white images for the 49er game programs opened up and Michael called offering me the job. The rest is history.

        The first game I ever worked for a 49er paycheck was a Sunday night game on November 29, 1987, at Candlestick Park against the Browns.

        Divine Intervention

        On the fourth play of the game the 49ers had the ball on their own 40-yard line and I was kneeling along the sideline at the Cleveland 20. As the 49ers broke the huddle something instinctively told me to move and I quickly got up and moved 2 1/2 yards to my left. As the play started I was focused on Montana with a 600mm lens. As he dropped back, set up and released the ball I could see the flight of the ball was headed to Jerry Rice who was sprinting down the sideline towards me.

        I quickly came off the 600mm and grabbed another camera which was hanging around my neck and was equipped with a 28mm lens that I had prefocused (this was in the days before auto-focusing cameras) on the area right in front of me.

        Just as I got the camera to my eye while holding the 600mm which was mounted on a monopod with my left hand, Rice dove and laid out for the slightly overthrown pass, fully extending himself directly in front of me with the ball on the end of his fingertips.

        I managed to get three frames of images before Rice disappeared behind the side judge referee who was standing just to the right of me. If I had not moved the 2 1/2 yards just before the snap of the ball, Rice’s incredible diving catch would have been screened from my view by the referee.

        Destiny!

        The following spring the Pro Football Hall of Fame selected that picture as the NFL picture of the year for 1987, and it still hangs in permanent display in the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. It was later selected as one of the top 100 pictures in the history of the NFL and ran in a double truck layout on pages 32 and 33 of the 1999 book Best Shots - The Greatest NFL Photography of the Century.

        It cemented me with the 49ers and has allowed me to photograph some of the greatest players, games and plays in the history of the NFL including three victorious 49er Super Bowls and photographing in nearly every stadium in the country.

        Fate!

        The job is truly a dream. The 49ers give Michael Zagaris and me complete access to the team.

        Essentially we’re like players in that we can go into any meeting, the locker room, and the bench area. We fly on the team charter, ride the team buses to the stadium, have our own rooms in the team hotel, eat with the team, get clothing, shoes, etc. I’ve met some really neat people, including my all-time favorite, R.C. Owens, who was the team Alumni coordinator and with whom I’ve spent many in-flight hours reminiscing about my watching him play when I was a kid.

        I even get paid! In exchange, Michael and I, along with a third photographer who recently joined us Terrell Lloyd, produce all the 49er images for a variety of team publications and the 49er web site.

        Two years ago I made a conversion from film to digital and this past season, I shot nearly 80,000 images from Mini-Camp in May to the final game.

        During the Cincinnati game, which was the first snow game I ever photographed (I AM a Sunset kid), I took 4,300 images!

        When the 49er season ends I take the same equipment and techniques I use for the 49er games back “down” to the high school and youth leagues. For a fee I will isolate on an athlete during a game and do photo essays of both mood/feature as well as action shots similar to what I take of the 49ers.

        Most years I’m able to do about 200 games in all different sports mostly in Marin with an occasional game in San Francisco or elsewhere.

        What about T.O.? I liked T.O. (Terrell Owens) and I’m sorry to see him go to the Eagles, he was always nice to me.

        Early in that Cincinnati game the team was playing poorly and TO was sitting on the bench and I was trying to get a close-up of him with the snow falling and he started screaming at me to leave him alone, which I did.

        Then on the next series he made a great catch and ran through the snow for a TD. He came back to bench and sought me out and started posing for me with a huge smile on his face.

        He could really be a sweet guy but he could also detonate. But that’s kind of the nature of high stressed competitive guys. They’ve got to be on the edge to be great and the edge is pretty thin sometimes.

        Often times when the 49er team charter flies in and out of SFO for road games, the jet circles right over Lincoln High School and the Sunset and I look down from my window seat on the left side of the plane at the Lincoln football field and marvel how life managed to take me from that field to what I’ve been incredibly fortunate to do.

        However, “NFL” sometimes stands for “Not For Long” and I’ve always aware that this ride could suddenly and painfully end. It will end someday and when it does there will be a smile of appreciation and thanks on my face.

        It is really important not to let the glamour and glitz of the 49ers and the NFL distract from the most important point in all this. And that is trying to live your life honestly and being aware and true to your intrinsic essence. When you can do that, you give life a real chance to take you to some pretty amazing places, like the 49ers and the NFL.