The Book
The Forty Effin Niners
The Adventures of a Part-Time Security Guard during the Reign of the Team of the Eighties
The thirtieth anniversary of Montana’s Super Bowl drive and Bill Walsh’s retirement (1989) is upon us. Author Rick Pucci is a regular guy thrust into the midst of a dynasty in the making: the San Francisco 49ers of Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, Jerry Rice, and Bill Walsh. Pucci’s memoir is a blend of sports, culture, romance gone bad, and Americana from a fresh insider perspective.
What was Fred Dean’s secret? Bill Walsh Sr. also had a secret. Who was the Golden Globe winner discovered as a 49ers cheerleader? Ronnie Lott had an unbelievable, shocking way to stay in the lineup. What was Jerry Rice’s amazing superstition? Learn how he invented a way to run practices still used to this day. And the seemingly quiet Joe Montana was a prankster and the league’s worst trash talker. Who knew? Joe also had a secret route deep in the bowels of Candlestick Park used to avoid the crowds and paparazzi. Pucci’s memoir is packed with answers to these questions along with other inside anecdotes.
Pucci’s story is a natural for the 49ers fan base and target audience, which can be reached through specialized venues such as https://www.ninersnation.com/fanposts, Levi Stadium Gift Shop, and sports and bookstores through the Bay Area.
After graduating from Penn State, Pucci and his fiancé headed west. Pucci then signed on as a seven-dollar-per-hour part-time security guard for the 49ers. Remarkably, Pucci knew nothing about security back then. Neither did the Niners or even the NFL.
In 1981, the very year Pucci arrived, SF was in the dumps due to the Jonestown massacre and the gruesome murders of beloved Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk. But an uprising evolved to lift the city’s spirits. Those Forty Effin Niners began riding Bill Walsh’s playbook and Joe Montana’s arm to football immortality. Pucci found himself on the sidelines with Montana, Jerry Rice, Coach Walsh, and Dwight Clark; in the owner’s box; and in the locker room during a Super Bowl run behind Coach Walsh’s innovative West Coast offense executed by Montana’s on-field savvy. Pucci sat on the 50-yard line with Bill Walsh’s father. He guarded future star Teri Hatcher, a 49ers cheerleader, and guarded and babysat celebrities of the day, like Billy Joel, Christie Brinkley, Cathy Lee Crosby, Burt Reynolds, and Broadway Joe Namath. He also drove The Official Super Bowl Van which took on a life of its own.
This is Pucci’s unconventional story about football, pop culture, lost romance—and learning on the job. Mostly, it is an accidental insider perspective, a unique vantage where a regular guy hung with monster tackle Dave Butz, provided personal security to Coach Walsh’s children and nieces, heard energized half-time speeches of Bill Walsh, and barely survived a strike-year melee wearing a Niner’s slicker that said “Security,” a very relative term. Pucci had no training. There were no bag checks at stadium entrances. Terror was not yet a football issue. This is a once-in-a-lifetime story because security in the Eighties could not be any more different than it is today.
Throughout this period, Pucci kept copious notes from witnessing events about this era. He would run into the locker room and write down some of the greatest moments in sports history right after they happened—moments with uniqueness. He is confident these writings will interest both sports fans and nonsports fans alike.
The manuscript comes with photos from his collection of memories and oddities from the championship season of those Forty Effin Niners with pictures of Teri Hatcher, “The Catch” from Montana to Clark, and a full season of glimpses from near and far. He proposes about 65,430 words on the ups and downs of guarding a whole stadium of fans, stars, celebrities, and staff.
