Defensive lineman Bryant Young to be inducted into 49ers Hall of Fame
Back in 2005, veteran defensive lineman Bryant Young walked into the 49ers weight room and noticed something. The dumbbells weren’t heavy enough.
So the 33-year-old, charged with setting the tone for his teammates, did something about it.
It spurred a conversation with strength and conditioning coach Johnny Parker, who was constantly pushing his players to become bigger, stronger and faster. Pushing boundaries in the weight room was ground zero.
Young was an established veteran at that point. He had been in the league for 11 seasons, played 163 games, had 69.5 sacks and 72 tackles for loss in an already sterling career. But he still wanted to endear himself to new head coach Mike Nolan. So it started with his approach to the weight room.
“For me, it was a new lease on just the outlook on my career and new life and trying to impress the coaches, earn a spot on the team,” Young said.
“And we were in the weight room and we only had 150-pound dumbbells. Johnny always stressed about getting better, stay gritty and make every rep count. Finally, I said, ‘Coach Parker, how do you expect us to get better and stronger if we only have 150-pound dumbbells?’”
Bryant’s insistence worked on Parker, who was entering his first season with the 49ers after working previously for Bill Parcells with the Giants and Patriots, which included working with Hall of Fame pass rusher Lawrence Taylor from 1984 to 1992.
“(Parker) was so prideful, and he got so, not upset, but it really got under his skin,” Young said. “And he gritted his teeth. He said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll fix that. I’ll get that straightened out.’ And so in about a week or two, we had from 150 all the way to 200-pound dumbbells.”
Young’s story, which has been told previously, resurfaced this week because he was named the most recent inductee into the 49ers’ Edward J. Debartolo Sr. Hall of Fame, the club announced Tuesday.
Young was a four-time All-Pro, four-time Pro Bowler, defensive rookie of the year (1994), comeback player of the year (1999) and is the franchise all-time leader with 89.5 sacks. He won the team’s most prestigious individual Len Eschmont Award eight times, the 2004 Bill Walsh Award (given to the team’s MVP) and the Ed Block Courage Award in 2005. He helped the 49ers win the Super Bowl in his first season after getting drafted seventh overall out of Notre Dame.
Young in January was also announced as one of the 15 finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the first time in his eight years of eligibility, after playing all 14 season with San Francisco.
“You could not ask for someone to be a better 49er and a better human being than Bryant Young,” 49ers CEO Jed York said in a statement. “There was no question he was the heart and soul of this team as a player and a person who took great pride in wearing the SF oval. He exemplifies the championship culture we strive for in the game of football and in life.”
The team announced Young’s enshrinement into its Hall of Fame in a news release just after York made the initial announcement on Twitter. Young spoke to the media on a Zoom conference call and was featured this week in an online episode of the club’s annual state of the franchise event that went virtual because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Young was most recently the defensive line coach with the Atlanta Falcons from 2017 to 2019 before stepping away to spend more time with his family.
He said he’s followed the current 49ers very closely and has kept watched the defensive line with particular interest. He said Wednesday he believes his club sack record could be in jeopardy, perhaps broken by the current player wearing his number, second-year pro Nick Bosa, who, like Young, won defensive rookie of the year.
“I think in this day and age, anybody’s capable of passing or breaking records,” Young said. “I think records are there as a benchmark to achieve more and accomplish more and to break. Definitely there are guys there that have the potential to exceed that. So, we’ll just sit back, eat our popcorn and watch and see what happens.”
No word yet if Bosa has been using Young’s 200-pound dumbbells.
This story was originally published June 24, 2020 at 1:32 PM.