Mike Nolan agreed to a five-year contract with the San Francisco 49ers on Tuesday to become the 15th head coach in franchise history.
Nolan, a longtime NFL assistant who was Baltimore's defensive coordinator the past three seasons, accepted the job Monday and met with 49ers owner John York to work out a deal.
Nolan will be introduced Wednesday in San Francisco as the successor to Dennis Erickson, fired earlier in the month after the 49ers went 2-14 to match the worst record in franchise history.
"I think there's a lot of talent on this football team, obviously a lot of it was injured last year, which hurt the team ..." Nolan told KPIX-TV. "It's been proven time and again in this league that it's not that long of a turnaround to get back on track. And that's encouraging for everyone including me."
Nolan is the son of former 49ers coach Dick Nolan, who won 56 games with San Francisco from 1968-1975. They are the fifth father-son duo to coach in the NFL, and the first to coach the same team since Bum and Wade Phillips led the New Orleans Saints.
Though Mike Nolan has never been a head coach, he built some of the NFL's most respected defenses during 11 seasons as a coordinator for four teams.
Shohei Ohtani and his wife arrived in South Korea with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates yesterday ahead of their season-opening games with the San Diego Padres next week. Ohtani, wearing a black training suit and a cap backwards, was the first Dodgers player who showed up at the arrival gate of Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, walked several steps behind him. As a crowd of fans, many wearing Dodgers jerseys, shouted his name and cheered slogans, Ohtani briefly waved his hand, but did not say anything before he entered a limousine bus with his wife. Fans held placards
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EYEING TOP SPOT: A victory in today’s final against Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova would return 38-year-old Hsieh Su-wei to the world No. 1 ranking Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens on Thursday secured a spot in the women’s doubles finals at the BNP Paribas Open after dispatching Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) at Indian Wells. Hsieh and her Belgian partner Mertens, who won the Australian Open in late January, coasted through the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve twice, but found the going tougher in the second. Both pairs could only muster one break point over 12 games, neither of which were converted, leaving the set to be decided by a tiebreaker. Hsieh and Mertens took a 6-3 lead,
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