With the 49ers a victory away from the Super Bowl and its estimated television audience of 163 million, it’s easy to forget that their journey began in a stadium so empty you could hear the beads of sweat drop.

Alex Smith, who at the time was both unsigned and unpopular, orchestrated a series of offseason workouts at San Jose State. There, under the quarterback’s direction, the 49ers quietly laid the groundwork for a season that has taken them to Sunday’s NFC Championship game at Candlestick Park.

The practices became known as Camp Alex.

“It was like the first coat of paint, the primer,” Smith during a break in preparations for the New York Giants this week.

The 49ers were hardly the only team to organize player-only gatherings as a way to combat the NFL lockout, which stretched from early March through late July. During those 130 days, players were prohibited from interacting with coaches — a supposed death knell for new 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh, who would have little time to introduce his thick stack of dizzying X’s and O’s.

That’s when Smith took command of the ship, despite not being assured a spot on the boat. He was a free agent relying on Harbaugh’s repeated public assurances that he wanted him to return.

Smith took a leap of faith, organizing the San Jose State sessions and serving as the camp’s head coach, offensive coordinator, CFO, travel agent, rental car agency and security force. Oh, and quarterback.

“Alex was the leader of the whole thing. Without him, I don’t think we would have known as much as we did,” running back Anthony Dixon said. “We just got a chance to get a jump-start, and it’s working out for the best right now.”

Working out for the best? Against the New Orleans Saints last Saturday, Smith became the first quarterback in NFL playoff history to deliver two go-ahead touchdowns over the final three minutes of a game. On the first one, he followed a block from left tackle Joe Staley — a Camp Alex mainstay — for a 28-yard touchdown run. On the second, he threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Vernon Davis, a favorite target during Camp Alex.

“I think what we did at San Jose State, in terms of digging into the terminology, had a big impact,” said rookie offensive lineman Daniel Kilgore. “Even in the playoffs, we’re still doing the same drills, working on the same footwork, as we were then. It was big of Alex to get everybody together. He made it very easy for us.”

The Spartan Stadium practices started with a trickle of players in late February and began in earnest in March, when a group of 12 to 15 49ers, most of them South Bay residents, began congregating at Spartan Stadium. More arrived over the summer, when players upped the intensity of the sessions in an attempt to replicate the NFL minicamps normally scheduled for that period.

A passer-by might have seen Justin Smith leading a group of defensive linemen sprinting up the bleacher steps on a 95-degree day. Or Staley and defensive lineman Isaac Sopoaga playing catch with a medicine ball with underhanded heaves in the end zone. Even linebacker Parys Haralson rolling a monster-truck tire across a patch of grass near the Spartans’ weight room.

For the most intense Camp Alex sessions, two weeklong efforts in June, Smith compiled daily itineraries and mapped out the drills. To get people there, he arranged the team’s recent draft picks — none of whom was allowed to sign contracts yet — to stay at the homes of veterans.

Smith had organizational help from Justin Smith, as well as from veteran offensive linemen Staley and Adam Snyder.

But this was Alex’s show. “The whole thing was him getting the guys together and working on what we should be working on,” Haralson said. In at least two cases, Smith bought plane tickets for 49ers rookies. When receiver Ronald Johnson, a sixth-round pick from the University of Southern California, needed a car, Smith let him borrow his wife’s.

Smith, who had nabbed a Harbaugh playbook during a brief, court-ordered break in the lockout, immersed himself in the offense so he could teach it to other players. On some days at San Jose State, he would summon players into the school’s Gold Room (often used for banquets and other social gatherings) and diagram plays on a chalkboard.

In those Gold Room sessions, Smith fielded questions from all comers — from rookies or veterans, from running backs or linemen. “You’d kind of dig into the terminology,” Kilgore recalled. “Alex made it very simple for us. He laid it all out for us. He’d help the receivers with their routes and show them how he felt they should be running.”

Nobody argued, then or now, that Smith could teach the offense as well as Harbaugh and his staff. But, as Dixon said this week, “without him, we would not have known as much as we did. He was the one telling us how to run all the new routes.”

Smith compiled and aired old game film of, say, former 49ers quarterback Steve Young, to show teammates the principles behind the West Coast offense. But he did so only after he understood the offense himself.

“I didn’t want guys to be here if it wasn’t productive,” Smith said then. “I think there are a lot of (teams) around the league where it’s a PR deal — ‘Hey, we’re working hard.’ I don’t know how efficient it is. I don’t know how much guys are actually getting done. I wanted to have at least a good enough grasp of the offense so that I could at least give guys something to help them out.”

In contrast to his jam-packed news conferences this week, Smith took pains to keep the San Jose workouts under wraps. He had help from school officials, who resisted the urge to tout the star power hanging around their campus. “We told all of our people that this was something that wasn’t going to be discussed,” San Jose State athletic director Tom Bowen said this week. “I think everybody wanted them to have their privacy.”

When word got out, Smith conducted low-key interviews while sitting on a park bench near Seventh Street, across from a vacant Park-and-Ride lot. Questions centered mostly on why the heck he would do so much for an organization that didn’t always love him back.

“It would have been easier to go to a new place and get a fresh start, and maybe I should have,” Smith said during one such chat. “But at this point, I’m happy with where I’m at and really attempting to be about something different in this league.”

Sticking together during a lockout has paid off before. The Redskins won the Super Bowl in the strike years of 1982 and 1987 after practicing together during the impasse. When owners went to replacement players, no Redskins veteran crossed the picket line.

Most teams staged player-only workouts during this lockout, too, even if it was just a dozen or so players meeting regularly to stay in shape. Eli Manning, the New York Giants quarterback who Smith opposes Sunday, organized sessions at Hoboken High School, where he would fire spirals to wide receiver Hakeem Nicks.

But what separated Camp Alex from the others is that they weren’t organized by an established team leader — they established him as a team leader. Smith’s future with the 49ers was so tenuous in June that when wide receiver Michael Crabtree arrived for a workout, he told reporters, “I wish I could tell you who is going to be the quarterback. I don’t know.”

The work at Camp Alex didn’t exactly cement Smith’s status, either. When the lockout was lifted, the team made overtures to veteran free agent quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who instead signed with the Tennessee Titans.

But those who attended the sessions at San Jose State saw Smith maturing into a leader the 49ers envisioned when they made him the No. 1 pick in 2005.

Among other duties, Smith personally hammered out the financial arrangement that allowed 49ers players access to San Jose State’s playing field, weight room and meeting facilities in exchange for a substantial donation to the Spartan Foundation.

“Everything was tied with Alex. He was the leader of the group,” said Bowen, the athletic director. “We worked directly with him, which was wonderful. I was very impressed with him. He’s a tremendous young man.”

Bowen declined to reveal the size of the donation Smith made to the school. Whatever it was, it’s paying off.

“It was those workouts that led to what’s out on the field,” Haralson said this week. “Alex was our leader. He got us to work on what we should be working on. I think that’s something that kind of bonds everyone together.”

HAPPY CAMPERS

Not all of the players attended the San Jose State workouts — aka ‘Camp Alex’ — but a handful of mainstays went on to have breakout seasons for the 49ers

QB Alex Smith: Threw only five interceptions during the regular season, the fewest ever by a 49ers starter. Led team to six fourth-quarter comebacks.

TE Vernon Davis: Set an NFL record last week with a 180 receiving yards, the most ever by a tight end in the playoffs. Caught game-winning TD pass.

LB Aldon Smith: Racked up 14.0 sacks, just a half-sack short of NFL rookie record set by Jevon Kearse in 1999.

DE Justin Smith: A top contender for NFL defensive player of the year honors, Smith made a game-saving play in November matchup against New York Giants.

LT Joe Staley: Made his first Pro Bowl and was named to Associated Press All-Pro second team. Delivered key block on Smith’s TD run.

RG Adam Snyder: Took over the starting right guard job for Chilo Rachal in October, helping RB Frank Gore go on to rush for 100+ yards for five consecutive games.