York explains break with Mariucci / 49ers' owner says coach wasn't on same page with front office

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In the two months since he fired Steve Mariucci as coach of the 49ers and the one month since he hired Dennis Erickson to replace him, John York's stewardship of the franchise has taken more hits than many Web sites.

York acknowledged Sunday that some of his critics were correct.

He admitted that he should have handled the transition better and that he erred in not making the announcement of Mariucci's dismissal personally, instead leaving general manager Terry Donahue to face reporters and explain it.

Only several hours later did York address reporters on a conference call.

Nevertheless, York, in an interview with The Chronicle at the beginning of the NFL's annual owners meeting, left no doubt that he regrets only the way Mariucci's dismissal was handled, not the dismissal itself.

He accused Mariucci of talking out of both sides of his mouth in his comments with team officials and with outsiders, and he put the blame squarely on Mariucci for the problems the 49ers' former coach had with both Donahue and former general manager Bill Walsh.

"I regret not coming down there (to make the announcement)," York said. "I wasn't trying to run away from anything. I'm not sure how well I would have handled that situation. . . . That would have been rough. (But) regardless of how I handled it, I would have handled it better than what happened."

The entire tangle of front office-management relations with the 49ers has been a web of intrigue since York's wife, Denise DeBartolo York, assumed ownership of the franchise from her brother, Eddie DeBartolo, in 1999. Eddie DeBartolo hired Mariucci, and then Walsh, but John York, in power as the "owner's representative," gave Mariucci a contract extension.

Walsh and Donahue often were critical of Mariucci privately, but supportive publicly. Walsh, a Hall of Fame coach, believed he could have helped the much younger Mariucci, but that Mariucci rarely sought his counsel. Both general managers felt Mariucci wasted too much time and energy courting the media and was not tough enough with the players.

Mariucci's firing, York has said on more than one occasion, was not "performance-related." On Sunday, however, York expanded on that comment to add that there was an "off-the-field" performance standard that Mariucci did not meet.

"That does not mean you can't have arguments between the head coach and the general manager, or discussions and differences between the ownership and the head coach," York said. "But even with differences and arguments, there needs to be an agreement that we're going to play on the same team, and I don't think Steve was on that team.

"(When Bill came in), there's immediately this friction between Bill and Steve. Steve never came to me and said Bill Walsh shouldn't be here. When Terry became the general manager, all of a sudden the problems with Bill were gone and now there's problems between Steve and Terry somehow that were being created, and I didn't feel that was being created by either Bill or Terry."

York was careful to give Mariucci credit for his won-loss record, including 22-10 in the past two regular seasons. Then, he added, "But how can you continually have something that is supposed to be a team and everybody is not on the same team, and the person who wasn't on that team was Steve. I really don't think that he sat down and was truthful with me or with Terry. I think he used the press and agents and everybody else to get his feelings and disappointments across, and I don't think that's the way that you run an operation."

In previous comments related to Mariucci's firing, York had said only that Mariucci wasn't comfortable fitting into the 49ers' front-office structure, something Mariucci has denied. Sunday's comments were the most critical York has made about his former coach.

York also said that Erickson "probably was not close to the top candidate when we first started" looking for a coach. York said he did not know exactly how Donahue ranked the original candidates, however, because he, York, did not get involved in the coaching stage until the list was whittled.

The 49ers, although they have escaped the yoke of salary-cap problems that held them down for a few years, have been quiet in the free-agent market this offseason, signing only former Miami tight end Jed Weaver. That lack of activity represents both Donahue's interest in building through the draft and York's fiscal conservatism.

York said the subject of how the 49ers can hang on to Terrell Owens, eligible for free agency after the 2003 season, "comes up every week," and said he would not be against making a financial "reach" for a player on occasion.