Bobby Leopold read the original script for his induction into the Museum of the Gulf Coast. It said the San Diego Chargers drafted him in 1980.

“I read that and I thought, did that really happen?” Leopold said. “There were a lot of little things that probably went on, and I didn’t even know about it.”

There was no Internet in 1980 to immediately track which team picked up who. Leopold, then a senior at Notre Dame, didn’t even throw a watch party to see where he might go.

But he remembers the San Francisco 49ers calling him one morning in his dorm room.

“It was about 10 in the morning when George Seifert called me and asked if I wanted to come join the Niners,” Leopold said.

Seifert, who won two Super Bowls as the head coach, was Bill Walsh’s defensive backs coach when he called Leopold. By the end of the season, Leopold was an NFL All-Rookie.

The next season, he won a Super Bowl, beginning one of the more remarkable dynasties for a sports franchise.

It’s no telling when or whether Leopold would taste any of that glory had his father Leroy, a longtime assistant coach at Lincoln High, not written a very important letter to him.

“There were so few blacks there, and I remembered after my freshman year … I lettered after my freshman year,” said Leopold, a 1976 Lincoln graduate. “I intercepted a pass against Northwestern and returned it for a touchdown. Going into my sophomore year, I was ready to leave because I thought I should be playing more. My dad wrote me a letter and said, ‘Don’t do anything. Come home for spring break.’ And he talked to me about what it would mean for a black to graduate from Notre Dame. So, I got that talk.

“I ended up staying, and the next year, I won the national championship. When I look back on it, I’m so glad I took that advice.”

Bobby Leopold graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in economics and helped bring a wealth of success to the Bay Area where Stanford and Cal-Berkeley are situated. But if he felt the odds were stacked against him in South Bend, he was really going to have to prove himself in San Francisco.

The 49ers drafted three linebackers above Leopold in 1980: Keena Turner of Purdue, Craig Puki of Tennessee and David Hodge of Houston. Leopold was taken in the eighth round, 210th overall. (The draft now has seven rounds.)

Hollywood Henderson was waived early in the season while dealing with drug issues, and Turner, Leopold recalled, pulled a groin during training camp. Leopold beat the odds.

It’s an accomplishment Jamaal Charles and Elandon Roberts know so well. Roberts has his Super Bowl ring, but Leopold has national and Super Bowl titles to show for it.

Good thing Leroy wrote the letter to him. Bobby received it just after talking with a Baylor recruiter who was at his home along with a Kansas State coach when Bobby signed with Notre Dame.

“Coach Wade at Baylor asked, ‘Didn’t you letter at Notre Dame?’” Bobby Leopold said. He could not remember Wade’s last name.

“I said, ‘Yes, I did.’ He said, ‘Yeah, we’d love have you. You’ll have to sit out a year, of course.’ Then I got the letter from my dad, and then I just didn’t worry about it.”

He didn’t have to.

Leopold has lived a great life away from the game. He was vice president of client relations for a process servicing company, dealing with foreclosure terms. Then, he began to build affordable housing complexes, still developing a senior center in Houston.

These days, he teaches economics at Port Arthur Memorial. That economics degree is still good to him.

“I noticed it was hard for Memorial to get certified teachers,” Leopold said. “I figured I’d get my certification, not only get it, but stay. I’m there because I want to be there.”

This is Leopold’s fourth year to teach. Where the odds seemed stacked, Leopold helped a school beat them.

Experience is a great teacher, and Leopold qualifies.
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I.C. Murrell can be reached at 549-8541 or at ic.murrell@panews.com. On Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews