‘He was so frail’: Sierra College coach recalls rise of Aiyuk and 49ers training camp days

Often in his first three seasons as football boss at Sierra College, Ben Noonan would lean back in his coaching seat and peek at the ceiling. It was covered in wood paneling, which puzzled the coach.

What on earth is this, he wondered from 2013-16. Noonan soon found out this was once the room where greatness sweated. It’s where Bill Walsh had a sauna installed back when Walsh coached the San Francisco 49ers and would cook and marinate as he plotted ways to improve his team.

The Sierra College campus in Rocklin is where the roots of the 49ers dynasty was planted and took growth. The venue for 17 years was used as San Francisco’s training camp home, starting with its first Super Bowl championship season of 1981 and continuing through each of its five Lombardi Trophy seasons.

That office is now gone, the wood paneling a thing of lore now, and so, too, are any reminders that the 49ers were once housed there. Noonan wants to change that. A new gym and locker rooms are being constructed, but for a 49ers fan to the core, Noonan appreciates history and connecting the generations.

“It pained me when they tore that old building down,” said Noonan said, now in his 11th season as Wolverines coach.

While recruiting players to attend the junior college football powerhouse, Noonan will remind that a current 49ers player of renown lifted weights here, ran pass patterns here, and grew. Brandon Aiyuk went from a lightly recruited high school player from Nevada into a JC All-American, then a Division I star at Arizona State, and then a first-round pick of the 49ers in 2020.

Aiyuk is in his first Super Bowl, helping power the 49ers into Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas in a rematch of the 2020 title game. Aiyuk this week mentioned Noonan and his Sierra College days to the media in Las Vegas, home of the 58th Super Bowl. He hasn’t forgotten where he came from, nor has Noonan forgotten how far the kid has come.

‘He came in here so frail’

“He came in here so frail,” Noonan said with a laugh. “He had broad shoulders, long arms, but he had no chest. He was barely squatting 270 pounds. Chest wasn’t there. A year and a half later, he was doing 500-pound squats. That’s what’s so fun about JC coaching: You see the development, and we sure saw it with Brandon. He loved working out, the weight room. Never missed a day. Some guys need to take a day off to rest, but he refused.”

Only once did the coach and the pupil disagree, and they both won the power struggle. It was in 2017, leading up to a game at Santa Rosa JC, Noonan’s alma mater. Aiyuk was irked that his coach that week in practice pulled him off kickoff and punt returns. Noonan did so to avoid any extra punishment to Aiyuk. Then they came to a compromise.

“He was not happy with me,” Noonan said. “He didn’t talk to me for two days. Finally, I said, ‘What’s the problem, bud?’ Told him if the game’s on the line, he’ll be returning kicks, and he said he’d change the game. Good thing I listened. He went off. He had two punt returns for touchdowns, one kickoff for a touchdown and two receiving touchdowns.”

Noonan and his 13-year-old son, Benny, watch all things 49ers. They have a man cave in their Placer County home, decked in 49ers red and gold. They wear jerseys, Aiyuk ones, of course, while watching games on the big tube.

They went “nuts,” Noonan said, when the 49ers drafted Aiyuk, and they went bonkers during the NFC Championship Game rally against the Detroit Lions when Aiyuk had a circus catch to ignite the team.

Noonan and son are in regular contact with Aiyuk in the offseason. Their relationship goes beyond football. Noonan mentored Aiyuk, who now mentors Benny.

“It’s been so great to see since Day 1,” Noonan said. “Shoot, Brandon will call and he’ll talk to my son, who won’t always listen to me, but if Brandon is on the phone, he’s glued to every word.”

Young Noonan wants to be a defensive back as he prepares for his first year of padded football. But not as a receiver like his idol, where the action is in abundance.

“Benny says he’ll follow a receiver around in a game and get plenty of action,” Noonan said. “He’s not short on confidence.”

Walsh legacy remains at Sierra

Noonan regularly walks by the pond in the middle of the Sierra College campus, which looks like any ordinary body of water. But it isn’t to Noonan, the 49ers purist. This is where Walsh once in the early 1980s had a truck load of fish dropped in so he could create a fishing competition among the players, anything to lighten the drudgery of camp.

“The walking trails that our cross country teams use are still here, where Jerry Rice used to run and train, those natural trails,” Noonan said. “Isn’t that cool?”

It was a former Sierra College player who suggested to Walsh and club executive John McVay to consider leaving the cool confines of the Bay Area for a hot camp experience. Dan Bunz was a JC All-American linebacker at Sierra College in 1975 before his transfer to Long Beach State. He was the 49ers’ first-round pick in 1978 and started at linebacker for their first two Super Bowl title teams.

In one of the early years at Sierra College, Walsh cut a rookie defensive lineman who made the egregious error in crashing into Joe Montana during a camp drill. A livid Walsh cut that player on the spot. In front of players and a large group of fans, Walsh trailed the player, who was getting escorted off campus, shouting, “Don’t even let him f---ing shower!”

“That’s a great story,” Noonan said. “That’s a no-no. Can’t hit the quarterback in drills at any level.”

Speaking of quarterbacks, Noonan, ever the coach, is fretting about All-Pro Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs. The coach and the son will clench their Aiyuk jerseys and hope for the best, including a sack, where it’s OK to level the passer.

“I’ll have trouble sleeping because Mahomes, that guy, man, he’s never out of it, and he worries the heck out of me,” Noonan said. “Mostly, we’ll try to have a good time. Brandon Aiyuk’s in the game!”