Posted on: Monday, February 17, 2003

49ers hire ex-UH coach McMackin

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Former Hawai'i defensive coordinator Greg McMackin is leaving the same position at Texas Tech to be associate head coach of defense and linebackers coach for the San Francisco 49ers.

McMackin was the Warriors' defensive chief under June Jones in 1999. McMackin left after one season when Texas Tech offered him a reported annual package worth $250,000 plus incentives to become associate head coach and defensive coordinator.

Texas Tech athletic director Gerald Myers said there was not much he could do to keep McMackin.

"I told him he's done a good job, and I enjoyed working with him. But we understood if he got a good opportunity and felt like he couldn't turn it down, he was going to have to take it," Myers said in a story in the online editions of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

McMackin will be reunited in San Francisco with newly named 49ers head coach Dennis Erickson. McMackin served as Erickson's defensive coordinator for seven years — three at the University of Miami and four with the Seattle Seahawks.

McMackin became the fifth coach to leave Tech's program in the offseason, including running backs coach Art Briles, who was named head coach at Houston.