Bill Leiser was a San Francisco-based sportswriter whose newspaper career spanned across a period of nearly five decades. During this time he became known as one of the preeminent football writers in the country, but he was also a consummate newspaperman in his role as sports editor of the San Francisco Chronicle for thirty-one years. Under his direction the image, content, and style of sports reporting in the Chronicle was uplifted; as a columnist he explored the entire range of the sporting world in a fashion that appealed to even the most casual fan. While never relenting in his support of amateur athletics, Leiser was always ready to champion civic improvements for his adopted Bay Area.

Many sportswriters labor through their careers without a nationally syndicated column, a stack of published books, or a regular byline in one of the popular magazines, and so their work is usually...