Graham Kislingbury

I didn’t particularly want to see “The Blind Side” on Christmas Day. The trailers made it look predictable and just a little too sugarcoated.

“Come on, Dad, it’s a feel-good movie for Christmas,” one of my daughters said.

All right. “Sherlock Holmes” could wait for another day.

I’m glad we saw “The Blind Side.” Yes, it was predictable, sugarcoated and feel-good, but the acting was good — this is Sandra Bullock’s best performance to date — and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The movie is the true story of Michael Oher, a homeless Memphis teen who was helped and later adopted by a caring wealthy woman (portrayed by Bullock) and her family (Tim McGraw plays the dad). Oher would go on to become an All-America football player at Mississippi and a 2009 first-round draft pick of the Baltimore Ravens.

What I especially liked is the movie’s focus on an offensive lineman, specifically an offensive tackle. Football movies almost always are about the quarterback, the running back or the wide receiver. For those of us who were “grunts” when we played football in high school, it was great to see a movie that pays tribute to an offensive lineman.

In one scene, Michael (Quinton Aaron) is towering over a skinny defensive tackle. Instead of going all out after the play starts, Michael gently pushes the kid to the ground. That scene triggered memories from 40 years that I haven’t gotten out of my head for the past week.

In the fall on 1969, I was a skinny offensive-defensive tackle and tight end for Mills High School near San Francisco Airport. I played mostly JV that year but practiced and suited up with the varsity.

In practice, I sometimes went up against Gary St. Clair. He wasn’t as big as Michael Oher, but he was quick, tough and one of the best players in the Mid-Peninsula League. Though I never looked forward to matching up with him, Gary probably made me a better football player that fall. Certainly a tougher one.

Gary came from a football family. His dad, Bob St. Clair, an NFL Hall-of-Fame offensive tackle, played for 11 seasons with the San Francisco 49ers.

I pulled out one of my high school yearbooks and found a photo of Gary. Then I spent the next half hour online reading about his dad.

Bob St. Clair grew up in San Francisco and played almost all of his home games — Polytechnic High School, University of San Francisco, and SF 49ers (1953-63) — at Kezar Stadium in the southeast corner of Golden Gate Park. The only exception was in the early 1950s when USF dropped football and St. Clair transferred to Tulsa to finish college.

St. Clair later became mayor of Daly City, Calif., and while I was in high school he was a member of the San Mateo County Board of Commissioners.

The 49ers moved to Candlestick Park in 1971. Kezar, which had a capacity of nearly 60,000, was renovated in 1989. It now seats about 10,000 and is used for track and field meets and football, soccer and lacrosse games. In 2001, the stadium’s field was named for Bob St. Clair.

Thanks to “The Blind Side,” I’m on a quest to find and phone Bob St. Clair, now 78. I hope to do an interview with him before the Super Bowl in February. I’ll also find out what’s happened to his son over the past 40 years.