[2] Bob Waters grew up in Sylvania, Georgia, and was a successful athlete at Screven County High School, receiving 11 varsity letters for his participation in three different sports.

The team was invited to the January 1960 Tangerine Bowl, meeting Middle Tennessee State; despite losing by a score of 21–12, Waters was named the game's most outstanding player.

In 1969, Waters took a football coaching job at Western Carolina, bringing in a victorious season for the 1969 Catamounts in his first year, only losing to his alma mater Presbyterian College.

In March 1989, during the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease), Waters was reassigned from his head coaching position by university chancellor Myron Coulter.

[7] Waters contacted as many of his former teammates as possible to see if they were experiencing similar problems and studies were done that examined the use of DMSO, painkillers, and the fertilizer used on the 49ers practice field in Redwood City, California in an effort to isolate a potential chemical connection.