The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

The beating heart of a deflated 49er fan

By Ingrid McCleary

There I was, my nails painted in No. 49 Garnet Red, made more radiant with gold-feathered strokes and glitter. I was ready to flash my 49er colors with pride for the next two weeks and hoped my nail masterpiece would last until the Superbowl. I figured if I made my nails bold enough, I couldn't help but see them, which would remind me to send the 49ers positive energy.

I was ready. But now, every time I look at them, I'm depressed. The 49ers lost the NFC championship--to the cheeseheads!--again.

Two years ago, I wrote a column about the 49ers losing to the Green Bay Packers (a.k.a. cheeseheads) and how, since I only threw a Superbowl party if the 49ers were in the game, I'd felt like someone robbed me of a holiday.

Deja vu.

I wonder if the local vendors of big-screen TVs cried when the 49ers lost. It's harder to sell 61-inch televisions when you can't entice potential customers with life-size images of our men in red and gold.

My Superbowl party friends, who come from as far north as Santa Rosa and as far south as South Pasadena, are all saying, "Now what?" We've talked about getting together anyway, just so we can make fun of the Green Bay Packers fans. It would be easy enough. I mean, there are a lot of good things about cheese, but wearing it on your head isn't one of them.

Maybe we could all don rat suits with 49er numbers plastered on the back and run amok through the streets, biting off cheeseheads as we go. Nay, that's what madmen would do in one of Edgar Allan Poe's stories. I'm not mad, just a 49er fan (ahem).

I'm telling myself the same thing I tell my sons when they're fighting over the latest PlayStation CD: "It's only a game." But at least they can start the game over again. Me? I have to wait for eight months for the new season to begin before I can be hopeful again.

This year, football hit closer to home because my eldest son made the Sunnyvale Pop Warner football team, the Black Knights. Nearly every weekend, we huddled in the stands, cheered through their fantastic play and groaned when they fumbled, then raced back to watch the pros on the television.

The Black Knights went undefeated and on to the playoffs, where one loss (ironically, to the Redwood City 49ers) put them out of the running. Last year, the Black Knights went all the way to the "Superbowl" in Florida before losing. This year their hopes were dashed on the field of Sequoia High School in Redwood City.

Casey doesn't know if he'll play again, even though he'd be old enough to move up to the next level, the Micro Rockets--the same Micro Rockets who did make it to the Florida finals and won the whole shebang.

And right now I'm not sure if I'm encouraging him because he needs to learn that great reward requires great effort or because I'm a 49er fan and would love to see Casey jogging onto the field at 3COM Park in 10 years. I suspect it's both.

So here I am, with my flashy nails plucking these words from the keyboard, their glitter constantly echoing, "49ers, 49ers, 49ers," beating, beating, beating like the telltale heart in Poe's story and like the character, I raise my hands to my ears and shriek, "Anything's better than this agony!"

But football madness is fleeting, and soon I shake my head and tell myself the same thing someone should have told Edgar Allan Poe: "Get over it!"

And I will. Until next year.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 21, 1998.
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