The 49ers showed up at Levi’s Stadium on Saturday night for a new season, and we longtime fans of the squad — hell, anyone over the age of 12, really — sighed once more as we tried to get used to the still-new home of the fabled NFL franchise.
It’s Year Four at Levi’s Stadium, and no one has yet to truly feel at home there. If anyone has, they haven’t transmitted as much to the Murph/Mac Show.
That’s why the move by team president Al Guido and his crew to dress up Levi’s caught my eye.
“More red and gold” was the theme Guido enunciated, correctly noting that Levi’s was previously too red and white and, after all, Guido said, “we’re not the Arizona Cardinals.”
Good line.
In came a ‘Ring of Honor’ (it’s fun to guess the names with the jersey numbers, and no, No. 82 is *not* John Taylor). In came banners commemorating historic plays. (Hello, ‘The Catch’.) In came proclamations of past glory (“19-time division champions; 6-time conference champions; 5-time Super Bowl champions”, all factually accurate).
It’s the right move by the team, but some nettlesome things remain true.
For one, it will remain odd to see the letters ‘SF’ on the helmets of a team that is, essentially, the San Jose 49ers. Santa Clara, to be precise; but more generally, San Jose, considering San Jose Airport is six miles away and San Jose City Hall just eight miles away.
Funny enough, while Jed and John York take most of the flak for building in Santa Clara, it was the Hall of Fame uncle, Eddie, who first took the team to the 408 when he built their practice facility there in 1988. He did so for the same reason the Yorks built Levi’s there: cheap and accessible land.
Never underestimate really wealthy people’s ability to find the best financial land deal.
So, until the team switches its name to the ‘Golden State 49ers’, we’ll have to deal with the incongruity. I can’t lie. It bothers me.
For two, it might take an entire generation for Levi’s to become home of the 49ers. Like, a kid who is currently in grade school has to get through college before he thinks of it the same way we all thought of Candlestick. I’d love to know how true old Kezar fans *really* felt about the move to Candlestick. They probably hated it, right? Leaving a neighborhood in Golden Gate Park for a windy, remote location? But by the time NaVarro Bowman was running the ‘Pick at the ‘Stick’ for paydirt, old Kezar fans were weeping as they chanted “Can-dle-stick!”
And that leads to the third fact for Levi’s, dressed-up accoutrements or no: It’s going to take a few seasons of winning to have anyone start thinking fondly of the joint. Sadly, the 49ers have yet to register a winning season there, and odds are they won’t this year, either.
But the first time a playoff game is played there, Levi’s will make its bones. A conference championship? It’ll almost be part of the family.
The common man poet of the early 20th century, Edgar Guest, once wrote in a popular poem, “It takes takes a heap o’ livin’/To make a house a home.” Same goes with Levi’s Stadium. Of course, a lot of poets hated Edgar Guest’s work, too. So there’s that.
Dressing it up with a little history is a good start. Now, let’s see a heap o’ wins before that house becomes a home.