Quest for Sixty — A Super Bowl Story

Me: What are you doing for your birthday?
Dad: Golfing, probably.
Me: Do you want to go to the Super Bowl?
Dad: Are you serious? How much are tickets?

When I told my dad I wanted to take him to the Super Bowl, he immediately inquired about cost. He’s a frugal man and he always will be a frugal man. We stayed at modest motels on family vacations — though once I remember in South Lake Tahoe we stayed at a motel that was so dingy we left after the first night. At times he was frustratingly frugal, but he also has pride. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him. If my dad knew the cost, he probably wouldn’t have accepted the invitation. He would have wanted to invite the family over for barbeque and he would have had a great time. But I was sitting on a pile of United Miles and secured a heavily discounted hotel room. While the cost of tickets was high, at least our logistics were taken care of. “Frugality” was only sort of passed down.

This year my dad’s 60th birthday happens to fall on February 2, 2020 — Super Bowl Sunday. Super Bowl 54 will be hosted in Miami, the city that hosted the last 49ers Super Bowl win after the 1994 season. The 49ers opponent this year is the Kansas City Chiefs, representing a city deprived of a Super Bowl since the 1969 season. The two teams couldn’t be more evenly matched and both teams have the “destiny” narrative pumping strongly the veins of the respective fanbases. A storyline eerily familiar to that of the 2014 Giants and Royals World Series epic.

My dad raised me to love sports. Baseball, basketball, football, golf, bowling, hockey, skiing, ping pong, fishing — all the sports. As a child we frequented Candlestick Park, though mostly for Giants games. With 81 home games each season, many during the summer, it was more accessible and a cheaper option than one of the eight 49ers home games. After the 1994 season there was no conversation about whether we’d go to the Super Bowl. At the time my dad was thirty five years old and still saving to put his only child through college, while aspiring to finish college himself. We enjoyed watching the 49ers through the years almost exclusively on television.

Prior to this year, my recent memories of the 49ers are largely defined by disappointment and a far cry from the 1980s Bill Walsh dynasty so often referenced on television. Game losses include losing to the Baltimore Ravens on Thanksgiving in 2011, losing to the New York Giants in the NFC Championship Game in 2011, losing to the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII, losing to the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship game in 2013, and losing to the Seattle Seahawks on Thanksgiving in 2014. Personnel disappointments in no particular order include: Not drafting Aaron Rodgers, Greg Roman, Jim Tomsula, Trent Baalke, Chip Kelly, Jed York, Aldon Smith, Ray McDonald, Rueben Foster, and Colin Kaepernick being blackballed from the NFL. The dry years were dry but new talent came fast. John Lynch, Kyle Shanahan, Nick Bosa, Dee Ford, Richard Sherman, Kwon Alexander, George Kittle, Emmanuel Sanders, Raheem Mostert, and of course, Jimmy Garoppolo.

I was at Levi’s Stadium on Christmas Eve game in 2017 when Jimmy Garoppolo faced the AFC South champion Jacksonville Jaguars. I watched Garoppolo methodically dismantle a playoff bound team with a confidence I hadn’t seen in a 49ers quarterback for many years. I proclaimed that in 2018 season, the 49ers would go undefeated and win the Super Bowl. Early in the 2018 season Garoppolo would tear his ACL in Kansas City, essentially dooming the 49ers season. More disappointment.

Winning and positive personnel moves changed the culture of disappointment quickly. This year my cousins and I ventured to Levi’s Stadium to watch the 49ers beat the Arizona Cardinals but my 2019 memories largely were formed by many hours at bars. Watching by myself in London, with my parents at the San Francisco Saloon in Los Angeles, at Oakland Athletic Club with friends and family when George Kittle bulldozed the New Orleans Saints defense, when Dre Greenlaw stopped Seattle inches short of the NFC West title, and when Raheem Mostert ran over the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship game. High fives and smiles abound, the 49ers were back in the Super Bowl.

While a poor GPA excluded me from my preferred California universities, I’d graduate from The University of Arizona thanks to my parents footing the bill. I’d be remiss not giving special acknowledgement to my mom, who’s worked at Stanford Hospital for over two decades and who’s benefits helped make out of state tuition feasible for our family. By 2014 I was well into my professional career in advertising, financially able to support myself, my own future, and had started traveling a little bit too. My dad and I would find ourselves in Kansas City for Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. After the final out I remember my dad putting his hands on his head, overwhelmed, and sitting back down in his chair. He was perhaps the only person sitting in a silent Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs, sat quietly in the same parking lot. Little did I know we might see those same Kansas City fans again, years later watching a different sport in a different city.

There exists a unique feeling amongst the privileged, irrational sports fan. It is felt well before you attend a big sporting event in the stadium. The feeling occurs at the airport, where you arrive draped in gear supporting your team and you bump into other people who, absurdly enough, are also traveling to watch the same professional sporting event in a different city. A bond, spoken or unspoken is created between these groups, validating decisions to take off work and travel to watch something that truly is, just a game. It happens with strangers but the bond certainly strengthened between my dad and I traveling together to Kansas City of all places, for a momentous game. We loved our time there — the food, the fans, the atmosphere. It was just a game but represented our many years of Bay Area sports fandom.

This year, I am taking my dad to another game for his 60th birthday. We’ll find ourselves in Hard Rock Stadium in Miami watching San Francisco against Kansas City, again. My gift to him is somewhat selfish, but he’ll appreciate that Sunday can be more than just an expensive football game. It’s a gift that allows my dad to experience the benefits of my own hard work and sacrifices. An acknowledgement that his sacrifices — postponing college, working late, paying for my education — have put me in a privileged position to excel in my own career and attend this game, Super Bowl 54. Whether or not the 49ers win on Sunday, I hope he’s able to celebrate my achievements as his own, enjoying a once in a lifetime chance to see the 49ers in the Super Bowl.

Time to pack our bags. We’re flying to Miami.