By Mike Tomlinson
What a great time to be a sports fan in the San Francisco Bay. In 2010, the Giants win the World Series. Now one year later, our 49ers—who went 6-10 in the regular season last year under Mike Singletary and looked like a complete mess—are headed (fingers crossed) to the Super Bowl after an amazing turnaround effort by new head coach Jim Harbaugh. Who the heck saw that coming!?
It definitely wasn’t an easy journey. Our QB Alex Smith was doubted by all the big shots throughout most of the season. Not to mention the early season parking lot ruckus between San Francisco 49ers fans and Oakland Raiders fans that had doubters already chalking up the season as a failure, reinforcing the negative image the outside world has of our Bay area fans—but hey, at least we can own up to it.
One must look no further than the infamous Black Hole at the Raiders games to be stricken to the core with pure terror, but its all part of what makes the Bay such a great place to be for sports. We do get passionate about our teams! Just blame it on our high standards. In the land of Al Davis and Joe Montana, we leave our legendary teams little room for failure.
Now, with Jim Harbaugh’s brother John coaching the tough-nosed and playoff game-winning Baltimore Ravens, the only thing that could top this great season would be to see the ‘Niners take down the Ravens in a brother versus brother Super HarBowl! But whether they do or not, for Jim Harbaugh (a Stanford veteran with Bay area blood in his veins) to have turned this team around in only one season isn’t just remarkable, or incredible, or amazing.
It’s purely magical—and that kind of magic is what the Bay is all about.
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