Guest Ranter - Jen T. from Santa Cruz -
Novmenber 10, 2004
I've been a Niner
fan since childhood, and remember well going to games before it was
fashionable. I'm a native of the south bay, and a Giants fan as well.
So, having been through a number of highs and lows, I have a pretty
fair idea of what bad times felt like for a dedicated Forty-Niner fan,
as well as being a part of the very best of times.
Never in all my years as a Bay Area sports fan, have I experienced
anything like what has happened to this team under the anti-leadership
of John York. Ed DeBartolo must weep at night when he thinks of what's
become of the franchise he worked so hard to establish and maintain. De
Bartolo was a man who cared deeply about turning a dog of a franchise
around and making it profitable, while about his players and their
families like they were his own, and never hesitated to make sure that
whatever was needed for his team to perform at their optimum talent
level was provided.
DeBartolo was that rarest breed of executive-one who not only talked
the talk, but walked the walk in terms of making the his expectations
clear (winning the Super Bowl), giving his organization what it needed
to deliver on the goal, and then getting the hell out of the way and
allowing them to execute and be successful.
As a Forty-Niner fan, I feel my expectations are more than reasonable.
I'd just like to be able to watch an entertaining, effective team on
Sunday, and stand a reasonable chance of staying in contention with the
rest of the league. I realize that the days of Godiva chocolates when
player's children were born, and anniversary rose baskets and trips to
Europe or Hawaii are probably gone forever, and that parity has done a
lot to undo the possibility of eighties-style dynasties in the NFL.
Like most fans from here, San Francisco and Bay sports fans are
well-schooled in the basics of the economics of sports-many having had
to learn through painful experience that things can't always stay the
same.
But no one can convince me that the fraud that York is perpetrating on
the Bay Area under the guise of a football franchise has anything to do
with sports economics-rather, it's the work of a miserly, selfish
individual who stumbled onto the ownership of a football dynasty by
virtue of marriage to the owner's sister, and who doesn't gave a fart
in church about whether the product is good or terrible, whether the
team succeeds or fails, or whether the most dedicated fan base in
football is happy (and therefore spending) or disgruntled and disgusted
(and giving their tickets away).
John York is the absolute antithesis of Ed DeBartolo. He's selfish and
miserly, surrounds himself with front office staff who don't know their
backsides from holes in the ground, and seems bent on alienating the
most dedicated fan base in the country, while relying in part on their
dollars and support to continue making money for him. You suck,
John-plain and simple.
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