Like mushrooms after a rain, San Francisco 49ers fans start popping up when the wins start coming. Northern California loves a winner. Well, everyone does. People stand a little taller when their team is doing well. There's a spring in their step. Happiness brings company. There seems to be far more fans now than, say, 2005 when Alex Smith was the first pick in the NFL Draft. Its not just 49ers fans that come and go depending on the number of wins. I see it with Cal fans. When I was at Cal in the '80s Memorial Stadium was usually half empty, or half full, on game days. Cal was routinely in the bottom half of the Pac-10. In the late '80s and early '90s, coach Bruce Snyder brought some success. Peaking in 1991 when Cal dismantled Clemson in the Citrus Bowl and ended the season ranked #7. Cal fans dropped what they were doing and went to some games. The stadium was actually full for a few of the games. That success left as fast as it took Snyder to pack for Arizona State. The fans left as well only to return a decade later. The recent success of Jeff Tedford has regularly filled Memorial Stadium. Some have grown annoyed with the lack of a Rose Bowl and wins against USC but Cal fans are generally happy in Berkeley. They keep returning to Strawberry Canyon on Saturdays in the fall.
There's no right or wrong way to cheer on a team. Team preferences and how one goes about being a fan is as individual as anything else that makes us who we are. My father was a 49ers fan from the moment the team opened up shop in the All-America Football Conference. He was never loud in his support of the 49ers but there was rarely any doubt about his true colors. When I was a very young Minnesota Vikings fan he tried to be supportive of my team when they played his. I knew better. I'm glad that he had the chance to see four of the 49ers Super Bowl wins. He was as present in the down years as he was in those great years. I know several 49ers fans and its because of them that I'm happy for the team's current success. I think that coach Jim Harbaugh will keep the team competitive for a while. He's an excellent coach. I'm just really glad that he's no longer showing that excellence at Stanford. Being a fan is always more fun when the wins come frequently. I just wish that more fans would see that sticking with the team through the rough patches on the path to success makes the wins even more sweet. Even more than that I wish that the Vikings path wasn't so frickin' long.
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