Memories:
Kyle Shanahan talks about being on the sideline during the 49ers’ last Super Bowl victory — as a ball boy.
Among the ties that bridge the 49ers’ last winning Super Bowl trip, 25 years ago, with Sunday’s Super Bowl LIV matchup against the Chiefs is Kyle Shanahan having been on the sideline for Super Bowl XXIX.
Shanahan, the 49ers’ head coach, had a welldocumented role as ball boy on the 1994 49ers team, for which his father Mike was offensive coordinator.
That 49ers team won the franchise’s fifth Super Bowl title by flattening the Chargers in Miami — also the site of Sunday’s meeting with Kansas City.
On Thursday, in his final media session before the game,
Kyle Shanahan was asked about his memory of the 1994 Super Bowl run from the thenteenager’s perspective.
“I was on the sidelines that game,” Shanahan told reporters in Miami. “Definitely wasn’t allowed to cross the 30 (yard line). I had to stay with most of the media guys. I was always that annoying kid jumping in front of all the media people trying to do their job and blocking their perfect shot as they would tell me to get the heck out of the way.
“It was great just being down there, being a part of that stuff, being on the field after, just being able to wander around the locker room and try to collect anybody’s gloves who left them around, anything like that. Players were always such nice and good people to me at a young age, and I see our guys doing the same to other people.
“Being able to bring my son around and stuff and watch how they treat him, it’s something I’ve felt very fortunate to have growing up and it’s been cool to give my kids the same.”
Mike Shanahan, of course, went on to win consecutive Super Bowl titles as head coach of the Broncos. Kyle Shanahan said the two haven’t discussed the possibility of being the first fatherson duo to win Super Bowl titles as head coaches.
“Those are things that you find out because someone sends it to you or something,” Shanahan said. “You look at it, and I think it’s cool like anybody else does. So does my dad. It’s neat when you see it.
“But winning a Super Bowl is something I could have imagined for my dad growing up. And then to have the chance to do it for myself — there’s not much more I can imagine than that in sports. So I don’t think of the other stuff. That’s pretty cool. That’ll be neat to say some day if it does happen. But just winning a Super Bowl is enough, and that kind of consumes you.”
Shanahan will have his first chance as a head coach Sunday — and this time it’s doubtful anyone on the sideline will tell him to get the heck out of the way.