Headbands, bling, flags: 49ers and Chiefs fans representing their teams (and country)
Some planned to be in Miami Gardens on Super Sunday no matter what. Some figured it might be another 50 years before their team saw another Super Bowl again, so better go now.
All the partisans outside Hard Rock Stadium, whether representing the Chiefs or the 49ers, wore some form of red.
And maybe a headband. Or giant logo necklace. Depends on the team.
A number of Kansas City fans sported the headband-with-croqueta-cake-hair in homage to Chiefs quarterback and 2018 NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes’ hairdo. Denny Brake and Nathan Blume, both Kansas City residents, said the accessory has been on sale for about six months.
And they’re in trouble with their wives. Both said their wives, Chiefs fans also, weren’t happy they got left behind so Brake and Blume could satisfy a long ago pact.
“We’ve waited 50 years to go. We were both 7 years old when they first went,” Brake said. “We said in our 20s, ‘If they ever go, we’re coming.’
“It’s expensive, but here we are.”
Blume laughed, “We don’t have another 50 years to give [the Chiefs].”
After seeing their team dominate in the 1980s (and be pretty darn good in the 1990s), the 49ers’ fan base expanded from a Bay Area club to a multiple-time-zone-spanning mass. Part of that mass, Joaquin Morales of Westchester, New York, came draped in gold chains with a large 49ers logo, like many Niners fans.
“The gold! The gold rush!” explained Morales, a fan since the early 1980s. “Bling, bling! We want to shine. We want you to see us!
“I feel like a young Mr. T.”
That’s also when Carlos Lascurain of Torreon, Mexico became a fan. Over his Joe Montana jersey, Lascurain wore the Mexican flag like a cape. He planned to come to Super Bowl 54 anyway, but got lucky with his team making it, too.
As far as old-school jerseys, San Francisco fans sported Montana, Jerry Rice and Steve Young with the occasional Roger Craig and Tom Rathmann. Kansas City’s nods to the past tended to be South Miami High graduate Derrick Thomas with an occasional Len Dawson, the quarterback of Kansas City’s two previous Super Bowl appearances.
One Dawson jersey wearer, 18-year-old Kieran McGinley, isn’t just too young to have seen Dawson play, he’s too young to have seen Dawson on “Inside the NFL.” Besides, he and father Brian McGinley are Jets fans.
But Brian McGinley, who brought Kieran to the game as an 18th birthday present, said their neighbor in Long Island is a huge Chiefs fan. If he couldn’t be at the game, he wanted his Dawson jersey there.
This story was originally published February 2, 2020 at 6:29 PM.
