My family and I stayed at the Marriott where the 49ers stay at on Sunday night. We checked in kind of late so I missed when the 49ers arrived, but I did see a couple of players hanging out with their families for a late dinner.
I sat at a table about 5 ft from Takeo Spikes and his family. His family was extremely quiet and laid back in general, but you could tell he was pretty upset. I saw him look up at the highlights of the game on the TV that was in front of us several times and he would just shake his head or put his head down in disbelief. We didn't want to interrupt them cause they were having dinner, but I did go up to him when he was getting up to leave.
He was extremely nice, got up right away and shook our hands. I told him how I loved the attitude he brought to our team, told him I appreciated his leadership, and just told him to tell the guys to keep their heads up and keep fighting. He was pretty receptive of my opinion and appreciated the comments. We then asked for a picture and he accepted with a smile. He even autographed a football we happened to have been carrying with us.
What really surprised me is that his entire family got up afterward and thanked us for approaching him. You could tell the guy was pretty down and his family was trying to cheer him up.On the other side of where we sat was Tarell Brown with what seemed to be his parents and a friend or sibling. The guy also looked really beat up and just upset in general. He walked outside at the same time we were getting up so I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but I did pretend I was getting a phone call and walked out behind him.
I overheard his dad talking to him while waiting for their car and he was telling him to basically cheer up and get over it. He even raised his voice and was reprimanding him because Tarell wanted to go out to a club or something like that??? I write this for a couple of reasons. First, its pretty cool to see the human side of these pro athletes and understand that they have emotions too. There have been rumors about this team giving up or not caring anymore, but seeing their frustrations and emotions shows me otherwise. Having said that, I also worry about how long these guys are going to continue fighting to win??
Thoughts??
[ Edited by Norcal9erfan on Oct 12, 2010 at 13:15:02 ]
