With less than four minutes left in Sunday’s 49ers victory over the Houston Texans, a young fan in a Joe Montana jersey ran onto the field and made his way to the San Francisco sideline. Kyle Shanahan was in coach mode when he looked up and saw the young, unfamiliar face.
“That scared the hell out of me,” Shanahan told reporters after the game. “It threw me off so bad. I didn't know what was going on. Now I feel bad, I wish I pounded the kid because respect. I don't know how he got down there, but I was just looking at my call sheet and I hear a soft voice in front of me saying, ‘holy cow, Kyle Shanahan,’ and I didn't know if it was my son at first or what, but it startled me a little bit and then I realized it was a kid. I've never seen a kid run on the field, so then I said, ‘Wow, man, how'd you get down here?’ Then security got him. I wish I was able to give him something.”
Fan @bayareazoei was in the stands at Levi’s Stadium to capture video of the incident.
there's no way this kid just ran on the field to talk to kyle dude 💀 pic.twitter.com/w6Ek2EfvKv
— zoei (@bayareazoei) January 2, 2022
49ers tight end George Kittle also said he was shocked to see the young fan down on the field, in the middle of the team’s huddle as they were in the red zone.
“I was talking to Tom Compton and I heard, ‘Deebo, I love you.’” Kittle said. “I was, like, ‘What?’ They were, like, ‘Dude, get that kid off the field.” I said, “What kid?’ I look over and there’s a kid talking to Kyle. I was like, ‘Yeah, back to your regularly-scheduled programming.’ This was super interesting. Awesome. I woulda really liked it. The pandemic thing makes it a little weird. But we’re good. I had hand sanitizer we’re fine. Definitely weird. Good for that kid, though. Hopefully they were nice to him.”
Usually you see a drunk, unruly older fan on the field who makes people uneasy, but it sounds like the 49ers weren’t too concerned by this wide-eyed youngster.
