Sports
Benicia High Tennis Coach Heads to 49ers NFC Championship Game Today
The last time Joe Perrin went to a 49ers game, over 30 years ago, he witnessed "The Catch" between Joe Montana and Dwight Clark.
When people first meet Joe Perrin, the Benicia High boys and girls tennis coach, there’s nothing about him that screams he’s a hardcore San Francisco 49ers fan.
The retired construction worker is actually as diehard as they come.
The last time Perrin was at Candlestick Park was the 1981 NFC Championship game, where he watched “the catch” between Joe Montana and Dwight Clark in the 1981 NFC Championship Game.
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He returns a little over 30 years later today to watch his 49ers play the New York Giants in another NFC Championship for a spot in Super Bowl XLVI.
“It’s like a rebirth,” Perrin said. “A resurrection. It’s like you’re 21 years old all over again.”
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He wants a repeat of what he felt while leaving the stadium back in 1981 also.
“Walking out of the stadium with 67,000 fans and saying we’re going to the Super Bowl and we didn’t care who were going to play,” he said. “When that game was over, that stadium was shaking. It was like an earthquake. Everyone was high-fiving, shaking hands and giving hugs all the way to the car.”
Perrin, who was born and raised in Southern California and graduated high school in Texas, moved to the Benicia area to find work in 1978. His mother, Sharyn, was a diehard 49ers, and anguished when the Dallas Cowboys beat San Francisco in the NFC Championship game twice in the early 70s.
When the 49ers made it to the conference championship in 1981, Perrin saw no choice but to take his mom to the game. He and his brother, Jeff, collected enough money for the three of them to watch the game from Candlestick’s upper level at the 50-yard line.
The game turned out to be well worth the time and money.
“It took three hours to come home and it was the best three hours I ever spent in traffic,” Perrin said. “It was a great atmosphere that sparked the Bay Area out of a slump.”
Perrin’s brother took his mother to the Super Bowl that year, where the 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals for their first Lombardi trophy.
On Jan. 10, 2012, Perrin attended "San Francisco Legends Live" in San Francisco, an event filled with 49ers legends who reminisced and recognized “the catch” 30 years to the day it happened. It was an event that left Perrin, in his words, ready to die a happy man after taking photos with 49ers' greats Joe Montana and Jerry Rice.
If the 49ers win Sunday, heaven will be Candlestick Park.
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