Sonoma 49ers fan has followed team from Kezar to Candlestick to Levi’s

Mike Lyons’ love of the San Francisco 49ers goes back to the foggy, soggy days of Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park, when the team was in its infancy, the game was for the working class and Lyons was a hometown kid with a passion for the pigskin.

Now retired after a long teaching career, Lyons is still true to the red and gold, despite the past few dismal seasons and the team’s move to Santa Clara, where the cost of game tickets is sky-high and many seats remain empty, partly because of the lackluster season start. But even as some fans struggle with their loyalty, Lyons’ faith is unfaltering.

“I don’t think there has been a season I haven’t followed them closely,” said Lyons, 66. “They’re kind of like a thread in your life that’s always there.”

He hasn’t lived in the city for decades - he’s been a Sonoma Valley resident for 30 years - but his hometown loyalty is palpable.

Not long after retiring as an English teacher at Sonoma Valley High School, Lyons put together a course on the 49ers, poring over books, searching the Internet, referring to his DVD collection of every Super Bowl championship and relying on his memories attending training camps and games to develop the five-session class he presented at a local senior center in 2014.

There’s little he doesn’t know about his hometown team.

Lyons epitomizes the fan base known as “49er Faithful.” Once a Niners fan, always a Niners fan.

“I don’t know if they’re going to win another game. It’s very possible they could lose every game (this season),” he said. “It’s very disheartening.”

Yet Lyons isn’t switching allegiances to the Raider Nation - or any other professional football team.

“I’m never going to give up on them. They’re my team,” he said. “They are a young team. You hope they’re going to do good things.”

He’s optimistic enough to predict (or perhaps pray) the Niners will make another Super Bowl appearance in a few years, possibly under a new general manager if his insights are right.

For a native San Franciscan like Lyons - the oldest of four sports-loving brothers from the Excelsior district - loyalties run deep. Even with loss after loss, ownership and management changes and questionable plays and controversies, Lyons stands by his team.

He’s been rooting for the team since his childhood, watching games at Kezar and then Candlestick Park, gathering with his parents and brothers at friends’ homes to watch TV highlights before games were all televised.

When he lived in Oregon nearly a dozen years, Lyons and fellow Bay Area transplants and fans hosted “watching parties” almost every Sunday.

He doesn’t agree with the team’s every decision, but maintains his faith. He does worry the franchise is more concerned with commercial gains than game outcomes, but continues cheering.

He admits to feeling some abandonment when the team left Candlestick Park for the new - and comparatively swanky - Levi’s Stadium in 2014. He’s toured the $1.3 billion facility but hasn’t yet gone to a game there, where tickets are among the most expensive in the NFL.

Once a longtime season ticket holder, these days he watches televised games from the comfort of his easy chair and engages in Monday morning quarterbacking via KNBR radio commentary and analysis, newspaper columns and reports, and online blogs.

He points out the team has been to six Super Bowls during its 70-year history, winning five championships. Lyons considers wide receiver Jerry Rice, who played for the Niners from 1985 to 2000, “probably the best player who ever played.” The collaboration between quarterback Joe Montana and coach Bill Walsh “was the greatest thing to ever happen.”

Lyons believes in the team’s current head coach, Chip Kelly. He’s confident Kelly will find success, just as he did leading the University of Oregon Ducks to four consecutive Bowl Championship Series games, including the 2011 national championship.

“He’s a great evaluator of talent,” Lyons said.

There have been more favorable moments with the 49ers than Lyons can count. So what if his favorite team is in a slump? And the recent controversy with quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s decision to sit during the national anthem? It was his right, Lyons believes.

Lyons can recount where he was, what he was doing, the stage of his life, at the mere mention of a Niners’ play or player. The team, with favorites like Roger Craig, Jack “Hacksaw” Reynolds, Harris Barton and Bob St. Clair, is so woven into his life that he likens football moments to pivotal songs that evoke vivid memories.

“They bring up different times of my life,” he said. “It’s the same kind of cultural touchpoint (as songs).”

Lyons can even lay claim to serving as a Niners’ usher for the 1967 season.

He played football all four years at Riordan High School in San Francisco, two years on varsity. When the team won the highly anticipated Catholic Athletic League championship against rival powerhouse Bellarmine from San Jose, the winning players were invited to serve as ushers at Kezar in the Christopher Dairy Farms section, where kids redeemed milk coupons to attend Niners games.

Lyons, then proudly sporting his block “R” sweater or jacket, could relate to the kids. He attended his first football game - a popular high school Turkey Bowl championship - at Kezar at age 5 and played in high school games on the field; Riordan didn’t have bleachers for spectators.

A linebacker for the Riordan Crusaders, he remembers dressing for his games in the Niners’ locker room, reading players’ name plates and peeking through the mesh into their lockers. From being in the locker room to playing on the field and ushering, to watching the team’s earliest days at Kezar, Lyons has countless memories that, he says, are far more valuable than the football cards or team “tchotchkes” he’s collected over the years.

“I did see Jim Brown. I did see Gale Sayers,” he said.

Candlestick Park is a rush of memories, too, from the “epic” tailgate parties to the sensational seasons that brought numerous championship playoff games.

“They didn’t always have great years but they’ve always had great players,” Lyons said.

He knows he’ll be rooting for the home team direct from Levi’s Stadium someday.

“I’m sure I’ll get to a game at some point,” he said. “Hopefully when they’re doing better.”

Contact Towns Correspondent Dianne Reber Hart at sonomatowns@gmail.com.