SANTA CLARA, Calif. — New San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan admitted at his introductory news conference that he will “go back through every play” of Super Bowl LI for the rest of his life. And though the ending of that Super Bowl and his tenure as Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator will undoubtedly be hard to shake, not everything from Shanahan’s Super Bowl experience will take on such a serious tone.
After last week’s news conference and making the rounds with various media outlets, Shanahan popped into the media room to chat with a group of writers in a more informal session. At the start of that sit-down, Shanahan recounted the case of his missing backpack, which included his iPad playbook, from early in Super Bowl week.
It was a particularly amusing story for Bay Area media considering the accidental thief of the backpack was Art Spander of the San Francisco Examiner. Spander is a local legend in San Francisco sports writing, earning the McCann Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999.
Here’s Shanahan’s recollection of what happened in his own words:
“It was a very panicked feeling,” Shanahan said.
But Shanahan wasn’t panicked because of the presence of his game plan, which would still have needed a password to access.
“[But] that had all my Super Bowl tickets in it for all my friends and family, so it’s basically a $30,000 bag of cash that was missing,” Shanahan said. “So that was my panic.”
It was a panic that held Shanahan for a long time as he tried to figure out where the backpack went.
“I was just looking for my backpack,” Shanahan said. “I didn’t know who took it. But I couldn’t get more than five feet without someone stopping me. And I was getting insecure because people were trying to talk to me and I can’t even look them in the eye. [I was thinking] ‘I’ve got to find my backpack!’ And they’re [thinking] ‘this guy’s weird.’
“So finally I went back to my seat where I was and there was this one backpack sitting there. And so I just went and started looking in that backpack and finally I found Art’s name on it. I was asking some reporters around and someone had his cellphone, so they called him.”
But recovering the backpack wasn’t that easy.
“They talked to Art,” Shanahan said. “And I was like, ‘Does he have it?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know.’ I’m like ‘you just talked to him for 30 seconds, what do you mean you don’t know?’ [He said] ‘I don’t know. He’s coming down here, though.'”
So Shanahan sat down and waited 30 minutes for Spander to return with his backpack. He missed the team bus while waiting.
“Finally he came, he was wearing the backpack,” Shanahan said. “But he still didn’t know it was mine. I tried to grab it from him and he shook me off. And then eventually he realized it and then he was awesome. Just a mistaken backpack.”
Shanahan said the backpacks were placed in a dark area so it was understandable that his black backpack could be mistaken for Spander’s blue one. He also acknowledged that he has a knack for misplacing things.
“The worst part about it is I am a forgetful person, besides football,” Shanahan said. “My wallet, I lose regularly. All the quarterbacks, my wife, every friend I’ve ever had, they’re like, ‘Of course, you lost the gameplan.’ I’m like, ‘No I didn’t! Someone jacked me, I promise.’
“No one believed me.”
Eventually, the backpack was returned with everything intact. Shanahan looks back at it and laughs now.
“I messed with Art on that,” Shanahan said, chuckling. “‘What, do you work for [Patriots coach Bill] Belichick or something?’ He didn’t get my joke, though.”
Spander was unable to attend Shanahan’s first news conference. He was tending to his other sporting passion: covering the AT&T pro-am golf tournament at Pebble Beach but they will be reunited soon enough.
“I was waiting to see him,” Shanahan said. “We have a bond now.”
