Several times this season, as the 49ers won at home, a few famous Bay Area sports reporters would inquire, mockingly, “Who will hold Kyle Shanahan accountable this week?” as they walked to the locker room.
As if the concept of holding Shanahan accountable is ludicrous. As if Shanahan were a champion who hadn’t blown many double-digit leads in the Super Bowl. As if sports reporters attend 49ers games solely to document excellence.
My father, Lowell Cohn, covered all five 49ers championship teams and continued to hold Bill Walsh accountable every day. Here’s what my father had to say about Kyle Shanahan’s local coverage following his third Super Bowl loss.
“There was one article in one newspaper by a friend of mine, and the headline said, ‘Don’t blame Kyle Shanahan for this one.” Do not blame Kyle. Who else could you blame? I blame him. I honestly blame him. And as more information comes out, the more I blame him. Nobody that I know has written on what George Kittle did. He accomplished something that should be on the top page of the newspapers. And every local newspaper, to the extent that there are any, should publish an article outlining in detail, step by step, how Shanahan lost the Super Bowl with his boneheaded, misinformed, foolish, juvenile, and unprofessional judgment. There is no getting around that. Where’s the column on that? Where is our local media? Are you there to support the 49ers or hold them accountable? It’s like writing about World War II without mentioning Pearl Harbor. Where’s the coverage? “The media is rooting for the 49ers.”
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Hollywood diva Lily Gladstone slams the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers for ‘commodification’ of Native Americans and memories of ‘brutal’ treatment. ‘It still hurts.’
Lily Gladstone, star of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ has spoken out against the ‘commodification’ of Native Americans by this year’s Super Bowl teams, the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.
Gladstone made history as the first Native American to be nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars.
Following Super Bowl LVIII, she spoke out against the 49ers’ team name and the Chiefs’ controversial ‘Tomahawk chop’, which involves fans chanting while performing a chopping gesture with their arm.
‘Honestly, you could hold both sides culpable,’ Gladstone, 37, told Variety’s Awards Circuit podcast.
‘The 49ers are based on the California Gold Rush, which was a particularly terrible period for California Indians.
‘And then the Chiefs. There are various ways to interpret the name “chief” The name doesn’t annoy me. It’s hearing the darn Tomahawk chop.
‘Every time, it’s a brutal reminder of what Hollywood has done to us because the Tomahawk chop immediately relates to the sounds of old Westerns where we weren’t portraying ourselves, or if we were, we were just background performers.’
She continued, ‘It’s this “claiming” of that sound and saying it’s in “honor” and the selling of who we are as individuals… it’s fantastic to love the game and your players, but it still hurts.’
The Chiefs have been under fire for not changing their name. In recent years, the Washington Redskins have rebranded as the ‘Commanders’, while baseball’s Cleveland Indians have become the Guardians.
Since 2020, Kansas City has prohibited fans from wearing headdresses or Native American-style face paint at Arrowhead Stadium. Their mascot, a horse dubbed ‘Warpaint’, was discontinued the next year.
