Featured

49ers say ‘Goodbye’ to Candlestick Park with Wild Win over Falcons

Published

12 years ago

December 24, 2013

San Francisco. CA – An unbelievable yet spectacular way to end a game. NaVorro Bowman’s pick-6 off Matt Ryan was the play that sealed the Forty-Niners 34-24 victory over the Atlanta Falcons and clinched them a spot in the playoffs. Who could ask for a better ending to an era of phenomenal football.

Bowman missed the tackle that led to the Falcons recovering the onside kick with 1:10 left in the fourth quarter. But he got another opportunity that no know one saw coming. Ryan moved the offense into the red zone, after a shot gun pass to Tony Gonzalez for 9-yards, the 49ers called a timeout.

“….that was one of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen,” said head coach Jim Harbaugh. ” [I’ve] never been involved in a football game where something that good happened in a game. It was like a pick-and-roll in basketball.”

“Yeah that is my best play,” Bowman said. “I told Pat [Willis] I am good for one interception a year and I’ll take that one any day.”

The next play Ryan threw a deep pass left intended for Levine Toilolo but it was intercepted by Bowman who returned it 89-yards for the touchdown. It was a remarkable finish to what could’ve been a devastating loss. San Francisco will head back to the playoffs and try to redeem themselves after losing to the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl last year.

“It’s great,” said Frank Gore, when asked how special the win was in front of former players. “Especially to win and put us back in the tournament. To get back where we left off last year, and hopefully we can get the job done.”

Steve Young, Dwight Clark, Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens to name a few and the man behind the face of the franchise, Eddie DeBartolo were all in attendance for the last game at Candlestick Park. It was a magical occasion as the past and present came together to pay tribute to a stadium that brought five Super Bowl Championships to the 49ers organization.

The “Stick” was built back in 1960 and became home to the San Francisco Giants through 2000 before moving to AT&T Park better known as Pac Bell Park. The 49ers moved in 1971 and won their first Super Bowl ten years later in 1981. Joe Montana’s winning touchdown pass to Clark dubbed “The Catch” was honored tonight as the number one moment in the history of the team playing at Candlestick Park.

“Still emotional,” Vernon Davis said. “It’s going to be tough to take it all in but one day at a time. I’m going to miss this place, I’m sure my teammates are as well. But we’re moving onto something new and something better.”

San Francisco will be start next season in their new stadium being built in Santa Clara. The night just didn’t end with Bowman’s touchdown. After the game, ESPN’s sports anchor Chris Berman talked with former 49ers Young, Rice, Owens, former owner Eddie DeBartolo and current CEO Jed York. York presented the game ball to his uncle Eddie and male group Boyz II Men closed the festivities with several hit songs including, “It’s so hard to say good-bye”.

The last time these two teams played was in the NFC Championship game when the 49ers won 28-24 to return to the Super Bowl for the first time in 18 years. Atlanta’s season will end heading into the final week of the season with a 4-11 record.

The Falcons defense held San Francisco to a field goal in the first quarter. By the second quarter they had taken the lead with a 2-yard touchdown from Steven Jackson and a 52-yard field goal from Matt Bryant. The Falcons ended the first half with a 10-3 lead over the 49ers but that quickly changed after halftime.

Colin Kaepernick led his offense into the end zone to set up Anquan Boldin’s 10-yard touchdown to tie the game 10-10 to start the third quarter. Phil Dawson kicked a 30-yard field goal, Kaepernick ran for a 4-yard touchdown and Frank Gore scored on a 1-yard touchdown as San Francisco opened up the second half much stronger than they had started the game.

“We had to finish what we started,” said Kaepernick when asked what was the message at halftime to make the team come out better in the second half. “We needed this win to get into the playoffs.”

“Just making plays,” Michael Crabtree said. “When we needed to make a play coming out of halftime that’s what we did.”

Looking back at the good and the bad times, the fans have stuck with the 49ers through it all. All week the team said, “it would mean nothing more than to get a win for the fans for the last home game.” Tonight, San Francisco did just that, giving the sellout crowd another great memory at Candlestick Park. As for the players, Kaepernick’s most memorable moment at the “Stick”.

“I got my first start here,” he explained. “I’ll be the last quarterback for the 49ers to play in this stadium so that’s another thing that’s going to be very memorable for me.”

“It was special to get this win in front of our fans, they’ve been great fans since I got here in ’05,” Gore said. “The first six year years were tough for me, and I know for the fans. The last three years have been great, a blessing. We are trying to get it back like it was in the past, winning Super Bowls.”

“My most memorable moment would be tonight,” Patrick Willis said.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

Santa’s Seaplane Arrives in Marin City

Don't Miss

GRUDGE MATCH: Get your Fight On!

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of April 8 – 14, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 8 – 14, 2026

Published

7 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of April 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 1 – 7, 2026

Published

5 days ago

April 6, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

admin

By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.