Jamie Beacom has been a staple on the sidelines of 49ers games for close to 37 years now as a member of San Francisco’s chain crew, but according to news stories from earlier this week, it appeared as though he was on the verge of getting the pink slip.
“Goodbye, chain gang. Hello, technology,” read the first line of a USA Today article. “NFL to ditch ‘chain gang’ for technology,” an Mlive.com headline began. “Bye, bye chain gang: NFL changing how it measures first downs,” MassLive’s headline read.
Yet reports of the NFL chain gang’s death are greatly exaggerated, as Beacom, a 69-year-old longtime Redwood City resident, explained to SFGATE on Thursday.