49ers have a home in the "Ice Castle"

by Alex Dellaverson,


For the North East Ohioans who have been hiding under a rock, the San Francisco 49ers are staying in the Youngstown area this week with consecutive games in the Eastern Time Zone. The 49ers beat Cincinnati 13-8 last Sunday and are preparing to take on Andy Reid's 'dream team" this sunday. I was at the press conference held at the Holiday Inn on Wednesday and Head Coach Jim Harbaugh had some impressive things to say about YSU.

"It's outstanding. It's top notch in terms of the stadium, the two brand new turf fields, the indoor, the outdoor, plenty of equipment. I went over there and previewed it on Monday and Tuesday. Crowther sleds and shoots and pop-up dummies, jugs machines, great video angles, everything that we need. The weight room's fantastic, our guys had great workouts in there. Really everything we need, you guys have here. The neat thing is we've been treated like kings. That doesn't happen very often in anybody's life, but it's been really good here."

Quarterback Alex Smith had some kind words about Youngstown State as well.

"I haven't been in the indoor facility. I saw it from the outside and it looks great. I got to go over there and lift and workout and saw the athletic facilities, the stadium and the field. I was definitely impressed about it to say the least. I thought they were great facilities, definitely. We all came from college. I came from Utah, a Division-I school, and definitely comparable to that. From an NFL point, yeah absolutely, not a lot of drop-offs. Excited about that, you don't know what to expect and then you get over there and you see them and definitely pleasantly surprised."

I was going to inform Alex that YSU is in fact a Division 1 school but everyone knew the point he was trying to get across.

Star linebacker Patrick Willis was content with the YSU facilities as well "At the end of the day, we're football players. So, we dont look for everything to be great. Just give us a place to practice and get better, and we'll take it from there."

For those of you were not able to catch the press conference, I recorded everything which can be found on our youtube page. You can click on the link below to access it.

The Niners practiced again Thursday afternoon at Stambaugh Stadium. They will have their hands full trying to contain Michael Vick and the rest of the "dream squad".
For those of you were not able to see the 49ers practice at Youngstown State, our photographer and Formula-1 racing specialist, Ryan Mooney, has some great photos for your to look at.

I would like to give special thanks to Bob Lange the Director of Public Relations of the San Francisco 49ers for giving 360 Sports Network permission to attend the press conference.