The San Francisco 49ers used Shaler’s Titan Stadium for a final walk-through practice on Sept. 9 prior to their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the teams’ season opener on Sept. 10 — and gave the school district two game tickets and autographed memorabilia.
“They had gone to Central Catholic at first and didn’t like the facility. Maybe they felt it was too public, too much in the mainstream,” Superintendent Sean Aiken said. “So they just Googled local school districts with turf fields, and they called us and (Shaler Athletic Director Clint) Rauscher made a connection. They liked the facility and wanted to secure it, and they did submit insurance forms.”
Aiken said that for special occasions such as this, they generally wave the rental agreement of $300.
“The 49ers were extremely grateful to a maintenance worker who was involved in helping them use the facility and offered him tickets to their game with the Steelers, which he gladly accepted,” Aiken said.
The district is holding onto the autographed memorabilia and will consider it for use in fund raising activities.
The 49ers coaches and players showed up in Shaler around 12:30 p.m. and practiced for about an hour and 15 minutes, according to Aiken.
“Unbeknownst to us, the JV football team arrived back at the same time that the charter bus was unloading the 49ers and created a bit of bedlam with the junior varsity football team and a lot of excitement — and tweets and Snapchats and pictures went out on social media,” Aiken said. “We sent (the 49ers) a thank you on Monday saying we appreciated the opportunity. It’s just a great opportunity for the school district.”
At the Sept. 13 Shaler Area School Board meeting, committee member Edward Kress, a Pittsburgh attorney, wanted to know if Aiken called the district’s insurance company prior to the 49ers coming to Titan Stadium to make sure they were covered.
Aiken said no.
“Here’s the issue. I do premises liability,” Kress said. “I think our council has to be involved with this because there’s potential liability involved with somebody coming to use our stadium, especially the 49ers — the (49ers) organization is worth $6 billion. The players get paid an exceptional amount of money, these are celebrities. I know you should have spoken to our council and said ‘Hey, maybe we should add Shaler area to the 49ers insurance, maybe had an indemnification agreement, maybe had a waiver of liability so if someone gets hurt out there, Shaler is not going to be responsible for it.’”
Kress said he feels Shaler should get some money from the 49ers, and in the future have a set policy.
The Jacksonville Jaguars, who are coming to Pittsburgh on Oct. 29, have also expressed an interest in using Titan Stadium during their visit.
”If we want to bring other teams in, we need to have a process,” Kress said. “This isn’t some church baseball team, I’m just asking that you make sure our legal council is involved with this to make sure we are protected as a school district.”
After the meeting, Aiken told the Tribune-Review in the future the district will be protected from “something like a San Francisco 49er (player getting hurt), that it wouldn’t be a district responsibility. What Mr. Kress is looking for is additional insurance just to make sure that if somebody gets sued or anything like that, that we wouldn’t have to pay for attorney fees to fight anything that we had. It’s a safeguard and it’s good for the district. And it’s not something we’re going to do very often. It’s a unique situation.”
Paul Guggenheimer is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Paul at pguggenheimer@triblive.com.