Everyone already knows Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara is far away, often too hot, surrounded by traffic, and has expensive parking. What it doesn't have, apparently, is decent security. Or so claims a Brentwood teenager who CBS 5 reports ran onto the field during Monday night's game against the LA Rams.
“If I was a terrorist I could’ve, like I don’t know," 16-year-old William Navarrete told the channel, with the sensational bravado of a 16-year-old. "It was really easy though. Like I wasn’t even trying that hard. Like someone could do something worse."
Navarrete, who attended the season opening game with his dad, gleefully detailed his exploits. First, he told his father he was going to the bathroom. Next, he spotted a security guard who wasn't checking tickets in a section close to the field (the teen wasn't sitting toward the front) and slipped into an empty seat in the front row.
"I sat down for a minute and saw the security guard turn to talk to someone and thought, This is my moment," he recounted to Deadspin. "So I ran, I hopped the gate, and as soon as I put my foot over the gate I heard hella people screaming. When I fell it was only like a five-foot fall and I was hella scared, but it wasn’t that bad.”
A fan's cellphone video, paired after the fact with announcer audio, shows the tail end of his on-field frolic in all its glory.
.@MadSports8 Here I synched Kevin Harlan's fantastic call up with it as best I could. @dkurtenbach pic.twitter.com/r3WdKTwGGq
— Andy Cole (@AndyCole84) September 13, 2016
Even Navarrete, who while on the field took off his shirt to reveal his phone number scrawled across his teen body (Sports Illustrated has a photo), was surprised at how slow the security response was. “They weren’t even on the field for a while and then I was just running like where are you guys?”
The teenager assured Deadspin that he wasn't drunk or stoned, and in the end he didn't even get in that much trouble — as he is a minor he was released by stadium security to his dad. He is now banned from Levi's Stadium for a year, which, based on Navarrete's opinion of the Niners (“I think they’re gonna suck this year”) probably isn't that much of a loss.
As for the stadium's security force? Hopefully going forward their record is better than the Niners'.
Related: Opening Night 49ers Tickets Cost Less Than Parking Passes As Fans Bail