First Posted: 2/3/2013

Asked how she came to be a die-hard San Francisco 49ers fan, GinMarianacci said, I didn’t have a choice. I was raised that way and that was it.

In her earliest memory she’s 5 or 6 years old and her father, Fred, put one of his 49ers t-shirts on her and sat in front of the TV to watch a Niners’ game.

That was around the time Gina last appeared on the front page of the Dispatch, representing 49ers fans on Jan. 22, 1989, when the 49ers beat Cincinnati, 20-16, in Super Bowl XXIII on a Joe Montana to John Taylor TD pass with 34 seconds remaining in the game.

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That was the third of five Super Bowls the 49ers have won in as many tries, though it’s been a while since the last one in 1995.

Gina’s favorite player is J.J. Stokes, a wide receiver from the 1990s whom was overshadowed by Jerry Rice and Terrell Owens.

Being an East Coast 49ers fan can be a little frustrating. Gina only got to see them play live once on a trip to Florida in 1993 when she was 9 years old and her father took her to see them play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And the Niners aren’t on network TV much. Gina’s father fixed that by getting a Direct TV NFL package at the homestead in West Pittston. Now when the 49ers are not on network TV, Gina can go to her father’s house for the game.

Gina is a waitress and bartender at the family restaurant, Marianacci’s, where an autographed Jerry Rice jersey overlooks the bar on Eighth Street in West Wyoming. The restaurant is closed Sundays, so today she’s having some friends over to her apartment for the game.

That means she’ll miss the chicken nachos at her father’s party, but she says, I make a mean guacamole.

Gina predicts the 49ers will win 21-17. They are 5-0. Every time they go to the Super Bowl they win.