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35 game at Levi's Stadium. Guido, like every kid from South Jersey, grew up a diehard Eagles fan, and on that September day he played host to a group of some 40 friends and relatives, including Matt Scaravaglione, Mulholland, Tardive, and Herman. "I know he's got to root for the Niners," Scaravaglione says in hindsight, "but I have a feeling he had an Eagles shirt under his suit." Guido and his wife, Thea, organized a dinner party at the stadium the night before the game. On game day Guido treated his friends to a catered tailgate party, then escorted them to the field for pregame ceremonies. They watched the game from a private suite. In the first half, as the Eagles bolted to a lead, Guido's friends took pains to show some restraint. But as the game wore on and the Niners threatened a comeback, their lifelong fealty to the Eagles bubbled to the surface. "Passions begin to come out," Guido says. "My wife is like, 'They're not rooting for you.' I remember it being very nerve-wracking. I'm thinking, If we lose this game, I'm going to have to hear about it all the time." Not to worry. Final score: San Francisco 26, Philadelphia 21. "All of us who went out to experience it for the first time were really in awe, not only of the stadium and the scene but just to watch Al work," Scaravag- lione says. "I was just very proud to be part of that and to see him. It was an awesome day—just too bad the Eagles lost." AL GUIDO FIRST SET EYES on Thea Crum in 2005, when both worked at Comcast Spectacor, owners of the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA and the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL. Guido was a telemarketer, selling tickets in a basement office of the arena now known as the Wells Fargo Center. A Jersey native herself, Crum was the company's director of client services, and on that day she was presenting a new customer service campaign at a companywide meeting inside the arena's atrium. As Guido watched her presentation, slack-jawed, he turned to a friend and vowed that he would one day marry her. "One, she's gorgeous," Guido says now. "Two, I was blown away by her confidence, her swagger, the way she could dominate a room." They were married in Scottsdale, Arizona, in July 2009. Guido had recently been hired by the Cowboys and was traveling back and forth to Phoenix, where Thea was working for the Coyotes. Two days after the wedding, they moved together to Dallas. They still haven't had a honeymoon, but today they have three daughters—ages 7, 5, and 3—and they've come to embrace their life in the Bay Area. Next year they'll move into a house in Los Gatos, about 40 minutes south of San Francisco. They've even adopted a family motto: Work hard and be nice to people. Seven simple words, but Thea Guido says they embody every value she and Al try to instill in their daughters. For his part, Guido leads by example— driven, according to his wife, by a fear of failure that she traces to his childhood. "It's very evident," Thea says, "that he is super motivated to get up first in the morning, be there first, be the best." And Guido has taken steps to give back to the college that set him on his path. He's committed $50,000 toward establishing a paid summer internship that will enable business majors interested in the sports industry to travel to California and work for the 49ers. The details are still being ironed out, but Guido hopes the internship will give students a chance to venture far from home and gain valuable work experience. "My level of gratitude toward the school and the people there just goes a long way," Guido says. "It created a great platform, though I didn't really know it at the time. My message to kids is: 'Soak it up while you can.'" Christopher Hann is a freelance writer and a former senior editor at New Jersey Monthly. With a name like Guido To hang onto his Jersey bona fides, Guido took special care with the Silicon Valley stadium's pizza.

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