Marion native Krisanne Ryther lives out football dream as part of San Francisco 49ers’ front office

IOWA CITY — Growing up in Marion, Krisanne Ryther “really, really loved football from a very young age.”

She would read The Gazette sports section and metaphorically “eat stats” while literally eating her Wheaties cereal. When Reese Morgan recruited her older brother, Bryan, to be a walk-on at Iowa, she was right there with them at a pregame recruiting event in the old bubble practice facility.

As Bryan — or “Bump,” as football coach Kirk Ferentz fondly remembers him — played at Iowa in the early 2000s, she was at every game in the family section behind the Iowa bench.

“Learned half of my vocabulary from Phil Parker during those games,” Ryther said of Iowa’s oft-profane defensive coordinator. “I love double-P.”

The football-loving kid from Marion, roughly two decades later, now has a chance to soon don a Super Bowl ring as she works in the San Francisco 49ers’ front office.

Ryther is the executive assistant to Paraag Marathe — the president of 49ers Enterprises and executive vice president of football operations who also serves as chairman of the British soccer franchise Leeds United. That’s a long way of saying Ryther has to “plan and organize a lot in my job.”

“I’m basically like the chief problem solver, I guess you could say, without that being my actual title,” Ryther said.

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Ryther wakes up at 5:30 a.m., goes to bed at about 8 p.m., and her phone “for better or worse is attached to my body” for everything in between. She even has her morning workout and breakfast at the team facility.

“This is such a competitive business,” Ryther said. “We all have one goal. When it comes down to it, though we’re dipping our toe into a whole bunch of different things with the 49ers, our ultimate goal is to win our sixth Super Bowl.”

The competitiveness was evident when she needed to create a trans-Atlantic travel itinerary and write a bio on a prospective investor in two hours as part of the “grueling interview process” for the job.

As Ryther works mostly with Marathe (as well as president of football operations John Lynch and CEO Jed York), she has been a “sponge” as she learns from an executive team that has “such good symmetry together.”

“This has been a cool experience and a valuable experience because I’ve been getting to see so much of the football ops side of the 49ers and what we’re doing to maintain a good roster, a competitive roster, be competitive for salary cap,” Ryther said. “But then also seeing the other side of the coin where we’re working with investors and we own this (soccer) club that is a historically great club.”

Those on Evashevski Drive could foresee Ryther’s success in San Francisco coming after what she did for the Hawkeyes.

“For the 49ers to recognize that, I’m not at all surprised,” Ferentz said. “Everything about her was first class when she was here.”

She spent five seasons with the Hawkeyes as the recruiting operations and special event coordinator, which were “some of the best years of my life.”

Scott Southmayd, Iowa football’s director of player personnel, described Ryther as “really a go-getter.”

“Whatever she could be involved in, she wanted to be involved in,” Southmayd said.

That included office operations, recruiting, team travel, camps and work as a parent liaison — “a little of everything,” Southmayd said with a laugh.

It was her second time working with Iowa football. When she was a student at the University of Iowa, she was a Hawkeye Host and helped with the same recruiting breakfasts that she once attended with her brother.

After graduating from Iowa, Ryther took an unpaid internship with the Arizona Rattlers, an arena football team. She took her 1998 Pontiac Bonneville from Marion to suburban Phoenix, where she moved in with her aunt.

“That’s the only way I could make it work,” Ryther said.

Ryther was officially a media relations intern, but her duties went well beyond that. She did everything from creating the flip chart for coaches to use in games to driving players to community relations events, to writing postgame stories.

“I knew I loved it so much because I loved going to work every day at a job that wasn’t paying me,” Ryther said. “After a few weeks on the job, they started to pay me minimum wage, which I’ve never been more excited to make $7.50 in my life.”

That led to other opportunities, including being a game day media relations assistant for the Arizona Cardinals and working as a football operations coordinator for the University of Arizona on Rich Rodriguez’s staff.

Iowa then created the new recruiting operations and special event coordinator role. Southmayd, having followed her career path from a distance, thought of Ryther and encouraged her to apply.

“I didn’t have her updated cell number, so we reached out to the University of Arizona football office, and she happened to answer that,” Southmayd said. “I’m glad she did.”

Ryther’s return to Iowa after her four years at the University of Arizona was a “dream come true,” Ryther said. Among other perks, it was a chance to work with a “living legend” like Ferentz.

“He’s such a great coach,” Ryther said. “And to be able to work for the same guy that was my brother’s head coach, I mean that’s just magic.”

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When Ryther informed Ferentz of her plans to move to the San Francisco area, Ferentz hand-wrote a letter of recommendation to Lynch. It was “without any hesitation or even me asking,” Ryther said.

“I have a copy of that that I’ll always keep with me as a cool little token of my time with Iowa football,” Ryther said.

She has remained in touch with Iowa’s staff in her two years with the 49ers. When Iowa special teams coordinator LeVar Woods attended a playoff game this year, Ryther made sure to get him a pregame pass.

“I will always have a fondness and a love in my heart for that whole staff,” Ryther said. “They’re such good people, they’re good coaches and they’re good friends.”

Back in November, Ryther made a surprise visit before the Hawkeyes boarded the bus for the Northwestern game. She “gave a lot of big, strong hugs” and caught up for a few minutes with Ferentz.

“It’s good to see good people get rewarded for their efforts,” Ferentz told The Gazette.

While Ryther does not have any official in-game responsibilities for the Super Bowl, York announced last week the team will fly out the entire organization to Las Vegas.

“It was a no-brainer when I was able to have a plus-one that I had to ask my brother if he wanted to be a part of it,” Ryther said.

After all, Ryther’s “love of football began really because of my brother.”

If what the Ryther siblings see on the field at Allegiant Stadium goes well, a Super Bowl ring would arrive soon for the Marion native living out her football dreams.

“I already know what finger I want to put it on,” Ryther said.

Either way, Ryther has plenty to celebrate as she concludes her second year in the NFL.

“It’s really cool to kind of look back on the inner child and just be like, ‘Look what we did,’” Ryther said. “This is what we wanted to do, and we did it.”

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Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com