With only a few days left before Sunday, the conversations along the counter at Betsy’s Restaurant in Morgan Hill easily turn to football. Jim Wagar, who’s such a regular at the family diner there’s a scramble named in his honor on the menu, bends the ear of co-owner Jesse Nazzal as he passes by with the water jug. 

The two toss around a couple of comments about the Detroit Lions before jumping ahead to who the 49ers would take on in the Super Bowl. As Nazzal predicts Baltimore, his daughter Amy Lara squeezes by to drop off a breakfast order. There’s five more days until kickoff, and all that the Morgan Hill townspeople can do is wait before the team gives them another game to talk about. 

But the NFL discussion isn’t just because the Bay Area suburb is located about 30 miles south of the 49ers’ home. It’s because multiple players, both past and present, choose to live in this random suburban outpost — making it an unofficial Niners hometown.

Morgan Hill’s population is around 45,000, and SFGATE has counted 10 of those residents over the years as 49er players.

“From what I see, they like the laid back part of town,” Gregg Winovich, a fourth generation rancher, told SFGATE while dining at Betsy’s. “It’s like what Palo Alto or Menlo Park used to be like. They can go places without getting molested.”

Morgan Hillians celebrate their reputation for having a small town lifestyle within the reach of big cities. Depending on who you ask, San Jose is either 20 or 30 minutes away, and with modern facilities like the Morgan Hill Outdoor Sports Center, it’s an ideal place for an athlete to raise their kids. 

“It’s family orientated,” former town Mayor Steve Tate said outside the library. “Players like the atmosphere and how they’re not at the center of the spotlight.”

The downtown, which underwent a renovation project over the past decade, bustles with restaurants and bars to provide enough entertainment to satisfy a night out. The locus is at Morgan Hill Granary, a token of Morgan Hill’s agricultural roots that was redesigned into a multi-use compound with an F45 Training gym, a restaurant from a Michelin-starred chef and a popular craft beer tap room that once doubled as a running shop. 

While a booming downtown and relatively easy access to the home stadium (outside of rush hour) are attractive features, the reason 49ers players come to Morgan Hill is likely rooted in realty. 

After all, when Deebo Samuels celebrated the purchase of his Morgan Hill mansion in 2022 by spraying his pool with champagne, the star wide receiver had the financial power to live anywhere in the Bay Area. A major pull to rural Morgan Hill is how its feasible real estate allows athletes to remain quick on their feet. 

“I’ve talked to several players and Trey Lance lived down the street from me,” said Chuck Vargas, a real estate agent in town. Vargas said that not only did Morgan Hill offer players a low profile, but the homes are easier to sell, which is a priority when your profession can uproot you — to, say, Texas — over the course of an afternoon. 

“These guys are transient. Especially the newer guys,” Vargas said. “They go to another team. Trey had to move quickly and his house sold in three or four days. He can get up and move.”

A popular topic for sidewalk chit-chat in Morgan Hill, after football, is how drastically the city is growing. Traffic seems to be getting worse as relics of the town’s past, like a lumberyard, are on the way out for new homes. More than 10,000 people have moved in since 2000 as the city embraces housing developments of all shapes and sizes. 

The Murphy family — including his seven sons and daughters — settled in the shadow of Morgan Hill’s signature mountain. But this is not how the town found its name. 

El Toro rises in solitude like a volcano reaching over 1,400 feet high on the western slope of the valley. Some say its name, Spanish for “the bull,” was coined by a Gold Rush-era writer named Bret Harte. The story goes that the writer was visiting Murphy Ranch and while out on horseback, he discovered two bulls fighting on the hill. 

The Morgan Hill Sun reported the name in 1902, and now “El Toro” has appeared in the name of a body shop, miniature golf course and brew pup.

While El Toro is the defining geographical feature for the city — appearing on the official crest — it had nothing to do with the hilly namesake. That came after a secret marriage in 1882 that was nearly spoiled by patriarchal grievance. 

Hiram Morgan Hill was a southerner who moved to San Francisco in the 1870s. He worked as a clothes model at the Palace Hotel and started dating Diana Helene Murphy, a descendent of the valley’s landowning family. 

Diana’s father was allegedly disapproving of Hill — biographers said he was smooth, fast and “got around” — but Hill was bullish, and the couple went on to wed in secrecy. After Diana’s father died from pneumonia a couple of months later, she inherited nearly 5,000 acres of the valley. The couple built the Villa Mira Monte estate, and Southern Pacific established a railroad in 1898 up the spine of the valley. 

Written on a plaque outside the train station that’s used by Caltrain today is a short explanation for how the town got its name: “Many visitors would request the train stop at ‘Morgan Hill’s Ranch.’” His name stuck. 

Like the plot of “Saltburn,” Morgan Hill’s namesake is a testament to how a man can infiltrate a wealthy family to snatch up their legacy.

Running parallel with the train tracks and Highway 101 is Monterey Highway. It intersects with Main Avenue to start Morgan Hill’s downtown, where oaks line the roadway. 

Outside the Jewel Box on Monterey was a 49er flag blowing with the wind, and inside the shop behind a glass case was a piece of poppy jasper. The spotted, amber stone is endemic to Morgan Hill, found only in the nearby foothills, and even appears as a massive public installation behind a glass panel on the side of the downtown parking garage.

Mining the gemstone has come to a halt since much of the land is located on private or protected lands, but jeweler Tracey Ulery keeps a fist-sized piece in her store. 

Ulery is a lifelong 49ers fan; in high school, her San Jose school’s spirit team performed at Candlestick Park. She said she doesn’t see too many players in Morgan Hill, but her shop’s former outpost in Campbell once cleaned the team’s Super Bowl rings. 

In many ways, 49ers players have casually melded with the community. Randy Kirk has helped out with the Live Oak High School football team’s coaching staff before, and athletic director Mike Gemo said he’ll try to recruit him once again after Kirk’s son graduates from another high school.

Earlier in the football season, Deebo Samuel surprised students from the nonprofit Student Program for Academic & Athletic Transitioning with a visit to the Shoe Palace, which has its headquarters in Morgan Hill.

“It feels homey here,” said Devin Muscat from behind the bar at Running Shop and Hops at the Granary. He said he noticed Trey Lance out at the Hill Bar & Grill downtown not too long ago and that players can relax when in Morgan Hill.

“You don’t have to be reserved,” he said. “It’s our little slice of heaven.”