The week with Jim Nobody from Nowhere

After his press conference today, 49ers interim coach Jim Tomsula left the podium and thanked the group of reporters who had just finished asking him questions.

It wasn’t clear what, exactly, Tomsula was thanking us for – just for being wonderful us? – but he’d extended the same gesture in the locker room Wednesday.

I met Tomsula, briefly, in a group setting at a team function in London earlier this season.

That was about two minutes two months ago.

On Wednesday, I walked past the defensive line coach at the podium prior to his press conference and he smiled and gave me a hey-how-you-doing-it’s-great-to-see-you.

From a reporter’s perspective, this week with Tomsula, 42, has been a bit different from the previous 16 weeks with his predecessor, Mike Singletary.

Here are some of Tomsula’s greatest hits:

Describing himself: “I’m a football coach. I’m Jim Nobody from Nowhere.”

On his uncertain future after the season, “My family is not going to starve, and if my wife has stayed with me for the last 19 years, she’s not going anywhere. So I’m good.”

On his reluctance to comment on other aspects of the Niners beyond the defensive line: “I keep my spoon in my soup. I don’t taste your soup.”

On his time as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Division II Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., “You have to say that proud. You remember old Bucky Pope the ‘Catawba Claw.’ That’s a claim to fame, man.”

Asked Monday if he’d slept Sunday night, “Why? Do I look pretty good?”

Told Wednesday that he looked refreshed, “I had a shower.”

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