Loyalty By Default
I’ve seen the best and the
worst—mostly the worst—of the San Diego
Chargers in the 20 or so years I’ve been a
fan. Back in the 1980s, the “Air Coryell”
days created offensive legends of Dan Fouts,
Charlie Joiner and Kellen Winslow. In the 1990s,
led by Junior Seau’s rising star, the team
became a defensive powerhouse. With Stan Humphries
and Natrone Means giving strength to the offense,
the team momentarily achieved enough greatness to
reach (and get clobbered in) the Super Bowl. Since
then, despite standouts like LaDainian Tomlinson,
Curtis Conway and Marcellus Wiley, the team has
limped through the seasons with mostly losing
records.
This year, displaying abysmally poor
performances in the first two regular-season games,
the Chargers have finally pushed me to the edge of
tolerance. With a 0-2 record that seems like a
perfect start to a 0-16 season, and continued
off-the-field whining from the organization about
how much they deserve a new stadium, I find myself
eyeing the other teams in the league like a man
stuck in an unhappy marriage checking out the
ladies. In recent years, I’ve cringed far more
often than I’ve cheered while watching the
Chargers lose or throw away games. How much can one
fan take?
Some might think I’m putting way too much
emotion into a simple game of sports. But what are
professional sports about, if not emotion? The
“thrill” of victory, the
“agony” of defeat, the
“excitement” of watching your favorite
team march down the field… It’s all about
emotion. That’s what drives us football fans.
But when most of the emotions are anger,
disappointment and defeat, where’s the fun?
Such emotions, when punctuated by eleventh-hour,
come-from-behind victories, make for high drama;
but lately, the Chargers have followed the opposite
pattern, offering their fans come-from-ahead losses
(when they rarely find themselves in the lead, that
is).
If the rest of the season plays out like the
first two games have, I’ll find myself with a
difficult choice: either abandon football
altogether and use my Sundays for more productive
activities; or cast about the league for a more
worthy team to make my own. San Diego the city,
overcrowded and overdeveloped, has long since
ceased to feel like my hometown, so I suppose
there’s no longer any reason that San Diego
the team must receive my loyalty by default.
So then, if all that’s left is
history—my long history as a Chargers
fan—then there’s not much keeping me
rooting for them. After all, the Chargers have had
no problem putting their history behind them,
abandoning stars like Junior Seau and Rodney
Harrison. Maybe it’s time I put my own history
behind me.
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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