Costa Mesa to charge with new shoulder pads

August is usually the time of the year the football players at Costa Mesa High get to try on shoulder pads.

A couple of months ago, coach Glen Fisher went to the equipment room to look at the condition of the pads, some of which will be older than his players.

“You could see our shoulder pad situation was deplorable, to say the least. We have some in there that are 20 years old,” Fisher said. “Our shoulder pads … don’t have a shelf life like helmets, which have a 10-year shelf life, whether you use it or not. After 10 years, you got to get rid of [the helmet].”

Thanks to the Los Angeles Chargers, the Mustangs can now get rid of those old shoulder pads. They won’t have to wear them this upcoming fall.

Fisher said the Chargers donated almost 70 shoulder pads to his Costa Mesa program. Starting next month, the Chargers will be holding their NFL training camp at the Jack R. Hammett Sports Complex, which is next door to the high school.

“They gave us some brand new ones and they gave us some that had been used once in camp, so they’re good as new. I was just delighted to get them,” Fisher said of the shoulder pads from the Chargers. “The [Newport-Mesa Unified School District] helps out as much as it can, but we have to fundraise for [equipment]. It’s a big help [from the Chargers]. It’s kind of funny. They gave us all different sizes, but they also gave us about … 10 to 15 that are like 6XL. Our kids can put tires on them and drive them to and from school. They were so big.”

The pads are also a huge upgrade.

Fisher said many of the pads fit the Mustangs. His players tried the pads on last week.

Three dozen Mustangs posed for a team photo with the new pads in their team room, and the Chargers posted it on their Twitter account last week.

When the Mustangs first got the pads, Fisher said his players asked him which Chargers wore which pads. Fisher said he had the same question when he and Costa Mesa principal Jake Haley drove to pick up the pads at the Chargers’ storage facility in Fountain Valley last month.

“I asked them that because I was trying to see if they had a set of Philip Rivers’ old pads to put on my quarterback. Maybe it had a couple of throws in it,” said Fisher, who never got the answer he wanted from Chase Hartman, the community relations manager who oversees youth football for the Chargers. “I told Chase, ‘At least you could’ve lied to me and said, yeah, these were his.’”

Fisher said he was grateful for Hartman and the Chargers’ generosity.

Fisher met Hartman the day before Valentine’s Day during a luncheon welcoming the Chargers to Costa Mesa, where they will have their headquarters and training and practice facility. Fisher said he fell in love with the Chargers after learning about how involved they wanted to be in the community.

“He came down to the school. He wanted to see what we needed,” Fisher said of Hartman. “We walked around the stadium. We walked through the equipment room, walked through the team room, to look at all of our equipment needs. They decided that was one of the ways they wanted to help us out. I got a call from Chase [last month], and he said, ‘Hey! We got some shoulder pads. There [are] some new ones. There [are] some slightly used ones. Do you want them?’ [I said], ‘Heck yeah!’ We’ll figure out what to do with the ones that are too big, or we’ll trade them for something else.”

Donating shoulder pads to the Mustangs made sense to the Chargers.

“Once the opportunity came across our desk, we thought of no better place to donate those out other than to Costa Mesa High, since [the Mustangs] are kind of our neighbors for training camp,” said Hartman, adding that he is also in communication with Estancia, the other public high school in Costa Mesa. “I have gone on a site visit with Estancia High School and met with coach [Mike] Bargas, just like I did for coach Fisher. At this point, I can’t guarantee anything, but I’m definitely building a relationship with that coach and he keeps giving me some of their needs, and in the future, if anything comes across through our resources that we can help out Estancia, we absolutely would look to do that.”

david.carrillo@latimes.com

Twitter: @ByDCP