Chargers GM has a lot of quotes, but no rings

You’re going to love General Manager A.J. Smith when he brings his Chargers to Los Angeles next year.

And really dislike him.

As Hollywood characters go, he’s perfect for L.A.; no one is going to be quite sure if all the bluster is an act or just old-school football reincarnated.

He will argue because he will remind everyone his team has yet to win a Super Bowl, but he’s already a success beyond ordinary expectations.

He was a P.E. teacher for 14 years with sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students in Rhode Island, only to find a way later in life to earn one of the top jobs in professional sports.

A supportive and enthusiastic wife helped send him on his way, while almost everyone else was questioning his sanity.

“You have a job for life, tenure and all that, as well as two kids, and you want to do what?” he says.

He loved teaching, but he also loved football, so he volunteered to work for nothing as a football scout while still teaching his P.E. classes. He sent letters, made calls and heard almost nothing.

But then he made it big. The New England Patriots agreed to pay him $3.50 an hour to watch film.

“We actually punched a clock,” he says, and for every detractor: How do they account for someone who has the goods to go from P.E. teacher in Rhode Island to GM in the NFL?

“You’ll never know unless you pursue what you really want,” he says. “A lot of people I have known have grand ideas, but they will not take that step. They are talkers and not doers.”

I have known the guy since 1986, when I began covering the Chargers daily. He was on the bottom rung of the front-office ladder, a good soldier who would go on to work with Buffalo during the Bills’ four-year Super Bowl run.

In some quarters now he’s portrayed as too this or that, but he probably doesn’t get this far unless he’s too this or that.

His rise to the top is inspirational, and yet he surrounds himself with inspirational comments from others, quotes from Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and football coaches Jimmy Johnson and Marv Levy on display in his office.

The placards are all aimed at the visitor’s chair across from his desk, and essentially all say the same thing: I’ll get the job done my way.

He also has an orange hunter’s chair, a “hot seat” for someone waiting to kill Bambi on a cold day, positioned on a shelf above his head that might ordinarily display trophies.

He has it sitting there directly in the line of sight for media, agents and anyone else who might wonder: “I am here until I am not here,” he says.

Not far away sits this quote from Lincoln: “It is important that people know you walk among them without fear.”

And yet for all the bravado, Smith is the first to say: “We haven’t done anything since I was hired by Dean Spanos. Five [playoff] chances and nothing.”

Some would undoubtedly argue; Smith does a fine job when it comes to infuriating folks at times.

When the Manning family let Smith know Eli would not play for the Chargers if taken with the draft’s first pick, Smith drafted Eli.

Archie Manning was credited with saying, “A.J. is the lord who has no rings,” in expressing his dismay at Smith’s decision.

Smith’s critics turned that into his present-day nickname, “The Lord of No Rings.”

“It’s very amusing,” he says, while even smiling. “And true.”

Eli went on to win a Super Bowl, but in retrospect Smith’s decision to draft Manning was brilliant. He drafted Manning because he had done his homework and he knew the Giants were very interested in him.

So he quickly traded Manning to New York. In return he received Philip Rivers and picks that would be kicker Nate Kaeding and linebacker Shawne Merriman.

When asked later about Manning, Smith wouldn’t disappoint: “He was a Charger for 45 minutes and that was too much time to be a Charger, in my opinion.”

I told you, you’re going to love some of the things this guy has to say, and then there will be those times when he sounds as if he’s channeling General Patton and in a mood to slap someone.

Stubborn as he can be, his hard-line stance with agents and players has affected the team’s chances for success at times.

“If we offer you a contract, we’re going to tell you what the money is and for how many years we will be signing you,” he says in explaining the one-way street the Chargers live on. “I know there’s a lot of ‘we can do this’ from agents, but there is no ‘we’ in this.”

And then he grins. “OK, so sometimes the way I express myself doesn’t sit very well with people.”

Speaking of decisions that don’t sit very well with people or Page 2 columnists, he hired Norv Turner.

Smith, never short on guts, fired Marty Schottenheimer after a 14-2 season to replace him with a guy who had failed as head coach in Oakland and Washington, and who still has a sub-.500 record as a head coach.

“My philosophy and Coach Schottenheimer’s philosophy on how to win a world championship were galaxies apart,” he says, and so maybe a change was necessary, but why Norv?

“I’m aware of Norv’s background,” he says, and Smith isn’t much for discussion or disagreement unless he’s the one talking. “I worked with him, checked some things out, and I thought he would be terrific for the Chargers.”

In other words, maybe best said by Churchill on a sign that sits behind Smith: “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

I have no doubt he believes that, and as far as he has come to date, hard to argue.

t.j.simers@latimes.com