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No goofing, it’ll be like old times with Chargers

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NOW THAT I’ve made airline and hotel reservations, the Spanos Goofs and I are going to be in Indy together for the Chargers’ final game of the season.

Craig Kelley, the Colts PR director, e-mailed Monday to say that if I needed a parking pass, I should get it from the Chargers. No problem, I had already taken it for granted the Goofs and I would be car-pooling.

I also imagine we’ll get together on The Times’ credit card for dinner Saturday night at St Elmo Steak House, and then maybe catch a nightcap at the Slippery Noodle Inn.

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Drinks with the Goofs in Indy -- now won’t that be a hoot, the old man and the son who was born into power, talking about their latest coach, and how they knew all along this was the right guy for the job.

It will be just like spending time with the McCourts.

Speaking of the Dodgers, Philip Rivers now has something in common with Jose Lima, pitching a bunch of chokers to their first playoff win in seemingly a million years.

Now here’s a real brain teaser: Who wins the next playoff game? The Dodgers or the Chargers?

ALEX SPANOS and Frank McCourt are very much alike, two image-minded men who think they are sports experts because they were successful in other businesses. When they fail, they blame others, bringing in a new coach, GM or publicist.

The Dodgers’ newest publicist began work Monday.

When Spanos bought the Chargers in 1984, as he recounted in his book, “Sharing the Wealth,” he wrote, “we’ll spend whatever it takes for productive personnel, and, within five years, deliver a Super Bowl to Chargers fans.”

I wonder what McCourt will call his book -- “Borrowing Everything I’ve Got?”

Now 24 years later the Goofs’ father/son quest for a Lombardi Trophy continues -- the Chargers compiling an overall mark of 177-206 under their leadership.

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Marty Schottenheimer became an NFL head coach the same year Spanos bought the Chargers, and working three less seasons while in between jobs, Schottenheimer is 200-126.

Schottenheimer, the poster coach for flopping in the postseason, has more playoff wins than all the teams mismanaged by the Goofs.

The Chargers were 14-2 under Schottenheimer, the No. 1 seeding with home-field advantage until the Super Bowl, but gagged in a divisional playoff game against New England. Someone obviously goofed, so Schottenheimer was fired.

The Chargers are much better off this season, we’re now being told, finishing 11-5 and knocking off the mighty Titans.

The small-town fans, given a forum by the San Diego Union-Tribune, are once again giddy and ripe for a major letdown.

“To all the Marty Schottenheimer-longing, Norv Turner-bashing, naysaying, trash-talking, fair-weather Chargers fans, I have two words,” wrote Dave Evans, “Marty who?”

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Or, as Michael Walloch put it, “Norv Turner is the man in this town.”

Turner, a coach for 10 years in the NFL with an overall losing record, now has two playoff wins.

For seven years I covered the Chargers for a San Diego newspaper and then The Times, and every year the Spanos Goof, the one who wasn’t stopped from playing in the old Bing Crosby golf tournament because officials believed he was misstating his handicap, would ask the same question.

“How do you think we’re going to do?”

I’d always answer the same way, “your team is no good,” and he would take a piece of Good & Plenty from a jar sitting on his desk, and throw it at me. In those days, he had a much better arm than any quarterback on his roster.

When we sit down for drinks, and now that I’ve spoken personally to USC President Steven Sample knowing anything is possible, I’m going to suggest the Chargers are worse off this year.

OK, so they haven’t lost yet because they don’t play until Sunday, but at the very least, the Chargers are right where they were a year ago -- this time lacking the home-field edge in the two games needed to get to the Super Bowl.

On a positive note, though, I don’t imagine the old man’s arm is as strong as it used to be.

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ON SUNDAY it only looked as if the Chargers were being coached by Pete Carroll.

They are much tougher about childish behavior in college football, so the Trojans were flagged repeatedly in the Rose Bowl for carrying on.

The Chargers weren’t penalized for being hot dogs, but beyond LaDainian Tomlinson, they are not a very appealing group.

If it’s not the brat playing quarterback, who yelled at Chargers fans to shut up earlier this season and who was also caught on national TV acting with no class when beating the Broncos, pick a defender who doesn’t show off after making the play he’s paid to make.

The Chargers should have shredded the under-manned Titans, didn’t, but reacted as if they had. Now they’ll take on the Colts, and probably get a lesson in playing like professionals.

I’d be thrilled, though, if there was some way, somehow the Chargers could win, giving me more time with the Goofs, although I can’t see myself golfing with the son any time soon.

As for the old man, the last time I ran into him, he was coming down the stairs in the Chargers’ headquarters, and he was screaming, “Gosh, darn it, almighty, who let this guy in the building?”

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I just thought he had me mixed up with Bobby Beathard, but over time it seemed as if we were just drifting apart.

A win over Indy, and a couple of more weeks together might be just what we need. I know this, I’d hate to end this season like every other Chargers season the Goofs and I have been together.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.

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