Getting Off High Horse in Friendly, High-Five Style

Once in awhile, in the midst of the usual avalanche of daily missives from the area’s photocopying machines, a news release catches my eye just before it becomes airborne toward the waste basket.

My wrist was already cocked to give this particular announcement a trip to a landfill, when I was momentarily paralyzed by curiosity.

Or was it shock?

The Chargers, it seemed, had hired a marketing consultant to help them with advertising, merchandising and promotional programs for the 1985 season. It actually said “1985-86 season,” but that was optimistic in light of the fact that the local heroes have not found themselves occupied in January since 1964. (They beat Boston, 51-10, on Jan. 5 in the American Football League championship game.)

I was startled because it is very unlike the Chargers to seek help from outside the cloistered walls of their offices on Level 1-A. Organizationally, the Chargers have always been almost paranoid in their quest for secrecy. In comparison, the CIA is almost like a house of glass on Pennsylvania Avenue.

A couple of years ago, I had occasion to deal with a group of athletes from the Soviet Union. They were much more open and accessible than the Charger players, who walk, glum-faced, through the stadium halls protecting their playbooks as if Al Davis might be lurking around the corner, ready to abscond with their secrets. Or they might be confronted by someone worst than the Raiders’ owner--a writer.

Lo and behold, the Chargers have suddenly added Franklin & Associates Advertising to their family. An outsider has infiltrated.

First of all, we must presume that Franklin & Associates are truly in the business of marketing. Secretly, perhaps, F & A might be a front for a subversive group specializing in defensive or survival tactics. The Chargers could use both.

No, I decided, the Chargers’ defense, as woeful as it has been, is still better than their image in the community. They need help.

During those very good years, when those very good teams were electrifying the multitudes hereabouts, the Chargers became a bit aloof and arrogant. Maybe more than just a bit.

It might seem self-serving to note that the media was denied weekday access to the locker room at about the same time the Chargers suddenly found themselves with all their seats sold before a game had been played. If memory serves me correctly, the locker room ban came during the 12-4 season of 1979.

Since then, the media has been huddled like lepers behind a rope in the corner of the players’ lunch room. The idea was to hope that an interview subject, finished with his noon-time repast, would to condescend to an hors d’oeuvre of a conversation.

If it does sound self-serving, please indulge me. I am making a point in terms of organizational attitude.

It has hit the public as well.

A friend of mine, in fact, is chairman of a charity event for a non-profit social service organization. He explained this week how he had recently been astonished by the Chargers.

“We have an annual fund-raising event, and every year we’ve asked the Chargers if there’s anything they can do to help,” he explained. “Do you know what they’ve always done? They’ve always sent us a T-shirt. A Charger-power T-shirt. Can you believe that?”

This year, however, he was stunned.

“They sent us a player to help us out,” he said. “And the guy did a great job for us.”

My friend did not want me to use his name or the name of the organization because he did not want to seem ungrateful. However, his point was that he perceived a change in the Chargers’ organizational attitude. A change for the good.

Little things mean a lot. I am not saying Franklin & Associates has produced a change in the Chargers’ attitude. It is more likely that the Chargers have sought help because of a change in attitude.

Call it a new humility, if you will. Records of 6-10 (1983) and 7-9 (1984) will do that to people.

The Chargers also found themselves with an expanded stadium at the same time they were about to have trouble filling the seats they had.

“Right now, we have some season tickets to sell,” said Rich Israel, the Chargers’ director of marketing. “Not a large number and not an alarming number, but we do have tickets. Rather than sit back and wait until games started getting blacked out, we wanted to inform the public. And we wanted to choose some real pros to help us.”

There’s that word again. Help. Franklin & Associates have put together an advertising campaign which will begin Thursday.

“It’s totally fan-oriented,” said Israel. “The creative concept has a fan and a player doing a high-five together. There’s tremendous focus on the fan. It’s aimed at season ticket sales, but we hope it generates excitement among people who aren’t able to buy season tickets. They’re all important to us.”

There it is again. Attitude.

This is an organization which incurred the wrath of fandom with almost annual price hikes, even after the strike-punctuated 1982 season. However, those were good years and the fans grudgingly paid.

Those same fans were also perturbed by the handling of player relations, beginning, of course, with the Fred Dean/John Jefferson fiasco in 1981. The fans began to sense an erosion in commitment, and that perception was not lessened when draft choices began to flee to the United States Football League.

The owner at the time was one Eugene V. Klein, who was not the most popular fellow hereabouts. One afternoon this summer, in fact, I happened upon a Mission Beach watering hole just before one of the Triple Crown horse races was to be run. One of the horses was owned by Klein, and even the guys who drew his name in a pool booed when he won.

Perhaps the shift in attitude has been prompted by the change in ownership. Alex Spanos bought the team too late to make many, if any, changes in 1984. He was content to sit back, observe and learn.

Maybe he watched the Padres and how they mingled in the parking lot after winning the National League pennant, and how they later toasted their fans in a song. They turned their party into everyone’s party.

Maybe he decided that the National Football League could be fun as well. Maybe he is just the guy to tear down the castle walls and build a bridge across the moat which has separated the Chargers from their fans.

Maybe, just maybe, the Chargers’ “high-five” with their fans will become a way of life rather than a mere advertising gimmick. It would be good.