Chargers Sing a Different Tune at Training Camp

Air Coryell had company at lunch Tuesday in the UC San Diego cafeteria. The Blue Angels, rather accomplished aerial acrobats themselves, joined the Chargers for baked beef and, get this, vegetarian quiche.

I didn’t check who was eating quiche, though I suspected the coaching staff and squadron commander were watchful. Who’d want a quiche-eater flying left-wing or playing left tackle?

What interested me, more than the menu, was a little ritual I suspect was instigated by the mischievous sense of humor of one Dan Fouts.

It had to do with newbees. I could be wrong on the spelling, but newbees are the rookies among the Blue Angels.

Three of these newbees happened to be having a peaceful lunch when suddenly they were called upon to sing. This is what happens to rookies--or newbees--at Charger training camps.

One sang a rather rousing version of the Marines Hymn and the others did a ribald duet befitting a stag party--or a professional football training camp.

Later, one of the Chargers’ newbees, Wayne Davis, was also called upon to stand on a chair and do his bit. He did more of a rhythmic chant than a mellow tune, but it did not cause too many of his teammates to abandon their meals. It’s more important that a cornerback hit the right receiver than the right note.

And Davis was only the latest of the Chargers’ rookies to stretch his vocal chords. They’ll all get a chance, and there are enough rookies and first-year players in this camp to fill out the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Indeed, as of Tuesday afternoon, there were 41 rookies or first-year players among the 85 in camp. They are so numerous it’s surprising they haven’t ganged up on the veterans and made them sing.

And this is a year when veterans, regardless of whether or not they are forced to sing, are feeling outnumbered and maybe a little beleaguered hereabouts. Charger veterans must be feeling a little bit like Davey Crockett and Jim Bowie at the Alamo.

How many of them will survive? Many, maybe even most, of the veterans still in camp are on solid ground, but they can be excused for wondering where the quicksand is located.

So many others have disappeared.

Nine veterans were purged in one day just before training camp. Last week, veteran guard Doug Wilkerson, who had escorted so many running backs on so many sweeps, was swept from the roster in an “escorted” retirement. Among the players waived Tuesday was Tim Fox, a safety who was not in camp because he was told not to bother.

That is the way things have been going for the veterans. Rookies usually quiver when cutdown dates arrive, but not this year with this team.

When I wandered out to the practice field Tuesday morning, a colleague approached and asked me if anyone looked familiar.

“Sure,” I said, nodding toward the field. Fouts had just completed a pass to Eric Sievers. I saw Rolf Benirschke and Woodie Lowe and Linden King and Don Macek and . . .

I thought there must be others, and there were. But who were some of these other people. I saw so many numbers I recognized, but the people inside those jerseys did not seem familiar.

Isn’t No. 74 Louie Kelcher? It couldn’t be and wasn’t. It was Jim Lachey, the No. 1 draft choice from Ohio State.

Isn’t No. 79 Gary Johnson? It was Scott Trimble, a 300-pound rookie from Florida. Wouldn’t he have been a better fit in No. 74?

Isn’t No. 66 Billy Shields? It was Mark Stevenson, an offensive linemen from Western Illinois and the United States Football League.

Isn’t No. 70 Russ Washington? Sorry, once again. This was Ray Woodard, a 1984 draft pick from Texas who spent last year on the injured list.

No one seemed the same as back in those glory days when the Chargers were a playoff team. Mike Williams wasn’t 29, Fred Dean wasn’t 71, John Jefferson wasn’t 83, Hank Bauer wasn’t 37 and John Cappelletti wasn’t 25.

There are new faces in all those old and familiar places. There are kindergartens with less turnover than the Chargers have these days.

Only 14 players remain from the 1981 Chargers who played that memorable 41-38 playoff game in Miami. I cannot imagine anyone in that steamy, deliriously ecstatic locker room dreamed that so many would be gone so fast.

In fact, only 19 players remain from the 1982 team which took San Diego to the football playoffs for the last time.

What happened, of course, was that the dismal 6-10 season of 1983 was proven very real by the almost equally dismal 7-9 season of 1984. If it was to be believed that 1983 was a fluke wrought of key injuries and bad breaks, it was dispelled in 1984.

It was time for reconstruction.

Alex Spanos, the new owner, just happened to be in the construction business. The Chargers would be his personal Gaslamp Quarter. He would take the best of what was there, and raze the rest.

It will not be a one-year project, nor a two-year project. Nothing sound is ever constructed quite that quickly.

I don’t know if Spanos has had much of a chance to stop by the UCSD cafeteria, but he has acquired some guys who can sing. In fact, Anthony Steels, a rookie running back from Nebraska, will sing the national anthem before Saturday’s exhibition game against Dallas.

If the Chargers’ “newbees” can’t make it in pro football, they can always sing for their supper. They already are.