Winslow, AWOL a Day, Turns Up in Vancouver

No one blinks when a sailor goes AWOL in this town, but it’s a different matter altogether when the tight end of the San Diego Chargers skips practice without permission. And when it turns out that he has skipped the country for a day to promote a nutritional soft drink, eyebrows are going to be raised.

Kellen Winslow faces a fine and a reprimand today when he sits down with Coach Don Coryell and explains why he went to Vancouver, B.C., Monday without telling anyone affiliated with the Chargers that he wouldn’t be at practice.

Coryell, the Charger front office and a goodly number of media types spent much of Tuesday trying to track down the tight end, who happened to be observing his 28th birthday. The working assumption was that Winslow was upset over not getting to play very much in Sunday’s 30-10 win over the Denver Broncos.

As it turns out, Winslow was in Vancouver to hype a beverage known as “Lytes,” a concoction similar to Gatorade. Winslow is a shareholder in the company that makes the drink.

Winslow’s whereabouts became known when a reporter from the Vancouver Sun telephoned The Times after reading an account of the player’s disappearance. The Sun, which ran a story on Winslow’s whirlwind visit to that city in some of its Tuesday editions, reported that the player had appeared at the training camp headquarters of several Canadian Football League teams last summer.

“Our goal is to turn training camp into a profit center,” the paper quoted Winslow as saying, which seems to indicate he has future plans to hawk the nutritional drink north of the border.

All of this came as a relief, sort of, to Coryell, who had publicly expressed concern for Winslow’s well-being.

Once he learned that his tight end was safe, however, Coryell’s relief quickly gave way to discontent.

“I’m very disappointed,” Coryell said Tuesday night. “Obviously, none of us knew where he was. He left without permission. I’ll talk it over with him today. I’ve never had to fine him before . . . and I don’t know what the maximum fine is for something like this.”

Earlier, when it was first learned that Winslow failed to report Monday for practice, meetings and treatment, he appeared to be facing a fine of up to $500 for his unexplained absence.

“It seems a little irresponsible,” said Ron Nay, chief adviser to team owner Alex Spanos. “I hope he got more for being there than his fine is going to be.

“But let’s don’t get carried away. There isn’t going to be a suspension or anything. I see this as a minor thing. If he were a second-team linebacker, nobody would be writing a word about it.”

Winslow was due to report for meetings and treatment at 1 p.m. Monday, according to Coryell. No one noticed that he was not present for meetings or for a short practice session that followed, and it wasn’t until 6 p.m. that Winslow’s absence was observed.

“We tried to call to make sure he wasn’t dead,” Coryell said. “He might have been in an accident, you never know.”

Winslow apparently had not missed any previous meetings or practices at which his presence was required.

It isn’t unknown for a player to fail to make a prescribed treatment session, but a fine doesn’t automatically ensue if the player is able to practice or play, according to McDonald.

Before he ended a year-long period of convalescence from his knee injury against the Minnesota Vikings on Oct. 20, Winslow had been under some heat from Spanos to return to action.