He’s Chief of the Chargers : Offensive Tackle Sam Claphan, Half Cherokee, Is Committed to Helping Indian Cause

His nickname is Chief, which is fine with Sam Claphan, half Cherokee by birth and all Indian in his own eyes.

His hero is Geronimo, the Apache warrior chief, and he has had fantasies of revisiting the Old West armed with 20th Century technology. “That way, the Indians would win,” he said.

In real life, Claphan is not a mean-spirited or aggressive person. An offensive tackle for the San Diego Chargers, he has learned to discipline his mind and emotions, to rely on his blocking techniques rather than his temper when he’s in hand-to-hand combat with the likes of Howie Long and Jacob Green.

When his football career ends, Claphan hopes to go to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to become active in the politics of the Cherokees and to do all he can to lift Indian youth out of what he sees as a defeatist attitude.

“The reason Geronimo is my hero is that he fought for what he believed in, and that’s all that should matter--to do what you can to make your life better,” he said. “Geronimo was a savage Indian, but that was his route to survival, and he had to fight for a cause he believed in.

“What we as Indians in the 20th Century have to do is fight in our own way to obtain the highest level we can in life. Geronimo exemplifies that fight. I really get fired up thinking about him. All Indians would be better off if they patterned themselves after him.”

Claphan, 29, is a sixth-year pro of modest accomplishments. A native of the tiny east Oklahoma town of Tahlequah, he was a two-year starter for the Oklahoma Sooners who later was drafted and released by the Cleveland Browns.

Given the choice of trying to make it with the Raiders or Chargers, he chose San Diego and has been a starter for two seasons. This year, as he rebounds from a knee injury, he faces a challenge from a No. 1 draft choice, James FitzPatrick of USC.

Claphan, 6 feet 6 inches and 282 pounds, is a quietly reflective man off the field. His curly black hair is flecked with gray, and he wears large, squarish glasses that give him a scholarly look. With his wife, Linda, he is raising his 3-year-old daughter, Amber Rene, to respect the Cherokee tradition and still function in a larger society.

He has learned to not dwell on the risk of injury or the possibility of failure.

In a recent interview, Claphan was wearing a bright red T-shirt imprinted with a black ring, atop of which were the words “Circle of Unity.” Inside the circle was a message: “Respect. Courage. Wisdom. Generosity,” and the shirt also bore an inscription: “Wind River Indian Reservation, April 11-12, 1986.”

Claphan was the only professional athlete attending the conference, the focus of which was teen suicides on the Wyoming reservation. He spoke with Shoshone and Arapaho teen-agers, who seemed surprised to learn that there was an Indian in the National Football League. He found that the youngsters, for the most part, had a depressed outlook, without much to look forward to in life.

Claphan, whose mother is a Cherokee, was raised as a native American Indian in a white society. His father, who is white, was in the Army and was gone during much of his early childhood. His maternal grandparents helped fill the void, teaching him the ways of the Indians but forcing him to learn to live in a pluralistic society.

“But the experience of Indians who live on reservations is very different from the way I was raised,” he said. “The Indians on a reservation know only Indian ways, and they live in a depressed society. They don’t have much hope of accomplishing anything outside the reservation.

“They live with each other and share the same ideas and values. It’s hard for them to join with whites as long as they stay on the reservation. My goal is to work with Indian youth. They’re our future. The older people aren’t going to change. I want to do something sports-related and help the kids learn to stay motivated.”

There haven’t been many role models in sports for Indian youths, according to Claphan. Aside from Olympic stars Jim Thorpe and Billy Mills--separated in time by half a century--Claphan could not think of other great Indian athletes. He believes that he is the only current pro football player who is at least 50% Indian.

“I grew up with some excellent (Indian) athletes in Oklahoma, but none of them ever went beyond high school sports,” he said. “I think they were afraid of failure. Indian people have been taught about failure by a history of broken treaties going back at least 150 years. Indians have experienced so much failure, it’s hard for the kids to get motivated and show any initiative.”

What set him apart, Claphan believes, was the encouragement of his grandparents to try things without fear of failing.

He started playing football as a 14-year-old freshman at Stillwell High School. At 6-1 and 190 pounds, he was the biggest kid in the school and felt pressure to go out for the team.

He had an affinity for the game, and by the middle of his senior year, he was being recruited by the University of Oklahoma. He never considered going anywhere else.

It took him a couple of years, though, to feel comfortable in Norman. He found it scary being away from home and not knowing if he fit in socially or athletically.

“I didn’t know if I was as good as the other players,” he said. “The only thing I could do was just stick it out. I always had doubts about whether I belonged.”

He became a starter in 1977, and a year later, when teammate Billy Sims won the Heisman Trophy, Claphan was named All-Big Eight. The following spring he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, but after spending a year on injured reserve, he was waived in 1980. He feared that his career might be over before it really started.

Both the Raiders and Chargers contacted him, though, and offered tryouts early in 1981. He felt more comfortable about a future with the Chargers, although he had some of the old doubts in his first year in San Diego.

“I had a do-or-die attitude,” he said. “I didn’t want to be just a journeyman bouncing from team to team. It’s worked out pretty well here the last five years.”

A late-season knee injury caused him to miss the final four games of 1985.

He was hurt in a fluky way on an extra-point attempt against Buffalo. There was a pile-up, somebody fell on him and he heard something pop. It was not intensely painful, and surgery was not required, but Claphan still experienced pangs of worry.

“It was scary, basically the fear of the unknown,” he said. “The knee is just so fragile. All you can do is try to build up the muscles around it, and wear knee braces. That (a protective brace) is probably what saved me from surgery.”

He is sound now but faces the challenge of holding off FitzPatrick.

“The cards have been dealt, and it’ll just come down to who is the best player at the end of camp,” Claphan said. “Last year I had a challenge from Jim Lachey (who wound up starting at the opposite tackle). I became a better player as a result.

“I recognize this is a business, and the best man is going to play. I certainly don’t hate this new guy (FitzPatrick). But I think I’m still a pretty good player.”

Claphan believes that he will be helped in his duel with FitzPatrick by the presence of a new assistant coach, his old teammate Ed White. Already in training camp, White has given him some useful tips on getting off more quickly when the ball is snapped, and getting into a lower crouch when he sets up as a pass blocker.

Claphan views defensive players like Long as bigger threats to his livelihood than rookie blockers.

“Howie is the best there is,” Claphan said. “Against him, you’re just trying to survive. A guy like Howie just lives to go through you and get to the ball. But as an offensive lineman, you have to play with controlled aggression.

“You have to be disciplined enough to stay with the blocking techniques you’ve been taught. They are all that will protect you, and they won’t fail you. You can’t get frustrated and get away from techniques.”

Claphan said he is not a violent or excitable person. In a way, he is yearning to get on with life after football and his desire to help less-fortunate Indians.

“It will be nice not to have to worry about proving myself to other people,” he said. “Or maybe that’s just an excuse. Maybe all along I’ve really been trying to prove myself to me.

“Anyway, I can now feel satisfied with what I’ve done in football, and I just hope I’ll be half as successful and half as happy in what I do next. I’m sure I could be pretty happy working in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”