Coryell Resigns; Saunders Officially Has the Job Now

One of this city’s most poorly kept secrets for nearly a year has been Don Coryell’s non-future as coach of the San Diego Chargers.

A 1-7 record this season, including seven straight losses, hastened the departure of Coryell, who announced his resignation Wednesday.

With Coryell’s departure, Al Saunders got a new title and officially assumed responsibility for guiding the team. In reality, his accountability to owner Alex Spanos increased only marginally, if at all.

In elevating Saunders, 39, to his first head coaching job, Spanos tapped a man whom he had already entrusted with key decisions regarding hiring, budgeting and charting the team’s future. The only question concerned when the prefix “assistant” would be dropped from his title of assistant head coach.

Saunders moved quickly to imprint his personality on the team.

“My job is to get people to feel good about this organization again,” Saunders said. “When you lose, people feel embarrassed to walk around with the Charger logo on their shirt, and the fans wear bags on their heads. . . . What I want to do is focus on a new direction. This is a new team. It starts today.”

It really started late last December, when Saunders was designated as the heir apparent for the job. Since then Coryell, 62, had been head coach in name only.

After an 8-8 record last year, Coryell was rehired for the 1986 season, with an option year in 1987, but it was generally believed in the organization that this would be his last year.

There was no sign of friction between the men, and Saunders reiterated Wednesday that he entered into the relationship only after seeking Coryell’s approval. But, just as there was no doubting Saunders’ loyalty, there was no way to disguise the awkwardness of the situation.

The team’s dismal first-half record was a disappointment, particularly to Spanos, who had talked openly last summer of his desire for 10 or more wins and a playoff berth.

Spanos, who seemed edgy at a late afternoon press conference, answered emphatically when asked if Coryell had been pressured into resigning.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “I had made a commitment to stay with the staff I had. But if Don felt it best to resign for the good of the team, I had to go along with that. It was a shock to me . . . but if Don feels this was the best thing for him and the team, God bless him. . . . I don’t like losing. My fans don’t like losing. I’ll do whatever it takes to win.”

In an interview last week, Coryell said he realized that he had only so many games left to coach.

“I feel a change would be beneficial to the Chargers,” Coryell said in a prepared statement Wednesday. “I made up my mind (to resign) after the Philadelphia game (a 23-7 loss on Sunday), but Mr. Spanos was out of the city and I wanted to tell him in person.

“After talking with Alex today, I felt it would be best that I resign and turn the head coaching position over to Al Saunders in hopes that the second half of the season would be better than the first,” Coryell said.

Several men close to Coryell said it was highly uncharacteristic of Coryell to quit at anything.

“He’s not a quitter,” said Saunders, who went to pains to show his devotion to Coryell. “The word quit is not even in Don’s vocabulary. I can’t imagine him perceiving this in that way. In his mind, his resigning had to be not quitting, but something that needed to be done for this team.”

Tom Bass, a longtime friend and associate of Coryell’s who was fired as defensive coordinator in 1985, made a similar remark.

“Don isn’t the type to walk away in the middle of something unless he felt it would help,” Bass said. “He must have decided this would benefit the team. As a friend, I only wish he was leaving with a little more dignity instead of cleaning out his desk at midseason.”

The issue of whether the dual coaching relationship hurt the team was also tough to unravel.

“I didn’t think it could work,” Bass said. “You have to have one person leading the club. There had to be a negative effect. When you are a lame duck anything, you lose a certain amount of power and people take liberties with you.

“Consciously or subconsciously, the players must have been looking past this year, thinking this (Saunders) is the guy I need to impress and get close to.”

Saunders, in his fourth season with the Chargers, had collegiate coaching experience at Tennessee, California, Utah State, Missouri and USC.

Saunders is smooth and personable, but he is also a disciplinarian with a more conservative approach to football than Coryell. He has indicated that he would like to reshape the Chargers in the mold of less flashy, more traditional teams that rely first on defense.

“It’s hard to grab an oar in the middle of the river when it’s flowing quite fast,” he said when asked if he would have preferred to take over under different circumstances.”