HOW SAN DIEGO GOT SUPER BOWL XXII : Unable to Win It, Klein Brought It Home

Super Bowl XXI is history, meaning Pasadena can now get back to normal and San Diego can start getting ready for Super Bowl XXII, which will be played here Jan. 31, 1988.

It will be the first time the game has ever been in San Diego. In the words of Roger Hedgecock, the former mayor, it’s something of a miracle that the city was able to attract an event that qualifies as America’s biggest one-day sporting extravaganza.

To be selected over 13 other cities, San Diego had to overcome an array of obstacles, including concern about the size of its stadium, the number of hotel rooms and general reluctance to return to Southern California for a second straight year.

Those problems and others were overcome chiefly through the efforts of Eugene Klein, the former Charger owner who is now involved in the breeding of thoroughbred race horses.

“It was a fitting climax to my 18 years of stewardship of the Chargers,” Klein said. “I had tried very, very hard to get my team (to the Super Bowl), but even though we never made it, I was a very proud and happy man the day we were able to get the game for San Diego.”

The city was awarded the game at a meeting of National Football League owners held in May 1984 at Washington. In voting among the 28 owners, San Diego was selected after a day-long struggle and more than a dozen ballots.

Though diligent preparations had been made, there was an unstated but shared sense of pessimism among members of the San Diego delegation.

“I don’t think we ever really admitted it to ourselves, but deep in our hearts, we felt this was the first of many presentations we would have to make to get the game for San Diego,” said John Reid, the executive director of the Holiday Bowl and a member of the city’s Super Bowl task force.

Klein made his presence felt at a strategy dinner the night before the city’s presentation was scheduled. He delivered what amounted to a pep talk and advised brevity in the actual presentation.

Leon Parma, president of La Jolla Capital Inc., another member of the San Diego team, added a nice touch to enhance the city’s pitch. To make sure league owners would see the brochure stating the city’s case, he tipped a bellman $100 to place a copy on the pillow in each owner’s hotel room.

All the groundwork was completed, and there was nothing to do but wait for San Diego’s turn to make its presentation. San Diego was 12th in the order of presentations.

“We felt we were at the mercy of the gods themselves,” Parma said.

San Diego got a break of sorts when the speakers representing several cities proved long-winded and were told to wrap it up and take their seats. When Parma, Hedgecock and Herb Klein, the editor-in-chief of Copley Newspapers, finally arose to make their carefully choreographed delivery, the owners were in a mood to listen, knowing the end of the presentations was at hand.

As the balloting began, none of the participants realized that their business would not be completed until midnight.

And the outcome most likely would have been different had it not been for the shrewd, stubborn and inspired efforts of Eugene Klein.

“What took place was a miracle, and as with most miracles, something made it happen,” Hedgecock said. “That something was Gene Klein.

“He proved to be a very adroit politician. I am sure he had a whole list of past services rendered, and he was very persuasive in reminding the other owners.”

Klein’s politicking in the main consisted of calling in markers for past favors to other owners. Although Klein declined to specify individual cases, Hedgecock and others said that Klein was not bashful about mentioning his role in getting a $2-billion television contract for the NFL in 1982.

“Those owners had to feel indebted to him for putting millions of dollars in their pockets,” Hedgecock said.

The owners were committed to awarding two Super Bowls, those of 1987 and 1988. Pasadena, which had been host to three previous games in its 103,000-seat Rose Bowl, had little difficulty winning the necessary 21 votes--three-fourths of the 28 owners--for the ’87 game.

That left 13 cities in contention for ‘88, but the owners kept reaching 14-14 deadlocks.

Klein viewed Miami as his biggest opponent. The Dolphins’ owner, Joe Robbie, was promising to have a new stadium ready in time for the 1988 game. Working against Miami were two considerations: Its stadium would have about the same capacity, 75,000, as San Diego; and the Super Bowl already had made several appearances in South Florida.

When the owners broke for a cocktail party and dinner, Klein continued politicking. Not much later, when the meeting resumed, it occurred to Klein that the best way to proceed was to move for a resolution that would lower the required number of votes from 21 to 15.

That done, the voting moved ahead, and several cities were gradually eliminated, including Philadelphia, Seattle and New Orleans. Ultimately, only San Diego and Miami remained.

“I was starting to feel exhausted,” Klein said. “It was well into the evening, and I decided to make a speech in which I would release all those who had committed to me. I said we should put aside politics and do what’s best for the NFL, get this thing concluded and move on to other business. That must have changed a couple of minds.”

On the next ballot, San Diego went from 14 to 17 votes, and the long, exhausting battle was done.

“It was a blind vote, so I don’t know who came around to our side,” Klein said. “When it was over, everyone said they had voted for us. I never did try to separate truth from fiction. I was just glad to get it resolved.”

It was up to Commissioner Pete Rozelle to impart the news to the delegations waiting in the hall outside the conference room. When the San Diego contingent heard of its triumph, the party retired to the hotel lounge. Parma ordered Dom Perignon for all, and the celebration began.

“It was one of the happiest times I have ever observed,” said Jack Teele, a Charger executive who worked with Klein in preparing the city’s bid. “It was almost like we had won the actual game itself.”

The idea that San Diego would make a legitimate host for a Super Bowl had its genesis in a conversation between Charger General Manager John Sanders, former Congressman Clair Burgener, Herb Klein and Parma during the 1983 Super Bowl at Tampa.

Sanders agreed to find out if Gene Klein would be willing to carry the ball. Klein pledged his support and submitted San Diego as an interested city in the NFL meetings at Hawaii. But the real work wouldn’t begin until early 1984.

The decision to go after the game was based on several advantages, summed up in the phrase: “Close, convenient and exciting.” Those considerations will, of course, come into play later this spring when San Diego submits a bid for the 1991 or ’92 Super Bowl.

“We have a city that, next to New Orleans, is the most compact of any that has hosted a Super Bowl,” Parma said. “Although we were very marginal in hotel rooms, with 24,000 when we made our first bid in 1984, we will have 33,000 rooms by next year.

“We will have 73,000 to 75,000 seats for the Super Bowl, which is right in the same area as New Orleans and Miami. We are going to give the NFL the use of Torrey Pines golf course and we will be able to provide each visiting owner his own private luxury box at the stadium, so they can be with their own people. I think the ambiance here is such that we should be able to entice the NFL to come back in the future.”

At Hedgecock’s request, Parma served as chairman of the 1984 Super Bowl task force. He also was head of the Greater San Diego Sports Assn., which agreed to provide $100,000 to underwrite the expenses of the city’s application.

One of the most significant elements in the drive was the decision to hire a stadium architect, Ron Labinsky, to come up with an expansion plan. With only 60,000 permanent seats, the stadium never would have qualified as a potential Super Bowl site.

“I remember talking with Lamar Hunt (owner of the Kansas City Chiefs) at a cocktail party,” Parma said. “He said there was no way we’d ever get 75,000 into our stadium.”

For a fee of $10,000, Labinsky was retained to develop plans for adding 15,000 temporary seats. His plan proved satisfactory to the NFL.

Other elements of the San Diego effort included preparation of a six-minute film extolling the city’s virtues, plus a 24-page promotional brochure.

Reid, who was involved in those efforts, said Parma was demanding in what he would accept. A 65-page brochure was eventually pared to 24 pages.

“He was very quality conscious and threw a lot of suggestions back at us,” Reid said. “At one point, we prepared some statistics on the January weather in San Diego. But Leon rejected the data as too general and too optimistic. He didn’t want us to be caught with a phony sales pitch.

“In putting together our film, we wanted substance instead of dazzle and cuteness. One city had hired John Houseman to do their narration, but we were advised the owners were too sophisticated for that approach.”

As a footnote, Reid added, the film spoke of San Diego’s support of other sports.

“But between the time we did the voice-over and the final editing, the Clippers bailed out (and moved to Los Angeles),” he said. “We had to get the film in the can, so we took out the footage of the Clippers, but we didn’t have time to change the voice-over.”

With a 21-day deadline, Reid’s group worked around the clock to get its film and printed material completed.

“We wanted to make the owners notice us, but without a lot of clutter,” he said. “We produced an aerial photo of San Diego and drew concentric circles, with the stadium at the center, and the time in minutes to hotels and other attractions.”

The written presentation had to be available to the owners 10 days before the meeting at Washington. The final copy, bound in suede with each team’s helmet logo embossed on the cover, was mailed just in time.

“Basically what happened was, the sports association provided the sales tools and Gene Klein closed the deal,” Reid said. “This may sound trite, but waiting all day and night in that hallway outside the conference room was like being an expectant father outside a maternity ward. When our bid was finally voted upon, it was absolutely the high-water mark of my sports career.”

Klein viewed it much the same way.

“I realized at that moment it was time for me to fade into the background and sell my football team,” Klein said. “I had been fighting pressure from my family to sell, but after that meeting in Washington, I decided I had done all I could and I should pass the baton. I was really tired because I had really busted myself in the effort to get the Super Bowl.