A PLAY ETHIC : Billy Ray Smith Doesn’t Want to Bite the Team That Feeds Him

Billy Ray Smith, the best active left outside linebacker never to play in a Pro Bowl, sat politely and waited for the next interview to begin. Two men were talking nearby about his injured teammate, Leslie O’Neal. They mentioned that O’Neal’s doctor was in town. They mentioned that O’Neal’s agent was in town.

Then one of them looked and said: “Billy Ray Smith’s in town, too.”

Smith nodded. “I’m always here,” he said. “It’s either that, or I get fined.”

In the past month, Smith has watched teammate Jim Lachey wind up with the Raiders because, Lachey told friends, he wanted out of an organization that wasn’t headed in the right direction. Smith also has waited for right outside linebacker Chip Banks to settle a bitter contract dispute.

And he has scratched his head.

It’s hard not to wonder what people who pay money to attend his team’s games make of it all. Smith is asked what he will tell the next season-ticket holder who wants to know what he thinks.

“I will tell him first to consider the sources,” Smith says. “And I will tell him to maybe try to reassess where he’s putting the blame for people not wanting to be here. I will ask him to decide whether it’s a flaw in the team’s character or a flaw in the character of the person who doesn’t want to be here.

“I don’t want to cast aspersions on the fellows who are having problems. But I think it’s wrong to automatically assume that there’s something wrong with this organization in that respect. I will tell him that the 45 guys that we put out there on the field on Sundays are gonna be guys that know they’re privileged to play and are gonna play with a real zeal.”

Billy Ray Smith doesn’t have to be told that the Chargers have troubles. They are thin at too many positions. The front office and the coaching staff don’t always communicate as well as they should. And the defense he leads is still perceived around the league as one that Dan Fouts spent 15 years trying to bail out.

The latter may be changing. If Banks ever shows up, along with holdout defensive linemen Joe Phillips and Lee Williams, the Chargers can reasonably hope to improve upon last year’s No. 15 league ranking, which was an improvement upon 1986’s No. 23 rating.

Smith is the leader of that defense. He has been for at least two years. “The other guys look to him now,” says Ron Lynn, the team’s defensive coordinator. “He’s in charge in the huddle. No question.”

“I think we can be one of the better defenses in the conference,” Smith says, “if not the whole league.”

But if that doesn’t happen, if the Chargers have the disastrous season many NFL experts think they will, Smith will remain a Charger. Unless they decide they don’t want him. That is unlikely.

“What it comes down to,” Smith says, “is the Chargers, whether they were headed by Gene Klein or Alex Spanos, have always believed in me. The first half of my rookie year, they backed me up a lot when it took time for me to learn a new position.”

Smith had been a stand-up defensive end and pass rusher at Arkansas. The Chargers initially played him at inside linebacker. It was not natural for him. When Lynn arrived in 1986, he asked Smith where he wanted to play. Smith said he wanted to play outside.

“It was a case of where I thought I could help the team most,” Smith says. And it was a case of a player coming home professionally to a place he’d never been before.

Charger Coach Al Saunders says the team may have to move Smith from the left outside to the right outside if Banks doesn’t report soon. If that happens, Smith won’t complain, either.

“They were patient with me during the time it took for me to start excelling and reaching that level in the NFL where I’m considered one of the better players,” he says.

“I feel like I owe something to the community. I owe something to the team. I owe something to the owner. He’s the one who put his confidence in me and the rest of the players by paying us ridiculous amounts of money to play a game for a living.”

Smith says things that players used to say. But somewhere along the line, complaints started getting more attention than compliments. Smith has thought about that, too.

“Maybe I look at it too much like I did in high school and college,” he says. “But I just have a tremendous amount of loyalty to the people that have supported me and believed in me.”

This is a statement--coming from a Charger who is also a leader--that almost constitutes news.

Smith’s father, Billy Ray Smith Sr., felt the same way about Carroll Rosenbloom, the owner for whom he played in Baltimore. And he got a Texas-sized dose of football loyalty at Plano High School in north Dallas. At Arkansas, it was more of the same.

San Diego was culture shock when Smith arrived in 1983. He has since reconciled the differences in lifestyles between Fayetteville and Mission Beach.

“Here you get to live in a beautiful city with just a ton of stuff to do in the off-season,” he says. “But you’ve got to face the fact that if your team isn’t doing so well, there’s gonna be half a stadium (worth) of people out windsurfing or sailing instead of going to the ballgames. It’s not like Cleveland or Baltimore. That’s the give and take.”

But Smith will show up no matter how many people come to the stadium. If he doesn’t, he gets fined.

Charger Notes

The Chargers traded wide receiver Al Williams to Tampa Bay in exchange for a conditional draft pick. Williams was behind Timmie Ware and Darren Flutie in the battle for the fourth wide receiver spot. “We felt like Al would have a tough time making the football team and that it was prudent to try to get something for him,” said Saunders. . . . Charger outside linebacker Billy Ray Smith on the prospect of playing in a Pro Bowl for the first time: “I don’t think about it at all. I think it would be a great time and a real ball to be around some of the other great players in the league. But I have personal standards for myself. I want to get better and play better every year. If I don’t make the Pro Bowl, that’s the breaks.” . . . Nothing new to report on contract talks with free agent holdouts Joe Phillips, Chip Banks, Lee Williams and Curtis Rouse. Banks has until today to report, or the Chargers will take their five-year, $4.8 million contract offer off the bargaining table.