Football’s Finest Fete Dan the Man

Parents of young children, take note: Those of you who are educating your toddlers by flipping flash cards of BMWs and fusilli alla pesto may have the best motives at heart, but, if you hope that your offspring someday will bask in the public’s affection, please don’t raise those kiddies to be arbitragers and junk bond dealers.

Start teaching the progenies instead to be quarterbacks, because they, long after the last forward pass has spiraled through blue skies and into sure hands, will know what it is to be everlasting heroes to their fellow citizens.

If you don’t believe this, just ask Dan Fouts, the San Diego Chargers’ immortalized No. 14, who was beatified, canonized and sainted at Monday’s FoutsDay benefit for the March of Dimes and the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation at the Sheraton Harbor Island hotel’s Champagne Ballroom.

Daniel Francis Fouts, a nice kid from San Francisco’s St. Ignatius High School who went on to grow a beard and play 15 seasons for the Chargers, took it like a man when scores of buddies from the NFL, forgoing their usual reticence, rose to proclaim him a legend in his own time.

There are fund-raisers and then there are fund-raisers, and, although this one caught San Diego’s Old Guard off duty, it did bring out a cross-section of the community that was thrilled to be with most of the Chargers’ current lineup and many of its retired greats, as well as other gridiron legends.

Ahmad Rashad, late of the Minnesota Vikings and Fouts’ teammate (then known as Bobby Moore) at the University of Oregon, emceed the event and steered it in a direction that brought out the flavor of the man without smothering him under a layer of saccharine fluff. As tribute banquets go, this one sprinted the distance at a healthy clip and took a Gold Medal with style.

The party’s planners, led by co-chairmen Jeri Burbank and Daniel Sbicca, cleverly took the line of least resistance and planned the tribute as a day at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. Invitations urged “stadium attire, blue jeans optional,” or the city’s daily dress, and had the expected results. (Fouts, in deference to his role, tossed a Glen plaid jacket over his Levi’s.)

The ballroom foyer became a tailgate party staging area during the cocktail hour, complete with asphalt-like carpeting marked off into automobile slots, the La Mesa High School cheerleading squad greeting the guests like players arriving on the field, and hotel staffers--dressed in referees’ jerseys--passing out popcorn, peanuts and Cracker Jack. (These may have been the unlikeliest hors d’oeuvres in recent memory, but they vanished in a flash.)

Thick With Superstars

VIPs first traveled upstairs to a “pregame show” private reception in the Towers Lounge. Although the quarters were relatively close and the party was thick with football superstars, the premises seemed more like a broadcast booth than a locker room, perhaps because so many have gone on to comment on the game; Fouts has taken a spot with CBS, and Rashad covers the action for NBC.

While guests nibbled shrimp tostadas and watched taped highlights of Fouts’ career flicker on a television screen, the man of the hour huddled with his one-time boss, former Chargers owner Gene Klein. The current team owner, developer Alex Spanos, who was greeted with boos when he introduced Fouts the previous day at the FoutsDay celebration at the stadium, did not attend the tribute.

At times, the committee made the event altogether too like the stadium. For example, seemingly endless lines queued at the “Will Call” windows, where seat assignments, in the form of game tickets, were distributed. But the ballroom decorations were among the cleverest on record, and included not only stadium-style banners in praise of Dan the Man, and floral centerpieces springing out of football shoes, but a stage backdrop in the form of a scoreboard that recorded the tally of the Chargers’ most famous game, the 41-38 victory over the Miami Dolphins that almost landed the Chargers in the 1982 Super Bowl. No one failed to notice it.

CBS sportscasters John Madden and Pat Summerall led off a videotaped tribute that commenced during the Caesar salad and included warm words of praise from San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, Washington Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs and a host of others. Country-Western singer Willie Nelson took up a minute’s worth of tape with a rewrite of one of his hits that urged “Mothers, don’t let your sons grow up to be quarterbacks.”

Since Fouts’ favorite training table meal paired steak and spaghetti, the entree plates offered rigatoni and filet mignon, with slabs of swordfish thrown in just in case. The meal ended with hunks of fudge ice cream cake decorated with chocolate “14s.”

The speechifying only picked up steam with the close of the meal. Fouts and his wife, Juli, both were praised by representatives of the beneficiaries for their long-term work on behalf of children. Norma Hirsh, president of the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation, announced that that group’s share of the proceeds would give it enough money to start a pre- and postnatal care program for babies born drug addicts; 600 such cases were reported in San Diego County in 1987.

“We’ll provide a first-of-its-kind program to follow these babies, make sure they’re taken care of and fed, and try to get their mothers off drugs,” Hirsh said.

March of Dimes chief Bent Petersen praised Fouts for his leadership of the annual NFL charity golf tournament and introduced poster child Erin Faralan, who presented Fouts her sketch of a Chargers helmet encircled by the words “I love you, Dan.”

Then everyone got into the presentation act. Agent Howard Slusher presented a portrait of the quarterback in action, and radio man Mark Larson, disguised as President Ronald Reagan, presented a tribute in which Fouts was confused with Vice President-elect Dan Quayle.

‘One of the Most Courageous’

Former coaches presented their compliments. Retired Chargers Coach Don Coryell said that “Dan is one of the most courageous men I’ve ever known, and the best one I know who’s ever played the game.”

Los Angeles Rams Coach John Robinson, who coached Fouts at the University of Oregon, said: “Dan brought with him something that said, ‘I’m willing to do what it takes.’ He did what it takes to be great.”

Former teammates Ed White, Don Macek and Louie Kelcher all took their turns at the mike as well.

Finally, Fouts himself spoke.

“I’m just a lucky guy,” he said. “Few people in this world get to know how that feels. If those guys from Air Coryell were on stage right now, we could line up against anybody and show you what Charger Power is all about.”

The Mar Dels lined up on stage instead, and the crowd, freed from its chairs, went eagerly about the business of mingling in a throng that included such present and former Chargers as Willie Buchanon, Mark Herrmann, Pete Holohan, Ed Luther, Charlie Joiner, Eric Sievers, Mark Vlasic, Dennis McKnight, Kellen Winslow and Billy Shields.