Beathard Takes Over as New Charger GM : NFL:He has been promised no interference from club owner Alex Spanos. He will accept blame if things go wrong.

Bobby Beathard officially became San Diego Chargers general manager on Wednesday, and went to work to build the team his way with a promise of non-interference from club owner Alex Spanos.

“I told him when I accepted the job that I would like to be put in the same position we were in in Washington. We don’t want to use the excuse that the owner has handicapped us,” the former Redskins general manager said.

“We’re the guys he’s hired to turn this (club) into a winner and if it doesn’t happen, then I would rather be the one to blame than say that somebody else caused it.

“That’s why I am very optimistic about this. It won’t be for lack of money that we won’t win. If we don’t do it here (win), it will be because I’ve done the wrong things.”

Beathard, who turns 53 this month, succeeds Steve Ortmayer, who was fired on Dec. 18, when the Chargers were 5-10. San Diego won its last game to finish 1989 at 6-10.

Two of Ortmayer’s key aides, his personal secretary and the entire five-member scouting staff also were released. Beathard said he planned to rehire one of the scouts, Dwight Adams, and would fill the other positions during the next few weeks.

Beathard’s hiring in San Diego marks his return to football after a one-year hiatus as a network sports commentator and reunites him with Dan Henning, a former assistant in Washington who just completed his first season as Chargers head coach.

Terms of Beathard’s contract were not disclosed. But Beathard, who owns a home in nearby Leucadia, said: “I want this to be my last football job. I love it here. I firmly believe this is the place to be.”

Beathard left Washington last May after helping to assemble the talent for three Super Bowl teams in 10 years as Redskins general manager. Before that, he spent seven years as director of player personnel for the Miami Dolphins, who appeared in two Super Bowls during his stay with the team.

“Bobby Beathard represents an outstanding addition to our organization,” Spanos said. “He’s one of the best in football in evaluating and acquiring talent and he will also be able to do whatever he feels is necessary for us to have a winning ball club.”

Beathard said he wasn’t worried about working for Spanos, regarded by many as one of the league’s more impulsive owners.

“I wouldn’t be here if I thought it would be the wrong situation. I would have gone somewhere else or stayed with NBC,” Beathard said. “I came here because I was convinced the Spanoses (Spanos’ son, Dean, is the club’s vice chairman) were going to give us the support that we need to take this team in the right direction.”

For his part, Alex Spanos said criticism of him as a meddlesome owner was unfair. Beathard is the third general manager and Henning the third coach in Spanos’ six years of ownership.

“I have to laugh when I hear people call me a ‘meddlesome owner,’ ” he said. “I am an owner, but I have to hire people to do the job for me and I have to trust their judgment.

“I just finished my sixth season and I can tell you I have so much confidence in the new operation I feel the next couple of years I’ll be able to sit back and relax more than I ever have.”

During Ortmayer’s nearly three-year tenure, the Chargers were 19-27, 16-27 in non-strike games.

Since Spanos bought the team in August 1984, the Chargers have finished last in the AFC West three times.

Beathard said his top priority in the coming days is Plan B free agency, both from the perspective of deciding which Chargers players to put on the protected list and which players from around the league they might be interested in signing.