Chargers Moving in Wrong Direction
Just take a little time off during the holidays and watch the news pile up . . .
So the Chargers went and did what the fans have been clamoring for them to do. They changed their starting quarterback.
But not to Mark Vlasic, the No. 2 guy who made that cameo start in the season opener at Dallas. Maybe it would have been too logical to give him another opportunity.
They’ve changed to John Friesz.
What a minute, I may be stuffed after Christmas, but I am not suffering from the fuzziness that occasionally comes with New Year’s Day. I can see and I can hear and I can think, and I don’t think I believe what I am hearing and seeing.
John Friesz?
Undoubtedly, a fine young man.
Arguably, a potentially fine young quarterback.
In reality, raw as steak on the hoof.
Al Davis must have spiked the egg nog when the Charger staff sat down Christmas Eve to work on the game plan for Sunday’s season finale in Los Angeles.
How else to explain that a rookie with nary a practice snap with the Charger offense since the exhibition season gets his first start in what could be a very meaningful game?
If Kansas City wins Saturday in Chicago, a victory by the Chargers would give the Chiefs the AFC West championship. The Chargers should prepare Tolliver as well as Friesz and start Tolliver if the game has a bearing on the championship.
Forget that the fans are applauding this switch. When I moved to San Diego in 1978, fans were debating whether the Chargers should be quarterbacked by Dan Fouts or James Harris. It’s a good thing that one did not go to a vote, because Fouts’ 1977 holdout made him about as popular hereabouts as . . . say Billy Joe Tolliver . . .
When last I checked, the Padres’ Christmas stocking had gaping holes at third, left and center.
So Santa Claus brings them a right-handed relief pitcher. His name is Larry Andersen and he is 37 years old. He will be making $2.2 million a year until he is the age Jack Benny always made fun of.
In truth, the Padres needed a right-handed relief pitcher. In today’s market, this guy was probably a cheap way to fill a void.
However, should this new ownership group not have the financial wherewithal to shop deluxe for its biggest needs, why didn’t it go to a second-hand store and see if Hoyt Wilhelm was interested in coming out of retirement?
Maybe Tom Werner is going to surprise us and merge his highest-priced talent. That could mean Bill Cosby at third base and . . . voila . . . Roseanne Barr covering both left and center.
By herself.
Without moving . . .
Aren’t going to places like Bloomington, Ind., to play basketball supposed to be excellent opportunities for gaining experience?
You don’t expect to win against Indiana, but you come away better for having been there.
Tell it to USD.
Since losing at Indiana, 91-64, the Toreros have stumbled on the road against UC Santa Barbara, 72-63; Cal State Northridge, 83-73; and Eastern Washington, 73-69. UC Santa Barbara figured to be a test, but the others should have been nothing more than nutritional supplements to the win column.
If you are dreaming of a West Coast Conference championship and a trip to the NCAA tournament, you beat Northridge and Eastern Washington . . . anywhere .
Those should have been road wins rather than road kills . . .
With USIU’s athletic program staggering toward a possible demise, an old theoretical question comes to mind.
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Athletics would be missed by the players and coaches and maybe even the secretaries, if they have any, and it would be a shame for them. It’s a shame, of course, when anyone is put out of work and, more so, when youngsters are deprived of an opportunity to “play” their way to an education, assuming they are into the educational part of the equation.
But this program would go under with barely a whimper of notice beyond the eucalyptus-lined roads of USIU’s Scripps Ranch campus.
In this community, which follows its largest university with chilling apathy, USIU athletics never really had a chance . . . at least at the Division I level . . .
Playing as well as it did at the end of the season, San Diego State’s football team would have fared quite well in maybe half of the 19 bowl games this year.
In fact, Al Luginbill can probably talk about bowl aspirations in 1991 without being considered quite the lunatic he was considered when he expressed such a notion this year.
Dan McGwire, the departing quarterback no less, thinks the Aztec offense will be as good as it was this year. If he is not being outrageously optimistic, the Aztecs can become bowl contenders if they can make only reasonable progress on the defense.
One more thing, of course, is that San Diego fans must turn out in sufficient numbers to show an interested bowl there is community support. That may be tougher than building the defense.