Running Scared? Not Dan Henning : Football: Amid speculation he is on owner Alex Spanos’ hot seat, Charger coach says the organization is on trial, not him.
Dan Henning begins the third season of a five-year contract to coach the Chargers well aware of team owner Alex Spanos’ impetuous track record and conscious of mounting speculation that he must win and win from the start.
But Dan Henning said Thursday that if he loses his job, the Chargers lose again.
“The impatience of the organization is on trial, not me,” Henning said. “. . . I think the walls are closing in on Mr. Spanos when it comes to me, and that’s where the test is.
“I think part of the organization’s problems over the past seven or eight years has been that impatience. Lack of continuity can kill you. . . . You know, we’re only talking 30 months. I’ve been here 30 months and there’s nobody in the organization in the position of administration that has been here longer than I have. That’s not good for your product.”
When Henning inherited the Chargers in 1989, he took command of a 6-10 team that had Mark Malone and David Archer at quarterback, James FitzPatrick on the offensive line and Elvis Patterson in the defensive secondary. It was a team stocked with poor trades, misguided drafts and stop-gap free agents.
In addition, Henning coached for two different general managers with two different philosophies in his first two years. Jim McMahon was the team’s starting quarterback in 1989, Mark Vlasic in 1990, and now it appears Billy Joe Tolliver will guide the Chargers in 1991.
The building process continues, and although he has a five-year contract, this is no five-year plan. Dan Henning must win now to remain on the job.
“I think that’s true,” General Manager Bobby Beathard said. “I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone. I don’t think that’s a surprise to Dan. I have a lot of confidence in him; I think he’s a heckuva coach.
“With the right people he can show everybody just how good he is.”
The fans, for the most part, have not taken to Henning. He was introduced to San Diego with four consecutive losing seasons in Atlanta, and he has endeared himself to no one with a pair of 6-10 marks here.
The media has been critical, and Spanos reads the newspapers and listens to the broadcasters. More than that, Spanos remains frustrated by his team’s inability to advance to the playoffs.
“You need to have a sense of history,” Henning said. “Tom Landry didn’t win six games in a season until his sixth year. I had more wins in the first two years here than Bill Walsh did in San Francisco in his first two years. Now that doesn’t make it right or wrong, I know.
“There have been coaches who have come in and won big in their first year. It depends on what the situation was like when you got there. The pros, the people that know, have to make the determination. You can’t be swayed (fans), the media or anybody else. The ones that have bitten the bullet and stayed with some people and had some continuity, those are the ones who have come out ahead.
“If (Spanos) isn’t capable of doing that, I’m not sure this is the best place to be,” Henning said. “If I’m never going to get it done here because of things I can’t control, what good is it for me being here anyhow?”
Henning said he will not pander to the whims of the public, the media or the misguided. He went through this “will he be fired or won’t he” process in Atlanta, and after being dismissed, he learned a lesson.
“I learned the only problem is that you’ve got a lot of conversation that doesn’t mean (anything),” he said. “Questions come up, people debate it and it doesn’t mean anything. When I left Atlanta, they had a poll and 80-something percent wanted me kept and only 17 or 18 percent wanted me let go. What the hell difference did it make? It still comes down to the people who make the decisions.”
Spanos said recently that Henning has his support, but like any other head coach in the league, he said it’s time for Henning’s team to win. “That’s what I would expect,” Spanos said.
Spanos, however, has been at odds with Henning on who should be the team’s starting quarterback. And there is the perception now that Henning--in defiance of Spanos--has staked his career on the arm of Tolliver, who will be in his third year.
“That’s bull,” Henning said, while pounding his hand on the table and rising to his feet. “That’s absolute bull. I don’t stake my career on any player.
“There is the perception that Mr. Spanos doesn’t think Tolliver can win now. Who does Mr. Spanos like? Who has he liked in the past seven years? You guys (media) go after Mr. Spanos, and I’ve never seen an article on who he does like. It’s always, ‘Why don’t you like so and so?’
“Alex Spanos needs to like somebody. Bobby Beathard needs to like somebody. In my coaching meetings, I don’t want a coach to tell me he doesn’t like somebody. I want to hear him tell me who he does like, who can do it for us, who can win. And in the meantime, if you don’t have somebody you like, coach the ones you don’t like to get them to play as well as you can.”
While it appears Henning has pegged Tolliver as the Chargers’ savior, he has been left with little alternative. The Chargers made overtures for San Francisco’s Steve Young this off-season, but they were unwilling to pay what it would take to acquire him.
“We’re trying to find somebody to lead us through this,” Henning said. “Right now in my opinion the best guy to do that is Billy. But I’ll welcome anybody who shows me he’s better, and play him in a second.
“Somebody’s got to show that. Not just this bull they don’t like Billy. Give me a better alternative. I think Billy is a good alternative now. I have hopes for John Friesz in the future, and I like Bob Gagliano. But if there’s somebody else, let’s go.
“Show me who it is. Show me how you can get him. Show me that we’re going to pay him when we get him and that we’re not going to get (angry) when his personality is a little different.
“We brought a Super Bowl quarterback (Jim McMahon) in here in 1989, and he’s not around anymore because the media, fans and the organization couldn’t live with his personality. As a matter of fact, statistically he was no different than he was in Chicago the last few years he had been there, but the only difference here was the team wasn’t as good.
“I don’t have any problem with that kind of decision, but it depends on the philosophy of the owner. If you want to win, and you want to win your way, then dammit, decide to do it your way and do it. Don’t change because everybody else says change and you’re swayed by them. That’s stupid; that’ll never win.”
Henning has a plan. He said the Chargers have begun hiring football players with a future. He said the organization is close to turning the corner and making that jump to the playoffs for the first time since 1982.
“The first year, I wasn’t sure we were good enough to win six games,” he said. “We would have been close last year, but there were some differences between Bobby and I. After working with Steve Ortmayer the first year, I had to go through a complete change with Bobby.”
Beathard and Henning are on the same page now, but five contests on the road in the first seven games of the year present a formidable task. The team lost five of its last six games in 1990, and a slow start this season will only fuel the fires that rage in Spanos.
“Mr. Spanos is a very emotional person,” Henning said. “His nationality is footed in emotions and every week Mr. Spanos comes in to see me and he’s upset if we don’t win and he’s upset with individuals. He’d like to get (them) out of here. That’s the emotional part of Mr. Spanos. That’s the emotional part the fans have.
“I have some of those same feelings, but I know I can’t just get rid of a player at midseason because of one mistake. If Mr. Spanos makes a decision about this football team impetuously, just as if I make them impetuously, there will be errors made. But I can’t control the makeup of Mr. Spanos.”
There were reports last season, denied by Spanos and Beathard, that Spanos was talked out of firing Henning by Beathard after the Chargers lost to the Steelers in Pittsburgh. Now most preseason publications are predicting this will be Henning’s final year in San Diego.
“I don’t think you can satisfy Mr. Spanos,” Henning said. “That’s what probably makes him tick. I don’t think if you went 15-1 and lost the Super Bowl (that) Alex Spanos would be happy. I sure as hell wouldn’t be happy. He wants to win it all. Everything he lines up to do, he wants to win. He’s done that in his business.
“The heat is on, and that’s fine with me. If you want to enjoy some rewards, turn that heat up. The more people think you can’t do it, and you do do it, the better off you’re going to be rewarded.”
And will the Chargers “do it” in 1991? No predictions, Henning said.
“But I think we’re making progress at the ownership level, at the organization level, at the coaching level and the player level,” Henning said. “I think we’re on the path to be able to compete better than anything that has competed around here since 1984.”
In making plans to compete in 1991, Henning said he and his staff have devoted no time to fretting about what will happen if the Chargers fare no better than they have in the past few years. He said it has not been discussed.
“I can remember the first meeting in training camp in Atlanta and the first meeting here,” he said. “They are all the same: Hey, we gotta win. We win and everything is going to be great. Do I think I’m in trouble? No. I’m in the same position every year. We gotta win.
“We don’t talk about losing and what’s going to happen if we’re losing. We want to know where the Super Bowl is and when’s the wild-card game? For heaven’s sake, that’s what we talk about.
“I’ve been fired before, and sometimes I’ve gotten better jobs than I’ve had. There may be somebody, but I don’t think there’s one coach in my office who hasn’t been fired at one time. Hell, we’re all going to die, and I don’t know anybody who doesn’t fear dying, so once you get past that, what do you care?”