Green Puts On Show for Chargers : Football: Running back could have been a Charger. On Sunday the Chargers could not nab him again.

Gaston Green walked into the interview room wearing a gold chain around his neck, a T-shirt and blue jeans with holes in the left knee.

Which figures, because holes are what he found in the Charger defense all afternoon.

“Nice pants,” said Denver Coach Dan Reeves, who was wearing suit pants and a tie as he stepped down from the podium to make way for Denver’s newest hero.

During the Broncos’ tidy 27-19 victory over the Chargers, Green ran for 127 yards on 24 carries, scored the first rushing touchdown of his career on a five-yard carry in the third quarter and then proceeded to score on runs of 63 and 20 yards.

“He made some great runs,” Reeves said. “He also made people miss him in the open field.”

Once, the Chargers were going to draft Green. After his senior year at UCLA in 1987, the Chargers watched him work out at UCLA and talked with him. Green’s sister, Angela, attends San Diego State and Green remembers driving her to SDSU one day and reading in a San Diego newspaper that the Chargers planned to draft him.

Then came the NFL draft in April, 1988, and the Rams, picking before the Chargers, chose him. And the so Chargers picked receiver Anthony Miller.

“I would have liked to go there,” Green said. “Things just didn’t turn out that way.”

Sunday, the Chargers got plenty of looks at him. There seemed to be dozens of Gaston Greens.

Every time the Chargers turned around, he was in their secondary. And he was running for daylight on each of the several televisions in the Denver locker room after the game as afternoon newscasts turned into the Gaston Green Show.

The first touchdown was a relief to him, he said, because it was his first rushing touchdown.

But the 63-yarder was something special. He broke through the line, veered to his right and outran the Charger secondary. Strong safety Martin Bayless seemed to have an angle on him but suddenly Green was gone.

“I knew when I got by (free safety Stanley Richard) I would be in the end zone,” Green said. “I didn’t even see Bayless. . . . It felt real good. I hadn’t run like that since I have been playing for Denver.”

It was the sixth-longest touchdown run in Denver history, and the longest by a Bronco since Oct. 7, 1973, when Joe Dawkins went 72 yards against Kansas City.

And this was a guy who was worried in the first half. He lost a fumble on his first carry of the game, which led to the Chargers’ first field goal. He lost three yards on his next carry, and then dropped a pass.

“I was thinking about (the fumble) during the first half,” Green said. “I don’t think I was running as well as I could have. I was worried about holding onto the ball.”

At halftime, he had gained only 12 yards on nine carries. But after a talk with Mo Forte, Denver running backs coach, things got better.

And things are getting better. He is UCLA’s all-time leading rusher with 3,731 yards but, in three years with the Rams, he started only three times.

Acquired by Denver last April, Green is suddenly in the spotlight because Pro Bowl back Bobby Humphrey has been holding out. Humphrey refused to report to the Broncos this season.

“I haven’t felt any pressure (to replace Humphrey) at all,” Green said. “I feel that I’m capable of running the ball. I know people don’t know me because I haven’t carried the ball much, but I always knew if I got the opportunity. . . .”

The Chargers don’t need to be told about it.