Retirement Suits Sack Leader

When he was sacking quarterbacks at a record rate for the Chargers, Gary (Big Hands) Johnson once made such a heavy hit that he received a death threat.

Now that his football career is behind him, Johnson has made a remarkably smooth transition to the real world. The violence that epitomized the role of a defensive lineman has given way to the tranquility of the ice cream business.

The man who holds the Chargers’ career record of 67 sacks had the foresight to plan for life after football. As a result, he and his wife, Alice, own two stores franchised by an international ice cream chain. One of the stores is in Scripps Ranch, where the Johnsons live, and the other in Poway.

Johnson retired in 1985 after 11 seasons in the NFL, during which he made all-pro twice and the Pro Bowl four times. He spent his first nine-plus seasons with the Chargers and finished with the San Francisco 49ers.

“My body was telling me that I wasn’t going to take any more of that pounding,” said Johnson, 39. “I was already looking into this business during the ’85 season and, when I left football, I went right to work. I opened the Scripps Ranch store in ’86 and the Poway store in ’87.

“Buying two of them, I went in pretty deep, but we’re doing well. The franchise fees are paid by buying their products. I’m happy with the business. This is how I make my living, so I have to be happy with it.

“This doesn’t mean I’ll stay with it forever. I’m looking forward to going back home to Louisiana. I have some property there, and maybe I’ll go into development”

Johnson grew up in Bossier City, near Shreveport, and was an All-American at Grambling, where he since has been inducted into its Hall of Fame. His said the family will remain in this area at least until son, Gary Lynn II, 14, finishes high school.

Asked if young Gary plays football, Johnson said, “He tried it, but now he’s into karate. He’s taller than I was at his age--5-10--so maybe he’ll get back to football.”

Besides running an ice cream business, Johnson, along with former teammate Fred Dean, is a marketing representative for a vitamin-distributing firm.

‘I’m doing that on the side,” Johnson said. “I got involved in it maybe two months ago.”

But marketing ice cream occupies most of Johnson’s work day, and he spends a lot of time behind the counter.

“In a way, this is harder than football,” he said. “I can see now why Jerry Smith, who was our defensive line coach from ’77 to ‘83, made such a big point of getting us to do things right. It’s difficult to get 16-year-olds to do what you say.”

At 6-2 and 240 or so, Johnson was small by today’s standards for a defensive lineman, yet he was a scourge to rival linemen and quarterbacks. In 1980, he led the NFL with 17 1/2 sacks and was voted the defensive lineman of the year.

One of those sacks in 1980 triggered the threat on Johnson’s life. The Chargers were playing the Philadelphia Eagles at San Diego Stadium, and Johnson knocked the Eagles’ Ron Jaworski out of the game.

“When I got to my locker afterward, I saw these cops there,” Johnson recalled. “Gene Klein, our owner, told me it was a death threat, that somebody had called his box and said, ‘If you don’t take Johnson out, he’s a dead man.’

“Klein said to me, ‘It happened in the first half, but we didn’t want to tell you then because you were having such a good game.’ If they had told me, I would have done a lot of looking around from then on.”

Nothing came of that, but Johnson had another scary experience later that season.

“I was driving out of the parking lot after a game, and John Lee (a teammate) was with me,” Johnson said. “John Jefferson and Gregg McCrary (two more teammates) were behind us. They noticed that my rear wheels were wobbling, and it turned out that somebody had loosened the lug nuts on the tires. They followed me to a filling station, and Lee got out and walked.

“I was really mad. My family might have been in that van.”

The Chargers drafted Johnson in the first round in 1975--he was the eighth player chosen--and he still finds that hard to believe.

“I went to Grambling because my sister was there,” he said. “I figured I was just a regular athlete going to school, and I didn’t start until my junior year. Most rumors were that I’d probably go anywhere between the third and sixth rounds.”

He was surprised by where he was drafted geographically as well as numerically.

“I didn’t expect to be drafted by the Chargers,” he said. “To be honest, I didn’t know they had a team in San Diego. That’s how much I knew about football.”

Incredibly, considering today’s pay scale, Johnson signed for a bonus of $60,000 and a starting salary of $42,500.

“Junior Seau signed for a $1.8 million bonus when the Chargers picked him (fifth in the draft) last year,” Johnson said. “I didn’t make that much in all the time I played. I wish I could back up about 10 years.”

Johnson, who had his greatest success at tackle, was upset when he was shifted to end in 1983. The move was necessitated when Tom Bass, who had become defensive coordinator the previous year, switched from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4. To make matters worse, Johnson missed four weeks of training camp in a contract dispute.

“Why Bass made the change is something everyone is still puzzled about,” Johnson said. “In the 3-4, you have to use the hit-and-grab technique. How are you going to hit a guy who weighs 300 and grab him? No way. I preached to Bass that it wouldn’t work, but I didn’t get anywhere.”

Johnson also said that, in his mind, rushing the passer is easier from inside. This is contrary to the opinion of Lee Williams, who complained about being moved inside by the Chargers and was traded to the Houston Oilers before this season.

“Inside, you’re closer to the quarterback, and you get a better angle going between the center and guard than you do outside,” Johnson said. “I used more finesse than strength to beat my man. I stunted a lot.”

Williams was half a sack short of Johnson’s Charger record when he was traded.

Dean, a second-round choice the year Johnson was a No. 1, preceded Johnson to the 49ers by three years. Three games into the 1981 season, he was traded with a first-round pick for a first and a second. Four games into the 1984 season, Johnson, then 32, was dealt for fifth- and 11th-round picks.

“Fred and I competed throughout our careers,” Johnson said. “The year I had 17 1/2 sacks, he had 13. He had no business bench-pressing 400 pounds, but he did it just because I did. I could bench-press 460.

“I played on the right side and Fred on the left. With him around, teams had to make up their minds who to block. After he left, they said, ‘We’ll double-team Gary Johnson and stop their rush.’ We weren’t the same.”

Dean was even smaller than Johnson at 230, but two of their defensive-line colleagues, Louie Kelcher and Wilbur Young, were among the Refrigerator Perrys of their day.

“We had to weigh in every week, and one year Louie and Wilbur came up with an idea,” Johnson said. “They put matches under the scale so it registered way low. They got away with it for four or five weeks, but then Jim Laslavic (now sports director of Channel 39 and a Charger radio voice) jumped on ahead of them. He weighed about 240 and, when the scale read 210, he said, ‘I must be sick.’

“After they got caught, Jerry Smith threw a tantrum. He had been bragging all season about keeping everybody’s weight down.”

Beyond all the honors he achieved, Johnson had the rare distinction for a defensive lineman of scoring three touchdowns.

Against Seattle in 1978, he made a one-handed interception and returned it 52 yards. Against Kansas City in 1981, he took a lateral from Leroy Jones, who had made an interception, and ran the final five yards. Against Atlanta in 1984, after going to the 49ers, he picked up a fumble and ran 33 yards. In each case, his touchdown was a key to victory.

“I’d forgotten about the lateral from Jones,” Johnson said. “I thought he took it in, because I knew he wanted it for himself. I do remember I was trying to snatch the ball from him.

“On the interception, I read a screen pass and I had knocked down the guy he (Jim Zorn) was throwing to. The fumble recovery was a freebee. Dean had sacked the quarterback and the ball was just lying there.”

Johnson says that he shouldn’t have had to wait until he joined the 49ers to play in the Super Bowl.

“Our ’79 and ’80 teams were probably the best in San Diego history,” he said. “We were eliminated by the Oilers in ’79 and the Raiders in ’80. It shouldn’t have happened either time.”

Johnson got the nickname of Big Hands when he was in eighth grade, and that remains his best means of identification today. He even uses it on his business card.

“I was reaching for a basketball in a gym class,” he recalled. “The instructor said, ‘Keep your big hands off my basketball,’ and, from that day forward, everybody called me that.

“Mention Gary Johnson and a guy will say, ‘I don’t know him.’ Then say ‘Big Hands,’ and the guy will say, ‘Oh yeah, I know him.’ ”

Although he has been out of football since 1985, Johnson has not been forgotten by Charger fans. He gets innumerable requests for his signature at his two ice cream shops.

“I sign more autographs,” he said, “than I sell ice cream.”