Chargers Assistant Coaches Prepare to Job-Hunt
On the first day of his son’s new life, Ron Lynn lost his job.
Lynn, the Chargers’ defensive coordinator for the past six seasons, was fired along with head coach Dan Henning and 10 other assistant coaches Monday.
Lynn met with Henning in the morning and then spent the rest of the day--waiting for son No. 3 to make his appearance--with his wife, Cynthia, at the hospital.
Meanwhile, back at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium there was no longer any suspense for the team’s coaching staff. The radio in the corner of the Charger offices continued to repeat the news they hoped they would not hear.
A huge stack of folded up boxes had appeared as quickly as the official public relations release announcing the their dismissals.
“Sixth time for me,” said offensive line coach Alex Gibbs. “Duke, Kentucky, Ohio State, Auburn, the Raiders and now here. I’ve done better every time it’s happened.”
Gibbs and Lynn rejected one-year contract extensions from the team before to the season because they thought the offers too low. Chuck Clausen (defensive line), Mike Haluchak (linebackers), Bobby Jackson (running backs), Charlie Joiner (wide receivers), LeCharls McDaniel (special teams), Jim Mora (secondary), Larry Pasquale (special teams coordinator), Jack Reilly (quarterbacks) and Ed White (tight ends) accepted the contract extensions and will be paid for the 1992 season.
General Manager Bobby Beathard said the new coach may choose to interview several of the fired assistant coaches, but he said Henning’s successor will not be forced to keep any of them.
However, Reilly and Pasquale are expected to get recommendations from Beathard and might soon be back on the payroll.
“You could obviously see this coming,” said Mora, who has been fired for the first time in his career. “I feel bad for Dan and everybody, but I’m not going to let it keep me down very long, that’s for sure.
“Watching that interview on Magic Johnson with Connie Chung, that was two weeks ago and at that time it was looking kind of bleak for us. It put things in perspective. Here’s a guy faced with the struggle for his life and he says, ‘I have the HIV; that’s fact, now what am I going to do about it?’ So basically this is nothing; I still got my health.”
Mora and his colleagues will have all their expenses paid if they choose to seek employment at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., next month. They also have been asked to remain on duty until they have completed grading their players’ performances.
“I’m going to be fine,” Mora said. “I can just go and be a lifeguard.”
Clausen joined Henning’s staff in Atlanta in 1986, and at the end of the season Henning was fired. Clausen came to San Diego this year, and history repeated.
“Obviously, I didn’t come here with the idea this was going to happen, but I’ve been in this game 30 years and I know these things happen,” he said. “My dad was a football coach and he went through a bad year and he was hung in effigy. I remember them taking us to the grandparents on the weekends so we didn’t have to hear all that.”
Joiner, who played for the Chargers from 1976 to 1986 and holds the team record for most career receptions with 586, has been an assistant since 1987.
“I probably won’t leave San Diego,” Joiner said, “so I will probably be out of coaching.”
White provided the protection for quarterback Dan Fouts from 1979 to 1985, before putting in two stints as an assistant.
“Since 1969 I’ve been in (the NFL), and right now you hurt,” he said. “I’m going to get away from it, be with my family and contemplate what has happened. I’m a San Diego native and my kids have lived here all their lives and we love the Julian area and it would become difficult for me to leave that.”
Jackson, who coached previously with Henning in Atlanta, also had been on Al Saunders’ staff.
“The best thing I could say,” Jackson said, “is that I got paid every day I worked, and I worked every day that I got paid. Now, it’s wait and see. . . . What do you do?”