A Matter of Principle : Chargers’ Richards Isn’t Afraid to Speak His Mind
He is honest, so he said something like, “Howie Long is over the hill, a dead man, couldn’t get past his grandmother if she were sitting in a wheelchair with the brakes on, and so what’s the big deal about playing against Howie Long?”
David Richards said that before his first NFL game. There were qualifiers; something about Howie Long being hurt . . . but the press printed that juicy stuff.
“He kicks my . . . ,” Richards said of their encounter. “Howie’s a very intense individual. I went to shake his hand and he wouldn’t even acknowledge my existence. We’re walking up the tunnel at the same time, and I say, ‘Good game, Howie,’ and he snarls.”
Five years later, the man who said too much is still standing, but maybe not saying as much. He has started 75 consecutive games--more than any other Charger--and Sunday he renews old acquaintances with Long and the Raiders.
“He’s smart, he’s good, he’s got the best leverage of anybody I’ve ever played against,” Richards said.
Richards has come a long way, and he has tried to learn to say the right things. But his principles come first.
“I don’t like the politics of this game,” he said. “That’s the main reason I got involved in the antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. I didn’t like the way I saw some people being treated. Some people are treated like a couch, a leg gets broken, and oh well, the Salvation Army will take it. That’s wrong.
“We’re talking about people here, and somebody needed to stand up and do something about it.”
So he hasn’t learned how to blend in--not when there is principle involved.
“I’ve done some of the stupidest things in the name of principle,” he said.
He won’t play his wife, Laurene, in backgammon because she always wins. He won’t take on running back Rod Bernstine in golf any longer because Richards can’t beat him.
“It’s a matter of principle,” he says. “I can’t beat them, so I won’t play them.”
Friends and teammates also told him he had no chance to win his antitrust suit against the NFL, but at the time he became party to the suit, he didn’t care if he ever played again.
“I felt I was at end of my career after my second year. (Offensive line coach) Larry Beightol just wore me out. I figured I was going back to school, get a degree, and find myself another job,” Richards said.
“So they cut me. So they don’t like the lawsuit. Larry Beightol was the coach and I hated (him). I didn’t want to be here, and would have been happy to be sent somewhere else.”
The Chargers kept Richards, but did not retain Beightol. They hired Alex Gibbs, who became a Richards supporter. The Chargers’ running game improved, and Richards contributed.
“Alex Gibbs circled us all up, protected us, took all the heat, and told us, ‘Just play,’ ” Richards said. “He taught me how to play guard, and somebody was actually saying I was a good football player. I hadn’t thought so, and it renewed my love for the game.”
When the suit went to trial in Minneapolis, Richards became an important witness for the players. He claimed the Chargers had not dealt fairly with him in contract negotiations after his second season, and ultimately the jury agreed. They awarded Richards the largest settlement--$240,000--of the eight players involved. Under antitrust law, that sum will be tripled, and Richards will receive $720,000.
Richards immersed himself in the trial proceedings. He spent 10 days in Minneapolis, and after spending six hours on the witness stand, he returned to watch Jets’ running back Freeman McNeil testify.
Said Richards: “I was getting so mad . . . they were beating him up on the stand. I was near tears, and Gill Byrd was there and he told me to go home. He said I had done my part . . . I changed my plane reservations and went home.”
Despite the pressure of being one of the main characters in the battle of players against management, Richards remained focused on the football field. A matter of principle.
“You have to admire that . . . he’s there all the time,” General Manager Bobby Beathard said. “He’s a fighter. He’s been a big part of us doing well.”
He has been there, practice after practice, game after game. The offensive line coaches have come and gone. There have been three head coaches, two general managers, and Richards ever faithful at right guard.
“I don’t know if anyone in San Diego knows me, but that’s good for an offensive lineman,” he said. “Everywhere I go, people say, ‘You’re a big guy, you should play football.’ ”
In the past few years, the Chargers designed almost 85% of their running plays to go right--right over Richards and tackle Broderick Thompson. The pass protection was set up to slide in the direction of Richards and Thompson.
The blocking of Richards and Thompson propelled Marion Butts into the Pro Bowl.
“We communicate with each other by yelling at each other,” Thompson said. “When Coach (Bobby) Ross first got here and witnessed that, he wanted it to stop because he thought we were arguing with each other. But that’s just us.
“I’ve watched David over the years, and you know this business, they’re always talking about finding someone better on the offensive line. But there’s no substitute for dependability and knowledge, and that’s what he has.
“He’s also a member of the bad body club, but that body never lets him down on Sunday.”
The Chargers, however, have taken exception to the weight he packs. Last year he absorbed $3,500 in fines for failing to make his assigned weight.
“People are frustrated by Dave because they see potentially a great lineman,” says John Dunn, the Chargers’ strength and conditioning coach. “When people see potential they over-project what a guy can do, so they don’t look at the positive things that he does do.
“Certain guys get hurt, and David Richards doesn’t. He may be big, may not be at the weight you want him, but he’s there.”
When Richards reported to training camp this year, Ross responded to Richards’ request for a higher assigned weight. After being tagged with $600 to $700 in fines in training camp for missing weight, he has checked in at 313 pounds each week as ordered.
“I just wish they would turn me loose, let it go, and if I get too heavy, cut me,” he said. “I don’t understand all the stuff. This year they loosened up and I can eat three meals a day.
“I used to starve the heck out of myself. Now I’m probably stronger than I have ever been in my NFL career. I’m not worn out and dragged down from starving myself all the time.”
The NFL scouts said Richards lacked discipline when he came out of UCLA in 1988. They said he was difficult to coach. Twenty-eight teams let him slip to the fourth round.
“They didn’t like the way I acted at the scouting combine,” he said with a smile. “I had this psychologist with the Giants follow me around all day with a bag of fudge. He kept telling me to take a piece, and I threatened to beat the hell out of him.”
When Richads transferred to UCLA after the NCAA closed down SMU’s football program, he slept with a loaded gun under his bed because Los Angeles scared him.
He watched the movie “Platoon” 20 times. He presently is reading a bizarre 400-pager, “The 12th Planet.” When he isn’t reading, he is rushing home from practice to watch The Discovery Channel and the history of the airplane in war.
He and his wife, Laurene, own a thoroughbred horse, a castoff from a racetrack in Mexico, two cats that were abandoned by the roadside, and a dog.
“He’s a strong person,” Laurene says. “His mom and dad were divorced when he was about 11, and his mom had to go to work and he was a latch-key kid. He learned to rely on himself.
“He has had so many setbacks, and while he brings some of them on himself, he doesn’t like people telling him he can’t do something. He’ll prove them wrong.”
