Charger Bandwagon Fills Up After Super Bowl Run : Football: Fans fall over each other to grab a piece of Southern California’s lone NFL team.

The Chargers’ public relations announcement was most peculiar: Stay away from Saturday’s scrimmage at UC San Diego with the Cardinals lest you experience discomfort and inconvenience of the worst kind.

Charger hysteria remains out of control.

“Few seats, hot sun and long lines at the restrooms are expected,” read the team’s release to the public. “ . . . Most fans attending the scrimmage will have difficulty viewing the action.”

Four years ago the hapless Chargers were soliciting support. They called this event, “Family Day,” and offered free soda, hot dogs and autographs for a scrimmage with the Rams. Plenty to go around for everyone.

“Used to be you could go into the stands at one of our practices, introduce yourself, learn the name of everyone in attendance and do the whole crowd in 45 seconds,” said Billy Ray Smith, former Charger linebacker who now works with local TV here. “Look at this place now; people want to be around a winner.”

Daily practices now draw huge crowds. A Cinderella ride, culminating in an invite to the Super Bowl, will do that.

“I’m so mad,” said Alice Chase, who arrived at 8:30 a.m. for the 2 p.m. scrimmage. “Junior Seau almost ran his Mercedes into my truck while pulling into the parking lot. He missed me; he could have hit me and then he could have autographed my truck.” And she was serious.

A local radio station provides live reports to fans unable to attend, while Associated Press has a reporter working each practice to detail the day’s events. An orange fence has been installed to ring the field, and a pair of security guards shadow Coach Bobby Ross to provide him the freedom to walk without interruption. Players now park golf carts inside a secured area, allowing them a rolling start after practice to beat the mob of autograph seekers.

“Everybody’s so upbeat,” said Billy Devaney, Charger director of player personnel. “There is still a carry over from the love fest following the Super Bowl.”

More than 70,000 fans filled San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium to welcome home the Chargers after an AFC championship game victory over the Steelers. After the 49ers whacked the Chargers, 49-26, in the Super Bowl, 100,000 people gathered downtown to honor the team.

“Very temporary,” Ross said. “We go to Oakland in our first game, get beat and it’s all over. This sort of thing doesn’t last long. It’s nice while it lasts, but you have to live up to it, or it disappears.”

Reality is still more than a month away. The Chargers are the defending AFC champions and lightning bolts are worn proudly by the locals.

“I switched hats in honor of them,” said Jerry Gordon, who watched practice with aid of binoculars. “I left my, ‘I have the greatest dad’ cap in the trunk of my car and put on my Super Bowl XXIX cap.

“You can’t really see that much out there, but it’s just the feeling of being here.”

Traffic jams, no room to park, nowhere to sit and one port-a-potty for every 500 in attendance. And still they came by the thousands. “Just wanted to see how Stan Humphries’ elbow was,” explained Alvin Rafael, who came prepared with a lounge chair, cooler and cheese curls. “His elbow looks good; lots of zip on the ball.”

Chris Kanzius set up shop a day earlier behind the grandstand, offering a free miniature Charger football to anyone applying for an NFL-logo Visa card. “We did 200 applications right away,” he said, while almost too busy to talk. “Everyone had their choice of picking the team logo they wanted on their card; 99% wanted a Charger card, but one person asked for a Raider card. A kind of hush fell over everyone when they heard that.”

All aboard the bandwagon. The San Diego Union-Tribune, which will publish a special football section to open the regular season, will have an additional premium package: A pullout hyping the Super Bowl rematch of the Chargers and 49ers. No mention of the fact that it will be an Aug. 13 exhibition game featuring, for the most part, players who will be cut two weeks later.

“It’s good for the city,” said Humphries, who is 29-11 as starting quarterback for the team. “These people are something else: The day I pulled out of my driveway to make the trip to the Super Bowl there were 200 to 250 people lined up and down my street with a huge banner hung across the road. It was 5:15 in the morning.”

Four years ago the Chargers averaged fewer than 49,000 fans per game; this year the Chargers expect to sell out every game.

“Our biggest concern right now is how do these guys handle success?” Charger general manager Bobby Beathard said. “I’ve been around teams that have handled it well and come back to prove they were for real, and I’ve been around the same organization with a group that didn’t handle it well and ended up going 7-9.

“The model is the 49ers. I don’t know of anybody that has handled it better than they have. They have a way of getting back to work, and it’s just incredible how they are able to have that attitude that allows them to be all business . . . I don’t know how we’re going to handle it.”

The Chargers won the AFC West Division title last season with an 11-5 record, the very same mark they used to win the crown in Ross’ first year as head coach in 1992. The Chargers swooned in 1993, finished 8-8 and Ross has been there.

“It’s something we didn’t handle really well the second year I was here,” Ross said. “We won the division that first year, and sure we had some injuries, but the way we handled it was a little bit of a red flag to me. It’s a test for us. I don’t deny it isn’t.

“People will look for us. I already read a clipping to the team where someone picked the top 17 games of the year coming up. We’re in five of them, and they don’t even include the Oakland opener, our biggest game. We’re in five of those big games, and that should tell our players something right there.”

San Diego-area TV stations, which have tripled their Charger coverage, were more than willing to fire up the troops in preparation for Saturday’s scrimmage. They obtained “our Chargers don’t get any respect” videotape of Cardinal Coach Buddy Ryan’s response to having to scrimmage a Super Bowl team: “Super Bowl team, my ass,” Ryan snorted.

Ross smiled. “One publication picked the Chargers ninth in the NFL,” said Bill Johnston, director of public relations. “Others have us finishing second or third in the division.” That ammunition can now be found in Ross’ office.

“We’re still going to have to be a very emotional team,” Beathard said. “And we’re still going to have to earn everyone’s respect.”

Beathard and Ross are predicting the Chargers will be a better team this season. But they also have had their distractions.

Linebacker David Griggs, the hero in the Chargers’ victory over Pittsburgh, was killed in an off-season car crash. Running back Natrone Means, a starter in the Pro Bowl in his second year in the league, has refused to honor his contract and is being fined daily for staying away from camp. Defensive end Leslie O’Neal recently criticized management for hiring defensive coordinator Dave Adolph.

“You’ve got the stands full now, and that’s neat, but it can also tick you off,” Devaney said. “You have people yelling and making sarcastic remarks when someone drops the ball. In years past, someone dropped the ball and it was like, ‘ah, hell, it’s just the Charger receivers.’

“But expectations are up. It was all right to get to the Super Bowl and lose last year. The love fest continues. But anything less than winning the Super Bowl this year will be considered a sub-par season.”