If Beathard Has a Card Up His Sleeve, Now Is Time to Play It

The speculation here is that Bobby Beathard is going to try to hire Minnesota offensive coordinator Brian Billick to be the next coach of the San Diego Chargers.

Now Beathard, the general manager of the Chargers, probably will deny that, but come on, we’re talking Beathard. Holy cherry tree, there’s no resemblance here to George Washington.

Ask him Thursday, hours after he has been told by team president Dean Spanos that his contract is going to be extended for two years through 2001, if he has talked to Spanos about extending his contract, and Beathard says, “I don’t know. . . . They say I can be here as long as I want. . . . I’m not worried. . . . We’ll get together. . . . We’ll get down to it.”

The next morning, of course, it’s announced that Beathard has signed a two-year contract extension running through 2001.

That’s just Beathard, shaping the truth as he goes, football’s version of Andy Griffith doing Matlock, bobbing and weaving and “aw-shucksing.”

He will tell everyone he has this list of potential coaching candidates, and will allow the names of Terry Donahue, Bob Toledo, Barry Alvarez and Tyrone Willingham to circulate, the media playing along with his rope-a-dope routine, while history says he probably already has gotten word to Billick that the job is his.

NFL rules prohibit Beathard from doing that, but come on, we’re talking Matlock, disarmingly likable, looking befuddled, but ahead of everyone else most of the time.

He met secretly with Joe Gibbs at a gas station along Interstate 5 the first week of December in 1980, while Gibbs was an assistant with the Chargers, and hired him as head coach of the Redskins with the promise that Gibbs would keep it quiet until the season was over and Jack Pardee was fired.

He did the same thing with Georgia Tech Coach Bobby Ross, going so far as to tell Charger Coach Dan Henning no decision had been made weeks after having told Ross the job was his. With Beathard’s assistance, a Los Angeles Times reporter spent four hours with Ross in his Atlanta home two weeks before Henning was fired to prepare a story on Ross’ eventual hiring.

He blew it with Kevin Gilbride, because he didn’t break the rules, going through the interview process and getting schmoozed and duped by the Jacksonville Jaguar assistant.

“I will never recommend a guy to be hired again unless I know him, and I don’t mean a personal friend, but know him,” Beathard says. “This was the first time I ever did that and it might have been because there was nobody out there in the search that I did have that feeling with, so I went through an interviewing process that I had never done before.

“Normally I do it with my instincts and that was not an instinctive call. I think this time it’s different. . . . I have a pretty good idea who I want.”

Brian Billick.

Beathard will want to keep his defensive coaching staff together, probably will want his new coach to hire Joe Bugel again to coach the offensive line and will want someone who will be happy to be a head coach without asking for the authority to trespass on Beathard’s turf and pick personnel.

Billick, raised in California, a Bill Walsh disciple and now in charge of the NFL’s most explosive offense, is considered a media darling, something the Chargers desperately need, since Gilbride soured the locals. It’s also known he has high regard for Ryan Leaf, the team’s great hope at quarterback.

The only question remaining is how long before Beathard and Billick have a falling out. There is no one more personable than Beathard, and for much of his career the media have been forgiving, softening or avoiding all criticism because they like returned phone calls.

But one of the NFL’s great untold stories is what happens when Beathard hires a coach. They fall in love, they start living together, the coach grows, he wants to expand his powers, there is conflict and finally a messy divorce.

It took a long time in Washington, but eventually Beathard left because he could no longer coexist with Gibbs.

Although it appeared the Ross-Beathard tandem was a match made in football heaven, it got so bad between Beathard and Ross that Beathard said he felt unwelcome walking into the Charger coaches’ offices. Beathard let it be known around the country that Ross lacked discipline and his players had lost respect for him. The two will never be seen at the same party.

Less than a year after hiring Gilbride, the criticism once again began, the same things being said about Gilbride that Beathard had been saying about Ross. Gilbride also went on the offensive around the league, and no one had to worry about the Chargers because the general manager and coach were too busy making a case for why the other should be replaced.

Gilbride, the coach hired by Beathard, lasted 22 games. Leaf, the franchise quarterback picked by Beathard at a cost of last year’s second-round pick, next year’s No. 1 pick and two players, lasted nine games as a starter.

The Chargers are 17-29 the last three seasons. They are 69-79 in his 10-year tenure as general manager. He has given away the team’s No. 1 pick in 1999 and 2000. Anyone want to buy a Charger season ticket?

“Since June Jones came, it’s like a new beginning,” says Beathard, although Jones, the assistant who moved up to interim coach replacing Gilbride, is leaving. “It was great. For the players, for the organization, for me personally, for the scouts, it was just like a whole new world. It’s been great.”

Translation: It was Gilbride’s fault everything went bad the last two years.

Beathard was so frustrated with Gibbs in Washington that he quit and became a TV announcer. He became so frustrated with Charger owner Alex Spanos’ interference, he quit, only to be talked into staying by Spanos’ son, Dean, who remains his biggest supporter.

Beathard suggested last year that he was going to quit after the next draft, presumably giving him one more chance to trade away all the Chargers’ first-round picks in the new millennium.

But then he fired Gilbride, and life was good again. He told Jones he could stay on for the next four years as head coach, but Jones accepted a pay cut to coach at the University of Hawaii, a team that won’t have a conference affiliation. Considering he worked for a season with Leaf, no one can fault him for needing an extended Hawaiian vacation.

“It was a setback, June leaving, only because when I thought of people that might be available [to become coach], I wasn’t sure,” Beathard says. “But when it actually happened, and I had to think about this seriously, there was somebody out there.”

Beathard credits Jones with making the game fun again--”It’s like old times,” he says, but in reality it has nothing to do with Jones. It’s enjoyable once more because Beathard is in control again, will have the chance to start fresh, reinvent himself again and correct all that has gone wrong with the Chargers. Let the honeymoon begin--again.

“The exciting thing now is, we’ll get the right guy,” Beathard said. “When I told [my sons] this week that I felt so different, the first thing they asked, ‘Are you still going to retire?’ And I said no way.”

The prevailing opinion after Ross left was that Beathard was on the hot seat but in position to prove himself, and although he failed, the blame somehow shifted to Gilbride.

Beathard, meanwhile, lives again, now with a two-year contract extension, although the team he assembled is a shambles, having won five of its last 22 games. The franchise quarterback he selected to save the day is best know now now for embarrassing himself, and is so bad, the team has been starting Craig Whelihan, who has thrown 11 interceptions in the last three games.

Beathard’s last five No. 1 picks have been used on Leaf, wide receivers Mikhael Ricks and Bryan Still, running back Terrell Fletcher and cornerback Terrance Shaw. And his strength is supposed to be in picking personnel.

Based on his hirings of Gibbs and Ross, his contributions in Miami, Washington and San Diego to get teams to the Super Bowl, there’s no question Beathard at times has been the best at what he does. As football history is written, he will deserve prominent mention, but like everyone else, he is not infallible.

“No, I don’t think I need to prove something. . . . I’m not shaken in my judgment,” Beathard says. “I’m rejuvenated, and listen, we’re not in that bad of shape. I just want to stay until we’re a playoff contender and I don’t think we’re that far off.”

Not far off? You can’t name a starting wide receiver for this team, and no matter, they have no one worth a darn to throw him the ball. Their defense ranks first in fewest yards given up, but opponents have scored an average of 32.5 points in the last four games. A coach hasn’t been hired, and no one knows, once he is, if he will be any good.

Truth be told, the Chargers are a mess.

“It bothers me inside,” Beathard says. “I feel like I’ve let the organization down. I can’t lie about that.”

Well, he could try, but sometimes the evidence is overwhelming.