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“Silent Owner-Silenced”

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Sadness today around Chargersville, for those of us who knew the man.

So many people in old town San Diego knew him too.

George Pernicano has left us, at age 99.

Who?

George Pernicano, the biggest minority owner of the Chargers, the original owner when the Chargers moved here in 1961.

The Chargers were born the Los Angeles Chargers, owned by hotel and credit card magnet Barron Hilton. After one year in the LA Coliseum, they moved south.

Home was Balboa Stadium initially, then San Diego Stadium, that became Jack Murphy Stadium and now Qualcomm Stadium.

George Pernicano became a 7% owner of the team as it moved here.

He was a sports fan, an entrepreneur, and a fun loving rich man, who didn’t have to tell you he was wealthy.

He was kind, gentle, a man of hearty laughs, and loved his wine and his food.

His restaurant was legendary for over 40-years in Hillcrest.

He loved the Chargers, and went thru the highs and lows, of the Sid Gillman era, to Don Coryell, to Bobby Ross and Marty Schottenheirmer. He also suffered thru the Harland Svare scandals, the disappointment of the Ice Bowl, the Super Bowl, the mistake that was Kevin Gilbride and the Norv Turner era.

He never lost his love of the game, missing only 2-games in his career that spanned 55-years.

He stayed on board as the team went to Gene Klien, and then was dealt to Alex Spanos. They wanted to buy him out, but he never relented.

His initial investment, somewhere around 25,000 to buy a share in the team. You do the math, what is 3% of 1.9B, the current worth of the franchise.

But it was never about money with him, just the team.

He entertained players, dignitaries, and the media atop the Hillcrest hill..

A glass of good wine, an Italian dish, and football conversation. That’s what made his day.

Lots of San Diego fans never knew who he was, or what he represented. He was an original good guy, in an ever changing world where pro football became a corporate entity.

No doubt in heaven this morning, he’ll be smoking his cigar, and getting ready for Sunday, cheering Philip Rivers on as they play the team he hated, Al Davis’ Raiders. Just like he did every Sunday, whether it was Jack Kemp, John Hadl, Dan Fouts, Stan Humphries or Drew Brees, thru wins and losses..

He loved the Chargers. He was beloved by everyone who crossed his path.

A silent owner with a loud laugh we will always cherish.

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“How Do You Like A Man Like This?”

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The losses pile up…and so do the injuries, in what is turning out to be a another hopeless season for the Chargers.

This news, the season ending knee surgery to CB-Jason Verrett, as devastating as the losses of RB-Danny Woodhead and WR-Keenan Allen.

The body bag official count is his top CB, top safety, top 3rd down back and top utility running back, starting inside linebacker, his 1st and 3rd wide receivers, a backup tight end, and a kickoff man from a year ago. And you thought going thru 11-offensive lineman and 23-offensive line combinations was a nightmare last season. There are still 12-games to be played before this root canal surgery ends.

McCoy, his glare and stare, is not to blame for any of that, for he is a victim, no different than any other coach who loses key players.

But there are so many other things wrong with this McCoy led franchise.

Losers of 15-of their last 20-games, and 21-of-30, Mike McCoy’s coaching career is on the brink of falling off the cliff.

Part of me feels sorry for him, for he has never been able to duplicate his first season in San Diego, when they went (9-7), got to the playoffs, and won a postseason game.

It’s been tragic since then. This the 3rd straight year of devastating injuries, to the offensive line, then to the defense, and now their best skill players.

In his tenure, the Chargers have had horrifying 4th quarter collapses, and some of the worst beatdowns infront of home fans at the Q the last couple of years.

It’s bad enough McCoy seems overwhelmed on game day, unable to find a way to get the right plays and players to make the key plays to stop all these fourth quarter losses.

It was bad enough, when the man stands up and says “Blame Me” but at the end of last season, blamed 9-assistant coaches, whom he fired.

It’s sad that he stands at the podium, and lies thru his teeth to the media about the depth of injuries, dating back to his first year, right thru this past Monday, when he told the media there were no significant injuries to his top 53-players, yet he had to know, should have known Verrett had been ailing for two weeks.

At least we know the horror-show game Verrett played in Indianapolis was not entirely him, but in part trying to play with an unknown injury.

You’d like to root for the underdog, and that’s what McCoy has become, because everything has fallen apart around him.

I just get the eerie feeling, the way he acts, his inability to overcome obstacles, and his condescending personailty, has built a wall of ill-will, he cannot hurdle now. It flashes back to the failure Kevin Gilbride became and how he acted and dealt with it all, before they dumped him.

History will write not everyone is head coaching material. Some are great lifetime coordinators, and that’s fine.

It’s not his fault entirely, but some of it is. And in the NFL, you don’t fire a football team, and you never see an owner blaming himself, so the coach becomes the focal point of lots that is wrong.

He was the hot guy coming in, in the best set of circumstances. And everything has gone wrong since the end of his opening season.

You’d like to like him, but all that has happened, what he controls and what he cannot control, seems to have doomed their experience, no many how many contract extensions the owner, his son, and the general manager want to hand out.

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“This-That-Some of the Other”

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Rocky Long was in rare form with the media on Tuesday…lecturing them about the coverage of the Aztecs….great theatre-him accusing the media of saying if team did not go (12-0) it would be a failure of a season….I never heard that from anyone…..anything to build an “us-vs-them” mentality…think he was joking.

Jim Harbaugh, in radio interview on 1090, asked how Hacksaw was doing…said he missed the ‘Best 15 Minutes in Sports Radio’….thanks for listening coach.

Mike McCoy-Chargers coach kept saying “Blame Me” in his Monday press conference, then referenced Chargers mistakes (fumbles-kickoffs) 21-times in his press briefing.

AJ Preller remains out of town and in seclusion and MLB says it is monitoring any attempts he makes to correspond with Padres people.

Should be interesting on Friday night, Padres bringing in all their top young players for Prospects Game, including this years top draft picks, and the top 2-Cuban players, Adrian Morejon and Jorge Ona. The Padres paid out 36M in bonuses and taxes on those two prospects alone.

It’s the first anniversary of the Union-Tribune column Kevin Acee wrote that Rocky Long should be fired. That happened just before SDSU went on that 10-game win streak. In fact since that column showed up, the Aztecs have gone (13-1).

Of course this is the same Acee who said Mike McCoy must be fired at the end of the Chargers season last year, only to learn he had been given a contract extension.

Nick Canepa told the Chargers in print, they should make a deal for Cleveland Browns big-play wide receiver Josh Gordon. Yes, that Josh Gordon, who was coming off a 1-year drug suspension, but then was sent back to rehab last weekend.

Speaking of the paper, love the work of new columnist Brice Miller, who has written some in-depth opinion pieces on the Padres of late. Hopefully he will go after the Chargers, their leadership, their coaches, their corporate philosphy.

Remembering back to the days when there was real newspaper competititon around, and how many good sports guys came thru here, and went on, whether you liked or disliked TJ Simers, Clark Judge, Jim Trotter and more, they were worth the read.

Aztecs basketball has given us thrills-chills and great talent wearing the Red & Black in recent years. This year’s group will be very young, very explosive, with lots of jumping jacks on the roster, and that says alot considering Sky Spencer and Angelo Chol have graduated.

I cannot believe how,why, San Diego State did what they did to Lady Aztecs basketball coach Beth Burns, who won the 3.3M termination lawsuit against them. And now SDSU thinks it has legs to stand on to appeal the jury decision.

I miss chatting with Jim Steeg, longtime NFL exec, who worked for the Chargers, then spent so much time with CSAG on the Stadium project. He’s moved to North Carolina, and is probably boarding up windows as the hurricane moves in. Honest-good man.

San Diego Gulls have opened camp at the snazzy Poway Ice Center, and are awaitng more players from the Anaheim Ducks, loaded with young talent. 1st round picks Jacob Larsson and Jules Nittenen, both 19, both from Scandanavia, could both be here in the next week.

Must say we have two really good guys to deal with, with this AHL hockey team. Very impressed with the openess and honest of the Gulls leadership, GM-Bob Ferguson, Coach Dallas Eakins.

Loved Jay Paris’ new book on the 21-greatest games ever played in Chargers history, and stories with great players. Wish there could have been a chapter on Junior Seau. Think he should have talked to Rodney Harrison and Stan Humphries, and coaches Marty Schottenheimer and Bobby Ross. Still think it is a great stocking stuffer Christmas gift for your Chargers fan.

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“Mayor Support of Measure C-Is it “B-S”

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Mayor Kevin Faulconer stood his ground for nearly nine months, as the Chargers fired shots, and developed their own Stadium plan without any input from the City.

He exchanged letters, made demands, and says he got concessions from Owner Dean Spanos, about financing for the proposed Tailgate Park Stadium.

So now he has signed off on it, but he seems on a street corner by himself.

Yes he believes in the Chargers motto “Trust Us”, we will get this deal done and not damage the city.

He’s the only one that believes it.

Virtually every City Council members remains adamant it is a bad deal, the Stadium-Convention Center annex next to Petco Park. Virtually every leading city broker, from the Hotel Industry, to the Convention Center groups, remain against the funding package, the risk, and the location. So do the Padres and its ownership.

Are the flimsy promises made in Dean Spanos’ letter of concessions, enough to protect the city, in case there is another downturn in the economy?

Does Faulconer actually need a written signed set of clauses that pertain to specifics like cost-over runs, fixed numbers on marketing money, an assigned number of parking spaces to replace those taken around Petco Park?.

I guess you could call them the ‘devil in the details’, and so far there is no written agreement of specifics. Again, we revert back to the Chargers stance ‘Trust Us’.

You may think the mayor is a slick huckster. You may think he has his eyes on the governor’s job one day in Sacramento. You may think he is just another politician.

But his resume right now includes significant accomplishments from helping solve the pension crisis, to growth of the economy, to infrastructure.

I believed him when he said he would not act on any Chargers proposal, till the city was protected from financial liabilities. He must believe the word of Spanos is going to be his bond. Or he must believe the Mayor’s office holds all the leverage, because nothing goes forward until the measure passes, and every specific clause is negotiated, from financing to architectual style.

This may not be a power struggle or a tug of war, but we are still facing a long drawn out negotiating session if Measure C passes. Most don’t think it will, but there will be a hidden fine print in all this.

Spanos can leak info he gave the city 10M in concessions, and he has spent 5M so far to try and advertise the Measure C specifics. Too bad, you created this Stadium mess with your business dealings, so you are now paying your way back to get a deal done. No one feels sorry for a rich man, who wasted millions trying to get out of town. Now he has to pay to get something done downtown.

If it, the stadium vote, goes down, Faulconer won’t have killed it, the voters will have done it in.

But by taking this stance after getting concessions he felt necessary, he has reopened the line of communications with Team Spanos, for the next set of ideas, be it at a different downtown sight, or back at the Qualcomm sight.

The major players are finally talking, 9-months after all the venom the team spilled about Faulconer, CSAG and city officials.

Is the Mayor’s stance on Measure C, some type of B-S? No, just laying out the A-B-C’s of what will be the next Stadium proposal.

This is better than it’s been for a long time. But it is only step one in what will be many steps to solve this stadium situation. Progress in small steps, unlike Spanos football team, which is going backwards.

Faulconer cannot do anything about that though..

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“House of Cards”

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Webster’s Dictionary describes “House of Cards” this way.

“Structure or plan that is insubstantial, and subject to imment collapse. A flimsy arrangement, very weak and can be destroyed”

And that sums up a (1-3) San Diego Chargers team, beset by injuries, plagued by faulty leadership, on the brink of utter collapse because its foundation was never solid.

A youthful roster, all serving as backups, now forced into playing time together because of the seige of injuries that has befallen this team for a third year in a row.

The offense is a shell of what it could be because of hurt people and a constant flux of offensive lineman having to play.

The defense is flawed, reliant on a blitz package that does not get lots of sacks, and leaves shaky linebacking exposed to getting beat on pass patterns by anyone and everyone.

And the next time you see Joey Bosa on the field playing, after collecting his money upfront, it will be the first time you’ve seen Joey Bosa playing.

The house of is crumbling too because of its coaching leadership. Mike McCoy’s professional approach is to trot out worn-out cliches and expect the fans and media to accept them.

He has no answers on how to change the personna of his roster. No creativeness how to attack teams differently

No solutions to a defense that has faltered three years in a row with a scheme that looks shiny and new, shaky and shabby come game day.

Bill Belicheck has gone thru 3-quarterbacks, and yet his team is (3-1). The Steelers lost their top running back, hot young receiver to suspensions, and a tight end to retirement, look where they are (3-1).

Kansas City lost it running back, top pass rusher, and had pedestrian receivers, and won 11-games in a row.

The Pats coach, Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh and Andy Reid, know how to rally and fix whatever shortcomings there are.

McCoy’s answer is to use phrases like ‘clean up’, get ‘salty’, have a ‘good game plan’, and that’s the extent of his approach to fixing all that is wrong going towards the next game.

The Chargers house is crumbling. The foundation, the roster is hurt or inexperienced. The mistakes and fourth quarter collapses keep happening.

There never seems to be any accountability at the Fortress. They dumped 9-assistant coaches last year, always looking for scapegoats. This year’s group is not much better than last year’s group.

The constant, the guy who is head coach, and the GM who gave him a contract extension.

Go check Page 422 of the Dictionary for the various descriptions of Chargers football.

Listed under ‘House of Cards’.