San Diego OpEd

Sportsmanship and the San Diego Chargers

Grace
By Mark S. Burgess
Posted on Jan 15 2007
Last updated Jan 16 2007

LaDainian Tomlinson found himself in a terrible place on Sunday. Having run well and hard, scored two touchdowns, he found himself on the losing team being taunted with Shawne Merriman’s “sack dance” as mocked by the winning New England Patriots at center field over the Charger logo.

Who’s fault is all of that?

When something goes bad, the urge hits hard to find out why. Sometimes that leads to introspection and sometimes to assigning blame to others. On this day to celebrate the grace that Martin Luther King preached, it fits to look at the deeper causes of Sunday’s failure by the Chargers: Sportsmanship or by its older name - Grace.

LT simply hands the ball to the official at the end of a touchdown run – whether it was a spectacular effort or just a punch through the line. The highlights then have no silly dance to play over and over, instead they show the run. The focus stays on the run – the thing that LT spends countless hours working out to prepare for; that his teammates spend countless snaps practicing to enable; that Schottenheimer and the coaches spend agonizing hours over how to recruit and coach the right player combination to do that practicing.

While I sympathize with LT’s anger at the Patriots and I find new disdain for the lack of Sportsmanship in some of their players, if I were LT I’d have a sitdown with Merriman who gave the Patriots the tool to mock the Chargers. Without it, the focus would have been on the silly and tasteless attitude of the Patriots.

Merriman showed a lack of good judgement when he put himself in a place to take a steroid by not following the League’s guidelines. He shows it again every time he does the sack dance. By doing that dance, he takes away the more enduring notoriety that LT earns with his classy act, because he’s extracting praise from us, the fans. He’s saying “Look at me! Look at me!” is if we weren’t already watching. And then, guess what makes the NFL films highlight and the Sports Center highlight and the highlight on the evening news…not his tackle, but the dance.

Maybe it’s the slow boil of the first player doing steroids, then another and another. Maybe it’s the spread of self-aggrandizement with sharpies and dance moves in the end zone spreading from one player to another and another. Maybe it’s the helmet punch the refs don’t catch (as happened to Parker on Sunday) and the hundred little cheats of a hold or a trip that moves like a disease through the sport. The result of that lack of respect and the practice of Grace which is the core of Sportsmanship is what happened to the Chargers on Sunday.

The team was not properly mentally prepared to play Sunday’s game. While I hesitate to say it’s all Marty’s fault, I can confidently say it is the fault of the Charger organization. All the outward signs of bad judgement: Jackson missing the toe plant in the end zone; to running out of bounds instead of up field on another catch; to Parker’s missed catches, to McRee’s bad call to try to run the interception and then fumbling; to Florence’s trash talking head-butt and then getting juked in the end zone by a Patriot receiver. For a team that turned the ball over 4 times in one game when they'd only turned it over 15 in the previous 16 games. The physical talents of the team are obvious (league MVP, 9 pro-bowlers) so the mental game is where they failed and that begins with Sportsmanship. The Chargers were not a team that was respectful of its own talents and its opportunity to make history.

But see, that’s the thing about Grace. It benefits the practitioner in the end.

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Posted by Krystyna Witt	January 15, 2007
The Chargers :`( *sniff* For just *ONCE* I'd like to see my home team take it all the way and win. Maybe I should move :/ No doubt, I still have mad love for my bolts....no wait I'm just mad. Yes I shed a tear, no I shed a few. It hurts my heart when I know my boys tried their best (that's what I tell myself anyways). Another missed field goal. Another missed opportunity. Another season gone. OVER. Kaput!. As you leave Qualcomm, please watch your step as you exit. The yellow zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only. I guess the flu I was going to catch next week has been inoculated. Hey I am **>>PROUD<<** to be a Charger fan, I'm just not feeling so well at this moment. I'm almost dizzy. I need oxygen. I need to turn off the tv right now and cry in the corner. *sigh* Well, there's always Baseball.....can anybody tell me who's on the team because stupid Towers got rid of everybody......Good Lord, I will jump off a bridge if Bochy and the A's surpass the Padres this season (just a small bridge, like on a little creek) I guess my love life and sports go hand in hand. I always end up with disappointment, so you think I would be used to being crushed. Time to get into a new sport. Something like bowling? Pool? SHUFFLEBOARD!!!! Yes, SHUFFLEBOARD!!!! and in the dead of winter - curling!!!! (Kelly you Debbie and I are *still* going to be the dream team!!!!!!!!) Time to train. We'll bring home the gold!!!!! Nike, Power aid and BMW sponsorships. I can see it all.... On the bright side, Charger stuff is all 1/2 price.... I feel a little better now. Thanks guys. Krystyna Witt

Posted by Andrew Drykerman	January 15, 2007
5:45 PM Post-Game Day January 14, 2007; As I sit here in a puddle of my tears lying next to my computer on the floor in my royal blue LT jersey, I can?t stop thinking WHY. No, not WHY did we loose, but WHY do I love San Diego Sports so much. Being born and raised in San Diego in 1976 it was my duty to support a growing community as we climbed our way into the top 10 of largest US cities. I was proud as we as a city claimed our way, year after year into the top 5 of most derisible places to live in the US. I know WHY I love the city I just can not seem to remember why I love the sports teams that come with it. After graduating high school, I lived in Washington DC and got a great taste for what happens at a winning franchise like the Redskins. After 9 adult years living in DC and attending games for the Wizards, Redskins, Orioles, Ravens, and the beginning of the Nationals, I had every opportunity to switch teams. No one would have blamed me for adopting 2 or 3 of those teams especially the ones that have a few Championships right? I mean I did spend 9 years there in a city that was pretty great too. But I did not; I stayed true to my orange and brown and my blue and gold. Heck, I even stayed true to the San Diego Clippers, who by the way I look at it, are still on loan to the city of Los Angeles. I was 10 years old and used to go to every game with my father and watch Donald Sterling eat his dinner in his floor seats as he and his fellow investors schemed about the city and when he could move cities with his NBA team. I even spent a summer or two living in NYC with my girlfriend as she attended Adelphi University. It would be questionable, (since it was only 2 summers) but I guess I could have switched at that point to some NYC championship franchises. But NO I stuck it out wearing my #19 jersey to Yankees Games those summers and jabbering to everyone how 1998 was a fluke. I went to sports bar after sports bar wearing SD Jerseys, SD Hats and even SD Visors (Visors by the way are not big back there unless you golf.) to root on my home team. I had to pay bar managers, bar tenders, and even patrons with free beers just to get the ?rights? to the corner TV at the end of the bar that had static on it for him/her to put the San Diego Chargers/Padres game on. I keep asking WHY, WHY, WHY, was it that game when we beat the Cubbies in 1984 at Jack Murphy? I think I remember that taste as an 8 year old of what was brewing in San Diego and what it would feel like if we had beaten the Tigers. Or was it my senior year of High School when I had that same taste again where I was at the Q watching Humphries on the big screen against San Fran, only to be let down. Or was it being in Yankee Stadium in college in the cheap seats with my brother watching the Padres get demolished on a Trevor pitch to Scott Brocious, right after Tony Gwynn had gotten us back the lead in the top of that inning. I am not sure WHY I continue to put myself through this ?Groundhog Day? of events season after season. (If you did not see the movie it means same repeated events year after year.) I can not stand how down I feel after each and every loss at a San Diego Playoff event. I irks me to see my friends and I be at the top of our lives only to be placed in ?Time Out? like a little kid until next season, yet again. I can not be at one more event where me and a fan of the other team gets into back and forth. Just when I think I am winning the debate he whispers something to his wife next to him in the seats in front of me and she turns around and throws out?? ?O yeah well well how many World Series rings or how many Lombardi?s Trophy?s do you have.? OUCH!!! I keep thinking WHY year in and year out I follow the Padres in Spring Training, only to be teased in September with an early departure. WHY, I watch every off season move to see if this year we will go after the BIG free agent. Or WHY, I watch the NFL draft in hopes that we find our Marcus Colston, like a diamond in the rough, that will get to take us to a championship this year. Or WHY, I vote for increased taxes for a new stadium, so I can spend even more money than I already do on the Chargers. But most of all WHY year after year I think things will ever change. I can not help but think that maybe it has something to do with the one championship San Diegans have ever won and I was there to witness 10 of them first Hand. The 10 MISL World Championships the San Diego Sockers won for us back in the early 80?s and 90?s. Man those were great days where they would run around the field and give high 5?s to me and my friends as confetti and balloons would be dumped all over us. It was me and all of 4,300 sell out crowd and a few other loyal enthusiasts that got to enjoy this year after year. I think the reason WHY is because I always wanted that feeling with 70,000 of my closest friends inside the stadium and another 1 million in the surrounding area taking to the streets. Is that the reason WHY?? I am not sure it is either that or the fact that I like LOSERS? I hope that it is the SOCKERS or maybe even the GULLS (they have a San Diego Triple-A championship, I believe.) I am officially moving and staying in LA and adopting the LAKERS, the Los Angeles CHARGERS when they move here in the next month or two, and the DODGERS. WOW, I never thought I would say or think that or even be able to type that word (DODGERS??). Well, I will take the LAKERS and the LA CHARGERS and hold off on the DODGERS until after this baseball season as Bud Black and John Moore are really really putting together a great team this year!! Yeah Right!! WHY STAY?? Regards; Andrew

Posted by Kennyd	January 15, 2007
Hey the better team won!!! And thats my Pats. We couldnt have mocked the Charger if, Merry Man, didnt give us the idea. Look, you giys talk a lot of sh*t! And didnt back it up! Face it.. The better team won. Good luck next year. Looks like you guy's run is over. Take care. Kenny D. Pats #1 fan.

Posted by Jay Fitz	January 15, 2007
I think LT was a little off base in his charges that the Patriot's dissed the Charger's field and emblem.That happens every week in the NFL. The dances and antics of some of the players in the league are sickening to most of us. They dance around and mock the opposition for doing a job that they are highly paid for and I believe they should be penalized and fined for their foolishness. I can just imagine players like Jim Brown, Gayle Sayers, or Walter Payton dancing around like fools, it wouldn't happen.They were class players from an era of class players. LT is a class player who I believe was overcome by the emotion of losing a game which he should have won as were the Patriots for winning a game which they could just as easily lost and arguably should have. This is understandable, I've been there. Certainly not on this level but it is devistating, cruel, and it's finality is soul crushing on any level. The San Diego Chargers are a class team as are the New England Patriots. San Diego will win their title but at the moment New England kept their mistakes to a minimum while capitalizing on the mistakes of the Chargers.The old adage holds true, on any given day anyone can win. Please accept my congratulations on a fine team and the fine year they had. Jay Fitzgerald Transplanted Rhode Islander Fort Myers,Fl

Posted by Garry Gillett	January 16, 2007
I think LT's reaction to the after game stuff tainted my opinion of him. Nobody would ever question his competitve spirit and ability. But a comment about the apposing coach was very bush league and stating "he has class" if you talk about it you don't have it! Do the Chargers not taunt and celebrate? head butts, sack dances during the game. The Patriots save there stuff for after the game. I mean come on what is the issue here? In my opinion the better team did not win on Sunday and there lies the problem. When a team of such talent comes out on the short end you have to be pissed at somebody.

Posted by Jim McLaughlin	January 16, 2007
LT should be mad. His coach only let him carry nine times in the second half and his coach didnt adjust to the wide receiver set by the Pats in the second half. And the Pats coach? Well, what can I say. Hey LT your a GREAT player, I shutter to think of going up against you next year because if you have a smarter coach you just might steam roller all over us. In the mean time, relax, enjoy the off season and perhaps, just perhaps, watch the Pats in Miami February 4th Jim McLaughlin Lowell, Massachusetts

Posted by Sam C	January 16, 2007
It was a tough game filled with emotions and trash talking from both sides. A large portion of a playoff game is mental and that is where the Chargers were lacking. LT and gang had a great regular season, but nobody will remember cause they choked. It was tough listening to both Philip Rivers and LT cry after the game because the Pats got in their head and this will probably mess up the franchise for years to come. The Chargers acted like they had never been there before all week...figures they are playing golf now. Also...The Chargers would hire Belichick in a second and tell LT to shut up and play.

Posted by Rick Wilson	January 17, 2007
LT, Chargers no matter what we broke records and set a few. Its football people, its just a sport.We're grown up kids fantaszing about our youth. Good or bad up or down.Its still a game. win some lose some.Jim McLaughlin of Lowell yes dude watch us next year..

Posted by NZERVAAS	January 18, 2007
SAN DIEGO FAILED TO SELL TICKETS TO PATS FANS. SANDIEGO HAD PLANNED ITS VICTORY PARADE. IW WAS ALL SAN DIEGO PRE GAME FROM REPORERS, TALK SHOW HOSTS AND GAMBLERS. PATS SHOULD NOT HAVE DANCED, BUT TOMLINSON SHOULD HAVE CARRIED THE BALL MORE, THE COACH SHOULD NOT HAVE THROWN THE RED FLAG, SAN DIEGO ENTERED THE GAME DEVOID OF ENERGY. NEVER CLOSE YOUR EYES WHEN BRADY IS PLAYING.

Posted by SportsRookie	January 27, 2007
Actually, I don't think the better team won. I think the better team gave away the game. For many of the reasons mentioned above, they didn't play their best game on a day that it was required. So, as in many games, the winner isn't necessarily the one who plays the best but the one who makes fewer mistakes.

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