Tattoos and Scars

A story about getting sucked back into rooting for the Los Angeles Chargers.

I know this won’t be popular, but today’s post is about the Los Angeles Chargers and not about the San Diego Padres. Come back tomorrow for your regularly-scheduled Padres content…

“What the hell are you going to do when the Chargers move to Los Angeles?”

That’s what my father said to me when he saw I got a Chargers lightning bolt tattooed on my calf back in 2010. It would be at least 5 years until San Diego would fail to pass a ballot initiative to get the Chargers a stadium downtown, near Petco Park, that would be partially paid for by a tourism tax. At least 5 years until we were certain that the Chargers weren’t staying in San Diego.

My response to my dad, at the time, was to insist that I loved the Chargers and not the fact that they were in San Diego. If they moved, I’d just be a fan of the Los Angeles Chargers from San Diego. Hell, I had been a fan of them while living in Philadelphia, this seemed easier by comparison.

“Are you still going to be a fan after they move?”

This became the common refrain after it became apparent that the Chargers weren’t staying in San Diego, that weird in-between period from 2015 to 2017. Everyone wanted to know if I was going to stay a fan.

I was hurt, like most San Diegans, by how the Chargers left San Diego. It wasn’t just that they left, it’s that they made it clear on their way out the door that they preferred to be in Los Angeles over San Diego. They didn’t want to be left out while two teams dominated in Los Angeles, but that didn’t make us feel any better.

As Peter Seidler and the San Diego Padres have shown, you can build a successful sports organization down here, even with two teams in Los Angeles. But Dean Spanos wasn’t about to invest in his team in that way, and certainly not with a stadium (which he didn’t pay any money towards in L.A.).

Anyway, my answer to this question was not a simple yes or no. I really thought it through and came up with this response:

My fandom is emotional. I get emotionally excited, sad or angry while watching these games. It’s a natural reaction. I want to watch them, once they get to L.A., and see if it still feels the same.

In 2017, my wife told me the answer I already knew. “You used to be happy or sad after a Chargers game and now you just…don’t seem to care?” She was right. The emotions were gone. It wasn’t fun anymore. I was watching out of obligation more than anything. It was hard to watch games and not think about what we had lost.

I made a decision at the end of that season to switch teams, even with the lightning bolt still tattooed on my leg.

I spent the 2018 season trying to be a fan of the L.A. Rams, the other closest NFL team and the one that hadn’t pissed on San Diego on their way to Los Angeles (although, they arguably did worse to St. Louis). It never really took. I didn’t know how I would ever get invested in this team the way I had with the Chargers.

The 2018 season was also the first time I experienced football as a father, which is what led me to switch my fandom once again. I decided, after 2018, that it made the most sense for my family to all root for the same team. My wife is a life-long fan of the Dallas Cowboys and I considered me and my daughter free agents. That’s when I decided to root for the Cowboys.

“Do you ever miss being a Chargers fan?”

This one gets asked to me less frequently, and thank goodness. Whenever someone asks it, it hits like a punch to the gut.

Of course I miss being a Chargers fan. I miss having something to do with all of the historical knowledge and stories I have in my head. I miss making friends with other Chargers fans around town, and some former players.

I definitely miss having a team to represent San Diego, and tailgating before games, but it’s the community that I miss the most. The Cowboys have a lot more fans, it’s a lot more spread out, and I’m still quite new to being a Cowboys fan. It’s hard to find a community.

That’s not even mentioning that the Cowboys are a hard team to root for lately. Their billionaire owner is about 80 years old, which would be fine if he weren’t also the General Manager of the team and the face of the franchise. Maybe those things would even be fine if he didn’t spend games drinking heavily in the owner’s box and then getting caught on camera doing things to young women that 80 year old men just shouldn’t do.

Oh, and everything that’s happened in the last few years on the field has been equally disappointing. 2020 was derailed by a major injury to QB Dak Prescott, and 2022 looks like the same story. The Cowboys fired a terrible and boring head coach and replaced him with a terrible and boring head coach. They’re the only team left in the NFL that thinks running backs should be the centerpiece of their offense…

“Wait, are you switching back to the Chargers?”

No! Well, I don’t think so.

After getting hurt in the first game of the season, and knowing that he’s going to miss at least half of the games player this year, it’s going to be hard to root for the Dallas Cowboys in 2022. They’re probably going to be one of the worst teams in all of football, and one of the least watchable to boot.

On top of that, my job has led me to producing a podcast this season that is co-hosted by Chargers RB Austin Ekeler. In working with him, and getting to know him more, it’s impossible to not root for Austin. Both because I want people like him to succeed and because I want the podcast to do as well as possible.

In episode one, Chargers QB Justin Herbert joined the show and I got to meet him, as well. He was incredibly kind and easy to work with, which are about the only two things I need to see to root for someone. It’s easy to be a jerk, it’s harder to be understanding.

Oh, and just to top things off, the Chargers might be the most entertaining team in all of football this season. They have a young, exciting QB that might be the MVP favorite. They have a defense that is absolutely loaded with exciting game-changing players. Keenan Allen is still around, if you liked rooting for him.

Anyway, this is my way of saying that I might actually root for the Chargers this season. For the sake of entertainment, and my job, and because the Dallas Cowboys don’t seem to be worth anyone’s time and energy at the moment. Also, it’ll make the tattoo on my leg make more sense….at least until I get it covered up.