I'm not a lifelong football fan. But I've loved the game for a long, long time. I didn't really get into the game until late in high school. A couple of seasons working in the Los Angeles Coliseum as an usher (and having access to unoccupied box seats when we weren't working) was the foundation of my appreciation of the brutal, undeniably masculine grace of the game. Watching the Los Angeles Rams, USC Trojans, and UCLA Bruins (all of whom played their home games in the venerable old stadium) play while my cousin Vernon patiently answered my incessant questions about the nuances of the game started something that has stayed with me, to one extent or another, ever since.
Understanding the coltish, intoxicating energy of the college game (the games that generated the most energy while I was working were the grand College rivalry games...USC vs. UCLA, Notre Dame vs. USC), I still ended up giving my first affection to the professional game. Loyalty given to the Rams, my hometown team at the time, and, then as now, to the Oakland Raiders.
The Rams forfeited my loyalty by moving back to the Midwest...and, to be honest, by being heartbreakers who faltered (too often at the hands of the hated Dallas Cowboys) when they should have soared...but, through thick and thin, my gruff affection (it's really love but one avoids using such a "soft" word in this he-man context...it's a guy thing, just go with it) for the Raiders never waned. Even when I moved here...to San Diego...to a city where, among football fans, hating the Raiders is almost a religion.
I've lived in San Diego for more than 20 years now...I love this town...but I have never really taken the San Diego Chargers to my heart. It's not because they lose more often than they win...that has been true of my Raiders for the past 20+ years as well and my loyalty to them hasn't faded...it's just because they have never done anything to touch off any kind of spark in my fan's heart.
The past few years haven't done anything to make me regret my loyalty to Oakland's Silver and Black marauders. Besides fielding mediocre teams, the Chargers have been soaking the citizens of our fair city with a cleverly-negotiated contract that guaranteed them sellouts by forcing the city to buy enough tickets to lift any potential television blackouts of home games. Given the quality of the game they played, sellouts were few and far between (and more often than not, those sellouts involved the Raiders whose rabid fans filled the "Q"...Qualcomm Stadium...with so many black and silver jerseys that it looked like Oakland home games had been relocated south) and the city...and by extension, the city's taxpayers...paid hundreds of thousands of dollars buying unsold seats to bad football games.
And then, they decided that they wanted to take their shabby show on the road to a new city, a better deal (Los Angeles...pro football deficient major media market that it is...seemed enticing)...IF we didn't build them a brand new "football only" stadium (having watched the San Diego Padres get a taxpayer supported ballpark, I guess they felt left out.) Accusations (city government vs. Chargers ownership) flew...lawsuits flew just behind them...and we, the good citizens of "America's finest city", were caught in the middle of a silly struggle.
But now, a new deal has apparently been struck. Everybody (by which I mean the mayor, the Chargers management, most of the City Council) says it's a "win-win" situation though their words ring hollow and their manner suggests that it may be more akin to a "lose-lose" situation. The ticket guarantee is gone. The Chargers are here to stay for at least a few more years (the city's voters get to decide on a new stadium; the Chargers get to vote with their feet in a few years if the voters say no.)
And television blackouts of home games will again be a regular fixture of the San Diego football season.
Except when the Raiders come to town.
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