My life as a San Diego Chargers Fan – A Goodbye Letter

As the season begins, I feel now is the best time to put this out there.  It gets a bit harsh in the beginning, but stick with it and you will truly understand why I’m writing this.

Dear Dean Spanos,

To Hell with you.  On so many levels, to Hell with you and everything you represent.  It must be nice being you, inheriting something you never earned and milking it for all it’s worth for your own personal gain.  You’re not a football team owner, you may as well be running a plastic bottle making company.  Who in the hell taught you about business?  Did your daddy buy your degree and give that to you too?  You did everything you could to stay in San Diego?  Oh Dean, it must be nice to be so detached from reality.  You did everything to make us hate you, including not speaking for yourself and making us listen to that talking mouth piece Mark Fabiani! Oh what a joy that was, he REALLY made us feel like you were trying to stay here. Just add it to the list of the many great decisions you have made.  Did I say many, I meant none!  And yet, through all of that negativity, we were there.  We were the fans that stood by this team!  We were the fans that sat through your miserable decisions, from bad coaches to bad GM’s to bad…..you just suck!  The team got worse and worse over the years, and you let it happen.  The FAN experience got worse and worse over the years, and you let it happen.  But you know what?  We were there!  We came when the bandwagon fans stayed home.  We sat surrounded by opposing team fans, fights breaking out, lack of security, we came!  We came when the fan experience got worse and worse.  Hey, remember giveaways?  Good concessions?  No?  Well that makes sense now.  We came when ticket prices went up while the team product didn’t.   Dean, watching you put product on the field was the equivalent to watching a Coke employee stocking a Pepsi machine.  You had no clue!  You surrounded yourself with people that you could keep on a tight budget while saving up for your new home in Newport Beach.  All you did was fail this town, the true fans, the city, and everything else you touched.  Don’t you dare try to tell us that you did everything you could to stay here in San Diego, you’re LYING!  So good for you, I hope you enjoy having a new fan base of people that will eventually feel this same way.  I’m glad you get to spread the true meaning of who you are across Southern California.  I can’t wait!  I’ll be keeping an eye on “your team” from a distance, and I can’t wait to see you fail!  You failed here and you’ll fail there because you don’t know how to succeed in business on your own.  Unless it’s handed to you, you will always fail!

Sincerely…..nah, you don’t even deserve that!

 

Dear San Diego Chargers team,

Thank you. Thank you for all the excitement I got to endure on game day Sundays as a season ticket holder since 1999.  Thank you for giving me that excitement of pacing the living room when it’s 4th and 2 on the 1 yard line with 6 seconds left during away games.  Thank you for putting on an amazing game in London back in 2008, I was truly blessed to have been there.  You lost that game, but you were in it to the end.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my passion for Chargers football with others, some may even call it an obsession more than passion. Thank you for providing me the courage to get a Chargers lightning bolt tattoo on my shoulder, I’m going to be adding to it soon so it will reflect my time as a “San Diego Charger” fan.  I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I’m sorry I can’t follow you. It just won’t be the same anymore.  You don’t represent me now, I don’t live in LA and that’s who you are “fighting for”.  I already feel a bit forgotten, but that sadness will pass in time.  I’ll be watching a game here and there, and I’ll think of you like a person thinks of an ex partner that they broke up on descent terms with and hope the best for.  I don’t see big things happening for you as a team unfortunately, and I can’t say I’ll be sad when you lose now, but it’s not your fault.  I have been the victim of bad management in the past, yet I still had to go to work, do the best job I could do and make a paycheck.  It is what it is, and though I really don’t want people blaming you, I don’t know how you can think people like me can still support you.

Sincerely,

A San Diego Chargers Fan for Life

 

Dear J3 Tailgate,

What a hell of a run that was!  There are SO many memories I’ll be carrying with me.  I can’t here a 1,2,3 count anywhere without it being in Joe’s voice and then we start singing the Chargers fight song!  I will miss you all so much.  Where else can I drink beer at 9am (outside of Vegas) and have it be OK?  There are to many good times to list.  There are too many of you to say thank you to personally, you all know what you mean to me still.  We may not be together for tailgating anymore, but I would be the first to pick you up if you were stranded on the side of a road and you will always be my friends forever.  I love you all, and game day Sundays are going to take a LONG time to get used to without you.  It’s never going to be goodbye, and I know there will be more jello shots in our future.

My love to you all.

 

Dear family,

Thank you for putting up with me.  My obsession as a Chargers fan went to heights not a lot of people understood, but you never brought me down for it.  Chuck, my brother, being able to share Chargers football with you was a highlight of my life.  From watching games in your living room to having the absolute pleasure of sitting next to you at a home game, I am so thankful I got to share this part of my life with you.  I know we’ll still get to watch football together, and maybe in our lifetime San Diego will get another NFL team.  Until then, some of my greatest home game memories will be when you were there. Plus, how fun was it watching Candice grow into a football fan over the years?  From those days she would go into the other room while we were yelling at the TV, to sitting next to us yelling at the TV herself, oh how far you came Candice.  I loved that you ended up joining us in our football Sundays, and I can’t see it being any other way.

And to Amanda, you really are a first.  You are the first person to truly accept my football obsession for what it is.  Not only did you not try to change or take away who I am, but you showed interest in what I love.  That interest turned you into the football fan I never expected you to be.  I have been privileged to have you as my wife and share my love for football with you.  We still have Fantasy Football, and we still have Red Zone Sundays, but I will need you more than ever when the Chargers score flashes across the screen and that empty spot in my heart opens back up.  I’m glad you understand me, because I can’t see going through this without you.  I love you babe .

My family is the best!

Dear Gloria,

You took a chance on “This guy Patti knows” back in 1999.  You allowed me into your life not knowing who I really was, and little did I know that I wasn’t the biggest Chargers fan on the planet after all. You let me use one of your seats for the Chargers vs. Green Bay, and that was the beginning of us. We went through a lot together with Chargers football, and there are a lot of great memories I will carry with me.  But out of Chargers football came something greater.  You became my mom. You became someone I could turn to, someone who was there for me the way a good parent should be. I found a parental love for you that I didn’t know I needed or could have in my life.  Thank you for being there for me through so many times, so many challenges, so many things a parent should be there for.  My relationship with you has grown into something that warms by heart every time I think about you, and I am proud every time I get to tell people how important you are to me.  You and I transcend Chargers football, and we will have more great times as the years go on.

Love,

Your “Adopted Son”

 

 

So everyone, I say goodbye to the San Diego Chargers.  They’re just a drive up the freeway?  That’s a drive I’m never going to make.  They’re still the Chargers?  No, the Raiders are the Raiders wherever they go.  Their fan base is international, and they will sustain whether they’re in Vegas or Happy, Texas. The Chargers were ours, San Diego was the town that cared about them, and they were taken from us by greed.  They are doing everything they can to erase their time here, not consider their San Diego fans that want to stay with them, so why should I?  Football is just a sport, it’s just a thing. But to me, Chargers football was a BIG thing.  It was my religion, it was something I had to truly look forward to and believe in.  This will hurt for a long time, but as they have moved on from San Diego, I will eventually move on from them.

 

Until next time, thank you for being here 🙂