Keep the Chargers Name in San Diego

Anger. Disgust. Hurt. Shock.

This sums up the emotions after a long day no one believed would come. And yet it came, the San Diego Chargers are no more. They will pack everything up and try to market a new fan-base to hopefully embrace and support them better than the fan base that they left behind.

Good luck. Dean Spanos fooled us all. He gave us a glimmer of hope and then ripped it right away from us. Instead of working towards a solution Spanos set up a measure that no one thought had a chance to reach the 2/3rds threshold. Once this measure predictably failed he did nothing to try to find a solution in San Diego. Dean waited until either the NFL or the City offered him more money, when that didn’t happen he left for a city that does not even want him. Dean positioned this failure as an excuse to leave instead of a reason to be optimistic that it can still work in America’s Finest City.

I understand this was a fifteen-year process, and there is blame to go around to both the city and the NFL. However, Dean Spanos played this leverage game with the city constantly leaking threats weekly. This drained us as citizens and quite frankly we were over it. Dean made this relocation saga into one of the worst public relations debacles in sports. What started off as Dean reassuring the city he was doing everything he can to keep the team in San Diego turned into a frustrating break-up. Instead of showing the San Diego community support, Dean and company dragged them through the mud. Wearing out the fans that have the tradition and history that we all remember. Now that’s gone.The worse part about this is that Spanos did not even have the decency to address the city and his own TEAM! He hid behind a letter like a coward; if you are going to crush an entire city, stand up and do it as a man. It is bad enough you left; it is worse we found out through a letter and a crappy logo.

Congratulations Dean, enjoy L.A, you deserve their non-supportive fan base. The one thing I ask after this is for Dean and the organization to leave behind the Chargers name, the brand, and the colors to the city of San Diego. This brand means more to me as a native San Diegan more than it will mean to the fans in L.A. I want the history and tradition kept in the city, the team that I remember growing up watching and going to games with my father and that I hoped I could have done with my future children. Leave me the Chargers in the small hope that maybe one day in the future another team will come back to San Diego and will pick this tradition up and finish what a poor Spanos ran organization could never do for this city, bring it a championship.

Leave me my memories of Dan Fouts, Junior Seau, LaDainian Tomlinson, Philip Rivers, and Antonio Gates. I will not follow the team up to L.A. I am a San Diego Chargers fan, will always be. My wish is that the team is left in the same manner the Cleveland Browns were left when they moved and became the Baltimore Ravens. This will pass, the pain will go away, but the memories won’t. Give us the city the team we love so one day we can embrace a team and prove to the nation and Dean Spanos that this is a city that has a strong fan base. A city that deserves better.