Chargers move: Readers react to news team leaving San Diego

Regarding “Chargers announce move to Los Angeles” (Jan. 12): Okay! It’s finally settled. The Chargers are leaving.

Now, can the city please repair our pot-holed streets, using the money it saved.

Prudence M. Brandenburg

Clairemont

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Visionless and spineless politicians like Jack McGrory and Susan Golding started the downward slide of the Chargers, leaving us with their underfunding of the city employee pension fund, which then put their successors behind a huge eight-ball in trying to dig the city out of that financial abyss that took years.

The Chargers were forced to the sidelines as a result, which brings us to today. Too bad current pols will take “the hit” for their predecessors’ dereliction of financial prudence!

Lou Cumming

La Jolla

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I have lived in Seattle for more than 20 years, but I lived in San Diego for many years beginning in 1954. I remember when the Chargers moved from Los Angeles to San Diego and their reasons why. I remember going to the early games at Balboa Stadium. I’m so sorry to see this move.

I think this new move is a travesty and I believe Spanos will come to regret his decision. Now I don’t know the reasons why the people voted down a new stadium, but it is what it is.

San Diego is a great city and community and will continue being great. It’s almost too bad they can’t talk the Raiders to come to San Diego instead of Las Vegas. Oh well. Hang in there San Diego. You are the greatest city in the U.S.

Ed Altizer

Seattle

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Thanks to Nick Canepa (“Memories of Chargers not enough,” Jan. 12) for a great history lesson of a series of bad decisions any one of which could have averted the crash of the storied Charger’s history like “Bambi Alworth” now moving to the concrete jungle of Los Angeles.

For another such lesson, I might remind readers of Mexico’s President Porfirio Diaz once bemoaning that his country was so close to the United States but “so far from God.”

Someday a Spanos might say something to the effect in that same vain — “So close to Landlord Stan but so far from San Diego.”

Sorry for the fans but there is always another bus-like soccer.

Rick Haack

Pacific Beach

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So Spanos finally picked up the ball and left town. Crybaby. I’m glad city officials didn’t let him bully us into terrible financial decisions just so he could line his wallet.

Related - Letter from Dean Spanos

We’ll still cheer the Bolts from our armchairs in our beautiful city, and Spanos can go sit (and sit and sit) on the 405 and congratulate himself for showing us who’s boss.

Susan Wiczynski

La Jolla

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Since 2013, Dean Spanos and Mark Fabiani have worked diligently behind the scenes to move the Chargers to Los Angeles. Today, they have achieved that goal and in the process destroyed nearly 60 years of loyal football tradition. San Diego will move on and be better without them. For the rest of my time, I will do all in my power to one day welcome a new NFL owner that deserves the honor of calling San Diego home.

Scott Sherman

San Diego City Council

District 7

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The Jacksonville Jaguars owner is not afraid to spend money to build a solid organization and he wants to move his team to San Diego.

We have jaguars at the San Diego Zoo but no animals with the name Chargers.

Howard G. Singer

La Jolla

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San Diego will continue to be America’s finest city while Dean Spanos continues to be an incompetent NFL owner.

The Chargers were a good team 10 years ago. Now they are not, and the only difference is more Spanoses making decisions.

Their record the last two years is a reflection on the lack of basic skill sets of A.J. & John Spanos in running a professional sports organization, and Dean’s lack of good judgment in putting nepotism ahead of winning games and the interests of the fans.

So good luck, Los Angeles, you wanted them, and now you’ve got them. Them being the Spanoses.

You’re not really getting the Chargers. They stopped existing when Dean Spanos turned a well-run football team into an employment agency for members of his own family.

David Gray

La Jolla

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San Diego fans needn’t worry, we’ll be fine.

I lived in Los Angeles for decades before moving to North County a few years ago. When the Raiders and Rams left Los Angeles everybody found other things to do.

This move will free up a lot of weekend time for all of us.

Derek Lovett

Fallbrook

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Spanos showed his true colors, that of a coward! He couldn’t face ,in person ,the loyal fans who supported and sacrificed for his team all these years.

Sharon Lowrey

San Diego

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I am a lifelong resident of Buffalo and fan of the Buffalo Bills. I feel deep sympathy for the Charger loyalist fans after reading of the dastardly deed that Dean Spanos did to San Diego.

I grew up during the days of the old American Football league and always have had an affinity for the original “8” AFL teams. My loyalty was always side with an original AFL team unless they were playing the Bills. No more will I hold out for old AFL teams. No one cares, least of all the greedy billionaire team owners who treat one of the most loyal fan bases like yesterdays news.( i call it the Donald Trump Effect)

I am glad the taxpayers of SD rejected the corporate welfare that the Chargers wanted in terms of a taxpayer funded stadium. What is wrong with Qualcom stadium? In my eyes nothing.

It will be short time with this greedy Spanos will be looking for another home after he sees that the LA football fan base doesn’t exist. Then where will he move too??? I think San Diego will survive, but I will miss seeing those “thunderbolts” on their helmets when they next play the Bills.

I know it will be a matter of time when the Bills move from Buffalo for “greener” pastures, but greener in wanting more money. We football fans can thank the Jerry Jones’s and Robert Krafts for their corporate greed that has spread to the rest of the NFL owners. Their claims of loyalty to their fan bases is pure BS and lies. They are only concerned with their bottom line. The NFL needs for Green Bay franchises( community owned).

Larry Schiro

Williamsville, N.Y.

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Dean Spanos is delusional if he thinks the Chargers will be a big draw in L.A. Even with the Chargers in L.A., there will be many, many more Raiders fans there than Chargers fans. In fact, I would bet that there are more Raiders fans in L.A. than there are in Oakland or Las Vegas, where the Raiders want to move.

Perhaps Dean is moving to L.A. to sell the team since it will be worth more there than in San Diego, according to most accounts.

Ray Talmage

Poway

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I am saddened by the Chargers decision to leave San Diego and I clearly see fault on both sides. As far as Dean Spanos is concerned, you can’t hire a person like Mark Fabiani and issue threat after threat and expect the fans to embrace you. His insistence on downtown was never going to gain traction and made no sense as far as infrastructure. Mission Valley is an ideal location for a football stadium as the freeway access and trolley stop made it as easy to gain access to as is possible.

Our city leaders have no vision and were unable to sell this to the public. Why there is not a single County official that is able to see and sell this Stadium as a San Diego Stadium and not a Chargers Stadium is disappointing. The Charges only reside in whatever stadium the play in for 10 days a year. It would be up to the City officials to run the new facility and lease it out for the remaining 346 days to make this facility earn money.

Now we are left with the only the Padres as a Major League franchise and like the Chargers are so poorly run that they aren’t competitive. It is a SAD day for San Diego.

Ron Verre

Escondido

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Just wanted to reach out from the other coast and offer all of you understandably hurt Chargers fans a possible path back to professional football. As the recently self-appointed fan spokesperson for the Atlanta Falcons, I invite all scorned Chargers fans to Rise Up and hop on the Falcons bandwagon. We don’t have much history together -- only 10 games against each other ever. So we don’t have a rocky past. You know there’s no way you could possibly shift to the Chiefs or Broncos or Raiders. Too much history. We’re a lovely fanbase with a brand spanking new stadium starting next year. And Samuel L. Jackson is in our hype video. What’s not to love? So come on, hurt Chargers fans. Become Falcons fans. It’s only about a four-hour flight, which is probably about the same amount of time you’d spend in LA traffic. Look forward to seeing y’all.

Mike Gibbons

Mt. Pleasant, SC

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Regarding “Dean Spanos could have been hero, now San Diego villain” (Jan. 12): Mr. Acee has finally outdone in mawkishness George Will’s baseball reminisces with his silly outpouring of what-could-have-beens directed at Dean Spanos.

Sure, many San Diego fans will never have a good word to say about Spanos, but most will go about their lives. And as Liberace used to say, Mr. Spanos will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Joseph S. Carmellino

San Diego

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I attended my first Charger game at Balboa Stadium in 1962 and am very sorry, as many others are, that they are leaving San Diego. We can wallow in self pity or we can find a substitute to replace them. I’d like to suggest that disappointed Charger fans switch allegiance to another team , the San Diego Aztecs. Tickets are a lot cheaper, they win more often, they won’t be moving and they’d love our support.

Jim Thompson

Bonita

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I have spent most of my life in Los Angeles, moving to San Diego three years ago - the best decision of my life.

The difference in the quality of life between Los Angeles and San Diego is like night and day. The Chargers will greatly regret their stupid move and return to San Diego - no doubt in my mind.

Money is not everything and it will not buy them happiness. The endless traffic nightmare, pollution, senseless violence, urban blight, bad public schools, etc., will lead them to quickly realize they made a gigantic mistake.

Let them go and they will soon return wagging their tails behind them….

David Amitai

La Jolla

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Just heard the latest news that the Chargers are relocating to El Cajon where they will be playing in the new grade school stadium (capacity 1,000) and have already sold 13 season tickets!

Meanwhile, local TV stations talk about the Chargers moving to Los Angeles! Are you kidding? Must be fake news.

M. Laurel Gray

El Cajon

Philip Rivers, Antonio Gates, Darrell Stuckey. Shoot! All of them. I am really going to miss the players. They are class acts.

I was always proud that we did not populate our roster with wife-beaters and felons regardless of their athletic talent. These guys have families that are about to be uprooted; they are headed to a town where no one wants them.

My guess is they are really unhappy and can’t verbalize how they really feel. I will miss those fellas. They always gave me hope on a Sunday.

And they had the best looking uniforms in the NFL.

Penni Wilson-Neely

Bonita

I’m a San Diego native, born 1960. I have been a San Diego Chargers fan as far back as I can remember.

San Diego will always be “America’s Finest City” to me and I love its people, beaches, weather and perennially struggling, professional sports franchises. I bleed “San Diego.” So today is a sad day for me and, I am sure, for many of my fellow San Diegans.

So Dean Spanos made a business decision. As far as my business goes, being a San Diego native, I cannot/will not cheer or support, ever, the Dodgers, the now-Los Angeles Rams and the now-Los Angeles “Chargers.”

I will not watch any of his team’s games or ever buy any merchandise.

Now that Spanos has decided to leave and take a team I grew up with and always loved, he should go and not let the door hit him on his way out.

Mike Soski

Rancho Peñasquitos

Spanos showed his true colors, that of a coward. He couldn’t face, in person, the loyal fans who supported and sacrificed for his team all these years.

Sharon Lowrey

San Diego

Some might regard the NFL as a cartel, others as a cabal of 32 multi-billionaires who are on “public assistance.” Others as just plain tawdry, a reverse Robin Hood outfit.

Larry Kennard

El Cajon

At least we can stop talking about a new stadium.

Wait, the Aztecs need a new 40,000-seat stadium that can be shared with a professional soccer team.

And the beat goes on.

Mark Huxhold

Escondido

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