Topsy Turvy

When Bobby Beathard jumps into the Pacific Ocean and swims in its surly surf, he gets in touch with his inner child. Instead of stressing out about noxious team chemistry or wasted draft picks or his club's inexplicable implosion over the past 2½ years, the 60-year-old general manager of the San Diego Chargers smiles like a kid eating a freshly baked chocolate-chip cookie.

True peace comes inside the tube of a challenging wave, and Beathard realized it last Thursday night at Ponto Beach, a sweet strip of coastline about 15 miles north of the Chargers' La Jolla training camp. Fighting through a strong northern rip current and an unseasonably big surf brought on by Hurricane Guillermo, Beathard maneuvered down the slope of a six-foot wave and achieved a few seconds of nirvana before crashing merrily into the whitewash.

The next morning, as he sat in his training-camp dorm room at UC San Diego, Beathard's bodysurfing buzz was long gone. He was being asked to explain the disintegration of a Chargers team that only 30 months earlier had played in Super Bowl XXIX. After being blown out in that game 49-26 by the San Francisco 49ers, San Diego, one of the NFL's youngest teams, began a decline into turmoil that brought down coach Bobby Ross and his staff. "I'm not sure anybody—me, the coaches, the players—could tell you exactly what went wrong," Beathard said, grimacing. "The Super Bowl year was a magical thing, and it seems like everything went to hell after that."

The Chargers who took the practice field later Friday morning were a lively bunch, a team energized by their personable new coach, Kevin Gilbride. On Saturday night they improved their exhibition record to 2-0 with a 23-17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, whetting the appetites of 56,447 fans at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium. But all the optimism in the world can't conceal the carnage of the past two years. Only seven starters (plus injured-reserve-bound defensive tackle Reuben Davis, who suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in July) and 11 other players remain from San Diego's Super Bowl roster. Since their 17-13 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the '94 AFC Championship Game, the Chargers are 17-17.

How could something so promising turn so sour? Current and former Chargers interviewed for this story say that injuries, roster turnover and ill-advised front-office decisions contributed to the franchise's fall from grace. But principally they blame Ross, who was forced out following the '96 season and now coaches the Detroit Lions, and his assistants. As masterly as Ross was in prodding the Chargers to overachieve in '94, he became an overbearing presence in the locker room. "By last season it had gotten to a point where a respect factor was gone," says cornerback Dwayne Harper. "Guys were just going through the motions."

Ross's military background and old-school attitude made him seem unapproachable, especially after the Super Bowl. "A lot of people got a big head after the Super Bowl," says former Chargers running back Ronnie Harmon, now with the Tennessee Oilers. "Coach Ross started acting like he was the reason we got there."

Other players believe Ross and his assistants changed. "Things got a little bit more uptight, and there was very little communication," says defensive tackle Shawn Lee.

According to several players, the tension actually began during the week of the Super Bowl, when Ross apparently violated a dictum of military behavior: Never let your charges know you're rattled. "For some reason the coaches decided to work us into the ground," Harmon recalls. "We were hitting in full pads every day, even two days before the game. By the time Sunday came around, we were worn out."

In addition, says receiver Tony Martin, a reserve on the '94 team who developed into a Pro Bowl player last season, Ross "changed everything we had been doing and tried something different. That's crazy. If nothing's wrong with your car, do you say, 'Look here—let's take the air bag out and put it back in'?"

The '95 season should have been a glorious one for the Chargers, who lost no significant players and even gained a Pro Bowl punter in Darren Bennett. But the team struggled early, and Ross became frustrated with certain players he viewed as negative influences, especially defensive end Chris Mims and running back Natrone Means. Mims's lack of off-season conditioning angered team officials, and Means earned their enmity by holding out before the '95 season.