Fan shares funny and touching story of a chance meeting with Marty Schottenheimer
Over 21 seasons as an NFL coach with four franchises, Marty Schottenheimer’s teams had a losing season just twice.
Remarkably, after the 2006 season, he was fired as Chargers coach after a playoff loss to the Patriots. San Diego had gone 14-2 during the regular season, which remains a Chargers record for victories in a season.
After learning of Schottenheimer’s death at the age of 77 following a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, a Twitter user in California named Rick shared a great story of a chance meeting with the legendary coach.
It came shortly after Schottenheimer was fired following the 14-win season. I’ve included the actual tweets below, but here is Rick’s whole story for those who can’t see embedded tweets from this great thread. It has been lightly edited for style and grammar reasons.
“As a high school senior, I once took my then girlfriend up to La Jolla for a ‘fancy’ breakfast at a restaurant basically on the beach in La Jolla. I was wearing a Chargers hat, and Marty Schottenheimer, who had JUST been fired by the Chargers, sat down at the next table,” Rick wrote.
“I saw him and freaked out, but didn’t want to be THAT guy, so said nothing. He definitely caught me staring a time or two through the meal, and gave me a nod and pointed at his forehead, acknowledging my Charger hat.
“We ate breakfast, no interaction but way too much weird and awkward eye contact. I was petrified. As we were settling up the bill (Marty was still eating), he stopped his breakfast and came over to our table. Again, I am a high school senior and petrified.
“He’d been fired maybe 3 days prior. He came up, and said, ‘Nice hat, young man. You look like a ball player yourself.’ I replied, ‘Yes sir, I play at Coronado High School.’ “Are you guys any good?’ asked Marty. ‘We were 9-1 last year.’ ‘So what are you doing to eliminate that L?’
“’We’re in the weight room, watching film and working hard, coach,’ I said. ‘Attaboy!’ Marty exclaims and puts out a hand. I high five him. He looks puzzled. ‘I assumed you wanted me to sign your hat. Is that ok?’ I am flabbergasted.
“He signs the hat, shakes my hand and says something like, ‘Keep at it, young man. Hard work matters.’ I’m over the moon. What an awesome interaction. I leave, call my parents and some friends to tell them all the story, don’t even look at the sig.
“He signed the hat: ‘Don’t go 14-2. - Marty’ Again, he was fired by the team like 4 days before. He saw a shy high school kid, went out of his way to talk to me, encouraged me, and left it all with a hilarious joke. I’m not going to claim I knew Marty.
“I had a lot of issues with his coaching. But ... DAMN did he go out of his way to make some random kids day. You can see a glimpse of why his players absolutely adored him in that interaction. He cared. He made his players care. And he did it with panache. RIP Coach.”
The Twitter thread went viral, so he shared a link so people could donate to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Here is the series of tweets:
This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 1:57 PM.
