Rolf Benirschke, the former Chargers kicker who tackled a career in health improvement, has a cure for his old team’s stadium ills: Revive the old downtown convention center plan.
“In my mind, I think downtown is still relevant,” Benirschke said. “I still am an optimist. I think the team will stay.”
After moderating a panel discussion last week at the annual ALEC meeting, he expressed support for a scuttled idea.
“I’ve seen the plans — a convention center under the stadium would be phenomenal,” he told Times of San Diego. “So I think it becomes a community asset” that could be used 200-250 times a year and not just when the Chargers play at home.
(A waterfront stadium plan has been proposed by various parties since 2004, with former San Diego Union-Tribune publisher Doug Manchester making a push in 2012.)
In diplomatic language, Benirschke, 60, faulted San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s strategy for dealing with the National Football League.
“If there was a mistake the mayor made — and I’m not suggesting he did — [it] is instead of selecting the site as being Qualcomm, [he could have kept alive] both the downtown and the Qualcomm sites.”
Financing plans for both could have been offered, not just the CSAG plan for the Mission Valley site, Benirschke said after speaking at the Manchester Grand Hyatt next to the convention center.
“It would be hard for the NFL to say the city wasn’t committed” to a stadium, he said in advance of Tuesday’s meeting in San Diego between city officials and the NFL.
The Bolts’ kicker from 1977 to 1986 is clear-eyed on the NFL’s race to place a team in Los Angeles.
“It’s a foregone conclusion that St. Louis is going to move [the Rams],” Benirschke said. “They’re ahead of the game.”
The question is whether the Oakland Raiders or the Chargers is the second team in Los Angeles — or the suburb of Carson.
Another issue rarely voiced is the logistics of relocating a team — even if it’s only a couple hours away.
“I think the team will stay,” Benirschke said. “When you really get down to moving and look at what it takes to uproot the team — and all the families involved — how painful that would be,” with lifestyle changes as well.
Benirschke says he hasn’t had contact with the team in recent years, but stays in touch with former teammates — who agree the Bolts must stay.
Like others, he resists reducing the stadium debate to economic costs. He says it’s hard to put a price tag on civic pride, pointing to “the number of families that took their kids to their first Chargers game and the memories that were made there.”
He realizes taxpayer money could be involved in any scenario, but says: “I don’t think we just make this economic. … I don’t think it’s a dollar-and-cents issue, pure and simple.”
