The first week of the Chargers' 1983 training camp provided a most unusual ride. A stabilizer was missing from the Air Coryell flying machine that had become the greatest, most persistent, most terrifying football offense ever conceived.
Don Coryell believed in fresh legs, so many veteran players could be found lounging in sweats under the eucalyptus trees on the south end of UCSD's campus. There would be no two-a-day drills. I remember telling our Jerry Magee that they could have held camp on a veranda.
NELVIN C. CEPEDA / Union-Tribune
A standout player for nearly two decades, Charlie Joiner is in his second stint as a coach here.
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All it lacked were mint juleps, parasols and, oh, yes, Charlie Joiner.
Joiner – the stabilizer – wasn't there that first week. The great receiver was holding out, and it wasn't like Charlie, the quiet assassin, who would have trouble making waves in a bathtub.
So, that first week I'm interviewing Dan Fouts in a workroom next to the team's PR office, where there was a blackboard, on which was listed players present and missing. The absentee list offered one name: Charlie Joiner.
Anyway, when the interview ended, Fouts strolled out of the room, and as the quarterback passed the blackboard, without looking, tapped Joiner's name and kept walking without saying a word.
I'll never forget that. Fouts, a big bread guy, knew where his was buttered. Joiner was his life jacket. If it was third-and-9, Fouts would look for Joiner and would get 10. You get the picture. It was uncanny. Joiner was the most precise receiver.
But he wasn't there.
“It was just one of those first-week-of-camp things,” Joiner now recalls with a smile and a shrug.
A certified public accountant during the offseason, he was his own agent – still is – so Joiner knew what he wanted, and he soon got it. But if anyone could afford to miss camp at that time, it was The Professional.
The Grambling alum had been in the pros since 1969 and became a vital member of that remarkable offensive engine. He didn't need the first week of camp to learn anything. That proved out in 1996, when the man who remains the Chargers' all-time leading receiver was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
And now he's back in town.
After Joiner retired as a player in 1986, the Chargers immediately hired him as receivers coach, where he served until 1991, when he moved on to Buffalo and coached wideouts there until 2000. He then was with Kansas City through 2007.
Out of work, but not for long. The Chargers released receivers coach James Lofton and immediately hired Joiner, now in charge of a talented receiving corps that includes youngsters who probably never heard of him.
“Charlie's a great coach and a person of great character,” says Chargers GM A.J. Smith, who worked with Joiner during the 1980s in San Diego and then in Buffalo. “It won't be long before that all comes out. The players will know who Charlie Joiner is.”
If nothing else, working with this group probably will be a bit easier for Joiner than it was during his first go-round as a Chargers coach. Still, his receivers don't know him very well.
“If players approach me, I'll tell them what I think it takes to be successful in the league,” says Joiner, 60. “There are some very talented young guys here, but a lot of them don't know me. They call me Mr. Joiner. When it gets to the point where they call me Charlie, maybe they'll ask me for advice.
“I love the job. My first five years here were the hardest for me as a coach. All of a sudden I was coaching guys I had just been on the field with, so it was kind of tough. By the time I went to Buffalo, I had picked up a lot of tidbits, and I've been lucky. I've only been in three cities in 21 years.”
Joiner never sold his Rancho Bernardo home. “I didn't want to lose residency in San Diego,” he says. “I figured I might not be able to afford it if I tried to come back.”
But Joiner and his wife, Dianne, who owns a travel agency, lost their home in last year's Witch Creek fire. They're leasing a place now and intend to rebuild on the property. It won't be a palace.
Says Joiner, who was in the middle of the bye week in Kansas City during the fire: “It's a simple plan.”
That's Charlie Joiner. Flash never was his game, nor is it his style of coaching.
“He's not a yeller or a screamer; he doesn't go on tangents,” Smith says. “He's extremely cerebral. And he can evaluate talent, which I love.”
Joiner keeps it simple. “It's all predicated on what the quarterback does best,” he says. “If a receiver doesn't fit the quarterback, no sense in having him around.”
The Bills went to the playoffs eight times and to two Super Bowls while Joiner was there. He's seen it all.
“Charlie knows the difference between the regular season and the playoffs,” Smith says. “Some guys don't have a clue.”
OK, A.J. We won't get into Marty Schottenheimer again. Let's just say The Professional has returned.
Nick Canepa: (619) 293-1397; nick.canepa@uniontrib.com
