Dean Spanos takes TV test, flunks

“KUSI sports director Paul Rudy got the chance to set [sic] down with [Dean] Spanos today but with one condition, that we only speak about the future and not the past, and we agreed.”

So began an interview last night (February 3) with Chargers chief executive Dean Spanos, given a platform on the local news station to spin fairy tales about his sudden desire to return to San Diego.

Despite the rules, the interview was billed as a "No holds barred" talk. Huh?

Spanos began by saying he never wanted to leave San Diego. If that is true, he should be sued by the mayor of Carson, where he and the Raiders planned to build a much-ballyhooed stadium. He should also be sued by Carmen Policy, who headed the effort to build in Carson; Robert Iger, the Disney executive who came on to help boost Carson; architects who drew plans for the stadium, and many others involved in the Carson push.

The truth is that the Chargers have been angling for L.A. since 1995, when they insisted that their contract with San Diego permit them to move at certain intervals.

When Mark Fabiani was hired as the Chargers spokesman in 2002, he said he would try to get a San Diego stadium, and if he couldn't achieve that, he would work on getting one in L.A. (What has happened to Fabiani anyway? This scribe predicted he would crawl into a corner if the Chargers went begging for a massive San Diego subsidy…has he?)

Of course, by the rules of the so-called interview, he couldn't be asked those questions, although I am not sure KUSI would have asked any queries intended to elicit honest answers. (At interview's end, both Paul Rudy and the anchor people agreed that Spanos was "sincere.")

Spanos lost the Carson vote 30-2, and it certainly appears that he cannot afford to get to Stan Kroenke's opulent planned Inglewood layout. He is aiming for a vote of the citizenry later in the year.

The Chargers denounced the possible Mission Valley site, but Spanos now says he will consider either downtown or Mission Valley, although he prefers the former. He says it won't be "my stadium,” it will be a "regional asset." Such poppycock. Supposedly, Spanos will have another interview on Channel 8 tonight (February 4).