California Dreaming

By Dave “Large” Larzelere
For those of you Chargers fans out there fantasizing that your boys might be the team to topple the mighty Pats this year, today is a good day to channel the mojo of the football gods, because on this day 44 years ago San Diego won its only true championship in franchise history. And they beat the Patriots to do it.
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Back then, they were known as the Boston Patriots, and they were nowhere near the formidable side that they are today, stumbling into the 1963 AFL Championship Game with a 7-6-1 record. They were led by the colorful QB Babe Parilli, who in 1964 would throw 31 TD passes, a franchise record that would stand until a certain Mr. Unbearably Awesome went ballistic in ’07. Parilli’s Randy Moss was another Pats legend of the ‘60s, Gino Cappelletti, known to most of New England today as the voice of its team on the radio. Cappelletti played in every game the Patriots ever played in the AFL, doubled as the team’s star wide receiver and its place-kicker, and remained the leading scorer in franchise history until Adam Vinatieri passed him in 2005.
Of course, the Chargers of the ‘60s were a mighty bunch and boasted quite a quarterback-receiver combo of their own, John Hadl to Hall-of-Famer Lance “Bambi†Allworth. In 1963, however, Hadl was 23 years old and hadn’t yet taken over full-time duties in San Diego, sharing the job with Tobin Rote in one of the most successful two-quarterback systems pro football has ever seen. One could argue that the Chargers were the greatest team of the AFL era, playing in four league championship games and winning one, the one that occurred when they stomped the Patriots, 51-10, 44 years ago this afternoon. Should there by chance be a rematch for this year’s Lamar Hunt Trophy, it’s awfully hard to imagine a similar result. But then that sunshine in San Diego does get a man to dreaming silly dreams now and then ...↵