How fitting that Ernie Zampese's death Monday in La Mesa, at age 86, coincided with reports of another NFL tight end moving close to a big-money contract.
The creative efforts some four decades ago of Zampese, who spent his entire 26-year NFL career as an assistant coach or consultant, abetted the transformation of the Chargers' Kellen Winslow into a Hall of Famer who broadened the possibilities for agile tight ends such as the Raiders' Darren Waller, the latest beneficiary, to come.
"He was a genius," former Chargers running back Hank Bauer, who played and coached under Zampese, said Monday. The Washington Commanders, who employ one of Zampese's sons, Ken, as their quarterbacks coach, announced the death.
On a broader scale, former coaches and players said Zampese's designs and teachings fueled passing games that made football more entertaining not only in San Diego, where Zampese spent nine years apiece with San Diego State and the Chargers, all under head coach Don Coryell, but also in Dallas, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
"Ernie was doing stuff in the '70s and the '80s that people today think are new and it isn't," said Norv Turner, a Zampese protégé and former Chargers head coach under whom Antonio Gates, the NFL's leader in touchdown receptions by a tight end, spent six seasons. "If Don Coryell were here today," Turner told ESPN's Chris Mortensen, "he'd tell you."
Zampese worked only two years as a head coach, not far from his Santa Barbara upbringing. He said he didn't enjoy that ride at Hancock Junior College, where he succeeded his friend and former boss, John Madden, in 1964.
Preferring the life of an offensive assistant, he didn't pursue head-coaching jobs, even as his star rose.
"A lot of times, I felt he should have taken it," Joyce Zampese, his wife, told the Los Angeles Times in 1987. "But that's me, not him. He's happy in his little niche, doing his little thing. He doesn't need the recognition. As a head coach, he said, you get the glory and you get the garbage."
Honored this year by the Pro Football Hall of Fame with an award of excellence, Zampese worked under a wide array of successful NFL head coaches, not only Coryell. He answered to Chuck Knox, Pete Carroll, Joe Gibbs (a former Chargers colleague) and Mike Martz. Under Chargers coach Tommy Prothro, for whom he coached defensive backs in 1976, he counted Bill Walsh as a colleague.
Bauer said Zampese and Coryell devised ways to unleash Winslow, a 251-pound tight end with rare speed and fluidity. Those innovations led NFL defenses — notably, the rival Raiders — to replace a linebacker with a cornerback or a safety to try to contain Winslow.
"We played two, three tight ends," said Bauer. "We'd split Kellen out. We'd put Kellen in motion."
Along with motioning players across the formation, a Chargers braintrust headed by Coryell, Gibbs and, later, Zampese, used personnel groupings and shifts that would later become more prevalent in the NFL. The pre-snap chess match, designed to create personnel mismatches and reveal the defense's intentions, furthered the Hall of Fame career of Dan Fouts.
In five of Zampese's six years with the Chargers, the "Air Coryell" offense led the NFL in passing yardage. Soon after Coryell was fired at midseason in 1986, Zampese joined the Los Angeles Rams as offensive coordinator under John Robinson. With Robinson focusing on a ground game headed by Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson, Zampese honed the passing game.
Jim Everett, a third-year quarterback, responded by leading the NFL with 31 touchdowns passes, and the Rams finished third in points scored.
With Troy Aikman as his quarterback, Zampese reached his first Super Bowl — a 27-17 victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Serving that year as the coordinator under Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer, the former Oklahoma coach and wishbone-offense devotee, Zampese oversaw an offense that finished third in points during the 1995 season.
"Ernie Zampese was one of the brightest offensive minds in the history of the game — many of his offensive concepts are still being used to this day," Aikman said in a statement he posted on Instagram.
Defensively, Zampese also had success, not only under Prothro but at SDSU where he coached defensive backs.
Among Zampese's survivors are son Ken; and grandson Anthony, SDSU's football recruiting coordinator.
