SAN DIEGO — If you're among the hundreds of thousands of San Diegans who rode the Super Bowl wave with the 1994 Chargers, raise a protein shake in honor of Bobby Beathard, the body-surfing football savant and fitness buff who drafted Junior Seau, hired Bobby Ross and weathered working for Alex Spanos.
Beathard, who died Monday at age 86 from complications of Alzheimer's disease at his home in Tennessee, burned as bright as a supernova in transforming the Chargers into a playoff team and AFC champion.
Boyish Bobby seemed in perpetual motion — scouting football players across America's college campuses, doing business on the phone, catching waves off San Diego's coast, running marathons and washing his car early on NFL Sundays outside his Leucadia home that overlooked Beacon's Beach.
