The Redemption of Fouts

After six hellish years, a cool arm burns up the heavens

He stood at a Hertz counter in Eugene, Ore., waiting to rent a car. The man who broke Norm Van Brocklin's records at the University of Oregon, who only two days earlier had set a National Football League record by passing for 300-plus yds. in four consecutive games, had to cool his heels while a clerk called the San Diego Chargers to determine if Daniel Francis Fouts was indeed one of their employees.

The answer, as shell-shocked defenders throughout the league can attest, was an emphatic yes. And if he is not as well known at the car-rental counter as OJ. Simpson, on the football field, bird-legged, black-bearded Dan Fouts (as in shouts) has become as potent an offensive weapon as the airport baggage hurdler was in his prime. In just 10 games, Fouts has passed for a league-leading 2,479 yds., and his 63.2% completion percentage puts him first among the N.F.L.'s 28 starting quarterbacks. On his strong arm, the Chargers climbed to a tie with Denver in the American Football Conference's Western Division, with a record of 7 wins and 3 losses, and have a good chance of making the playoffs for the first time since the A.F.L./N.F.L. merger.

The son of Bob Fouts, former announcer for the San Francisco 49ers, young Dan almost literally grew up on the sidelines, serving the team as ball boy. He tossed footballs with John Brodie, Billy Kilmer and Y.A. Tittle. When Dan signed up for a local Pop Warner team at ten, he wanted to be a receiver. His father quickly vetoed that idea, insisting he play quarterback. The son does not regret that Foutsian bargain: "If he hadn't, I'd be wearing a white belt, white shoes and selling real estate today."

At San Francisco's St. Ignatius High School, Fouts was overshadowed by a rival quarterback from another school who had the happy duty of throwing to a receiver named Lynn Swann, who has also managed to avoid the real estate business. During his senior year, Fouts was recruited by just one Pacific Eight (now Pacific Ten) team, the University of Oregon. The rest of the conference lived to regret its lack of ardor: Fouts set 19 school offensive records while passing for a three-year total of 5,995 yds. and 37 touchdowns. Picked on the third round by San Diego, he settled in at the feet of Johnny Unitas, then 40, who was finishing his football career. "I went to him for advice and for a shoulder to cry on," Fouts says of Unitas. "I tried to emulate him."

Fouts took over from his dead-armed and ineffective hero in the fourth game of his rookie season, and went on to endure six chaotic years as the best target on one of pro football's worst teams. The Chargers ran through six offensive coordinators in seven seasons, and shed head coaches almost as frequently. With the arrival of former St. Louis Cardinals Head Coach Don Coryell in 1978, Fouts took off like one of his own passes. Coryell installed a sophisticated passing offense, a "tree" system that sends swarms of receivers downfield to move across predetermined "branches." The system has no hierarchy of primary and secondary receivers; rather, the quarterback is expected to study defensive reaction, sweep the "tree" with his eyes in a clockwise motion and determine which pass catcher is open.