I fell in love with the Chargers at the same time as many others. As a younger fan who wasn't around for the Air Coryell days, or the 1994 trip to the Super Bowl, the first true beacon of hope from the Chargers' organization came in the mid-to-late 2000s.
After all, it was the most dominant, consistent stretch in franchise history that also boasted some of the team's all-time greats. One of those all-time greats, Antonio Gates, finally joined former teammate LaDainian Tomlinson in Canton on Thursday one year after he was snubbed from being a deserving first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Gates was a fundamental piece of the Chargers' identity for over a decade while also rewriting the book on who could be a successful tight end. The undrafted free agent who played college basketball, not college football, built such a connection with Philip Rivers that he finished first all-time in touchdown catches for a tight end.
Gates was remarkable, elite and consistent. He was an eight-time Pro Bowler, three-time All-Pro and was named to the Hall of Fame's All-2000s Team. Most of all, he was a Charger.
Antonio Gates is a pillar of Chargers fanhood
"My guy, AG!!!"
I can't tell you how often I heard that growing up the Chargers with my Dad. A diehard Chargers fan from San Diego who once threw our old house phone across the street when Nate Kaeding missed the game-tying field goal against the New England Patriots in the AFC Divisional Round, my dad absolutely loved Antonio Gates. And in turn, so did I.
The Chargers weren't just a means of connection for my father and I. Rooting for the Bolts became a fundamental building block of who I am as a person. Not only did it help me bond with my dad, it gave me the passion to ignore what my high school calculus teacher told me and go after sports writing.
As passionate as I still am about the Chargers and sports in general, part of me has always known that I chased this career as a means to connect with my dad. I may no longer be sitting on his shoulders watching the Chargers go 14-2 but I now get the pleasure of writing about his favorite team, and with Gates, one of his all-time favorites.
Who knows if I would have fallen in love with football in the same way if the Chargers were mediocre in the mid-2000s. I was a kid. It was a lot easier watching Gates make acrobatic touchdown catches and Tomlinson make leaping goal-line touchdowns than it would have been watching a miserable 3-13 football team.
Gates didn't just catch my interest. He was the sole source of so many joyous moments with my dad that I will cherish as long as I live. It may have taken a year longer than expected to get into the Hall of Fame, but he was always in our Hall of Fame.
The moment I will cherish above all else came on November 18, 2018. I was two years into my writing career and was invited out to a Chargers game at the then-StubHub Center to talk to a former team sponsor. They were gracious enough to give me two field-level tickets and of course, I had no other option than to take my dad.
It wasn't just the self-validation that I chose the right career and made my dad proud that made it such a great day. It was the fact that Gates, the player I grew up watching and fell in love with because of my dad, caught a touchdown pass mere yards in front of us. We may not have been watching it on our old box TV at home, but my dad's reaction was all the same.
"MY GUY, AG!!!"
That wound up being the last regular-season touchdown of Gates' career. Years later, my dad recalled a game he attended in 2003 with a family member against the Minnesota Vikings. Curiously, I looked up the box score from that game and stumbled on the most serendipitous fact imaginable.
My dad, who averages one in-person Chargers game every three years, was at the game where Gates hauled in his first-career touchdown pass — a four-yard pass from Doug Flutie. The goosebumps transferred from my skin to his when I pointed out he was there in person for Gates' first-career touchdown and his last-career touchdown.
If that isn't fate, what is?
In my heart, the bond I created with my dad over football will always be synonymous with Gates and his Hall of Fame career. And I know we are not alone. There are thousands of Chargers fans with similar feelings and similar memories. Whether he was part of our childhood, our adolescence, our adult years, or our later years, Gates is an unshakeable part of our lives.
As excited as I was to see Gates finally get the honor he more than deserved, selfishly, I was more excited to see how my dad would react. One of his all-time favorites was finally enshrined in Canton, and with it, so was our bond.
When my phone pinged and lit up with a text message from my dad following the news, I couldn't help but smile seeing the eight simple letters I should have seen coming all along.
OUR guy, AG.