Flashback | Man for all sports now focused on home team
Athlete: Chris Chandler, Everett, Class of 1983.
Sports: Football, basketball, baseball, track and golf.
High-school rewind: Among the best quarterbacks in state history, throwing for 4,765 yards. Two-time all-state selection and Parade All-American his senior season. All-state in basketball as a senior after averaging 21.5 points and second team all-state as a junior. Played baseball as a sophomore, hitting .425 as all-conference catcher. Lettered in track and field as a junior and in golf as a senior.
After high school: Chose Washington for football after also considering Stanford and Michigan. Played in three bowl games (Sun, Freedom and Independence). Ranked third in career passing yards when he left, having thrown for 4,161. Drafted in the third round in 1988 by the Indianapolis Colts, he had a 17-year NFL career with seven teams (two stints with the Rams), highlighted by leading Atlanta to the Super Bowl after the 1998 season. A standout golfer, he won the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship at Lake Tahoe (Stateline, Nev.) in July with a 5-under-par 67 on the final day.
Personal: Chandler, 42, lives in Del Mar, Calif., with Diane, his wife of 13 years. The couple has three girls: Ryann, 12; Skye 10; and Brynn, 8.
Fast forward: Chandler said he has a lot of great memories playing high-school sports. “It was an innocent time. I wasn’t playing to save a coach’s job or to sell tickets. I just remember playing all the time, going from sport to sport, and loving every minute of it.”
Chandler won the golf event in Tahoe for the first time in his 15th try.
“I had to fight through a lot of demons on the final nine,” he said.
What made it more special was that his father-in law, former NFL star and Champions Tour golfer John Brodie, was there to see every hole. Brodie is still recovering from a stroke suffered in 2000. “He taught me much of what I know in the game,” Chandler said.
Chandler stays busy as golf coach at Torrey Pines High School and with his three daughters’ volleyball pursuits. Ryann plays on a team that won the bronze medal at last year’s junior Olympics. He still follows some of his quarterback friends in the NFL, but said he wouldn’t consider a comeback unless the nearby San Diego Chargers called.
“I was gone from my family long enough,” he said. “It’s really a grind. I wouldn’t do it unless I could stay at home.”
Scott Hanson