Johnny Sanders Dead at 68 : Football: He once served with Chargers and Rams and had roots in Los Angeles schools.
SAN DIEGO — Johnny Sanders, a former Charger general manager and Ram director of player personnel, died early Friday morning of apparent heart failure. He was 68.
He was pronounced dead at 3:29 a.m. at Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, according to deputy coroner George Dickason.
Sanders and Rick Smith, former Charger public relations director, both worked as administrative consultants to the San Diego Gulls, an International Hockey League team. Smith said they spent 30 minutes together Thursday afternoon talking football and about this weekend’s games.
“There was absolutely no hint that anything was wrong,” said Smith, who added that Sanders had dieted and lost close to 50 pounds earlier in the year. “He didn’t look like a man whose time had come.”
According to Smith, Sanders’ breathing became irregular during the night, and his wife, Peggy, took him to the hospital.
“Then I get a call 14 hours later that he was gone,” Smith said. “It was a real shock.”
Sanders joined the Rams in 1964, was named assistant general manager in 1969, and had several titles in the scouting and personnel departments before joining the Chargers as assistant to the late owner, Gene Klein, in 1975. He was promoted to general manager the next year and had that position until 1986. In 1987, his last year with the Chargers, he was an assistant director of football operations.
After he left the Chargers, Sanders failed in an effort to bring an Arena Football team to the city.
Jack Teele, the Chargers’ assistant to the president, and Sanders worked together with the Rams in the early 1960s, then were reunited in San Diego in 1981.
“We were very close,” Teele said. “This is the loss of a fine man and talent, a football man, a good man, and a good friend. It’s a shock beyond words.”
In 1979, Sanders was named NFL executive of the year by The Sporting News.
Sanders was born in San Antonio on July 22, 1922. He played football at Van Nuys High and was a running back and three-year letterman at Occidental College (1946-48) in Eagle Rock. In 1948, he was a starter on the 9-0 team that defeated Colorado A&M; in the Raisin Bowl at Fresno on Jan. 1, 1949. He is a member of the Occidental Athletic Hall of Fame and the Van Nuys Hall of Fame.
After graduating from college, he began teaching and coaching in the Los Angeles City Schools system, and was coach at North Hollywood High from 1951-58.
Sanders is survived by his wife, a daughter, Pamela; a son, Rob; his mother, Jonnie; a sister, Janie Brown, and a brother, Rich.
Memorial services will be Monday at 11 a.m. at Featheringill Mortuary, 6322 El Cajon Blvd., El Cajon. The family requested that memorial contributions, in lieu of flowers, be made to the American Heart Assn.
