Chargers President Dean Spanos arrived back in San Diego today after spending numerous days on the road interviewing candidates for the vacant General Manager position. We sat down with Spanos to get an update on how the process is going. Here is what he had to say.
Question: How pleased are you with where you currently are in the process? Do you have a better sense as to when an announcement of a new GM will be made?
Spanos: The process is winding down. As you know, we’ve been on the road the last few days and just returned to San Diego. It was a productive trip as we were able to meet with a number of people in a short period of time. Hopefully we can make a decision within the next day or two.
Question: How impressive have the candidates been up to this point?
Spanos: The candidates have been great and I’ve been extremely impressed. We’ve hit on the right group of guys to speak with and I know why our league is so great; there are many tremendous people working for the clubs.
Question: What has been the biggest surprise in the process so far?
Spanos: Really, the quality of people working for clubs that don’t get much publicity, but are extremely impressive.
Question: Do you think interviewing so many qualified candidates will make you feel more resolute or more conflicted when having to make your final choice?
Spanos: I know we’ll hire the right guy for the job.
Question: You’ve said that you’d like to hire a GM first and then a head coach. Have you spoken to any head coaching candidates at this point?
Spanos: We would like to have the GM in place and make him part of the interview process for our new head coach, but we wanted to make sure that we gave ourselves an opportunity to speak with any head coaching candidate that we were intrigued with before he was taken off the market. Doug Marrone was such a guy, and his agent arranged for us to have dinner with Doug last night. It was great to have that opportunity and we wish Doug the best. We haven’t spoken to any other coaches, but plan to do so once we have the GM search concluded shortly.
