Schottenheimer still in San Diego after “classic” slang misunderstanding

SAN DIEGO, CA — In what appears to have been a clever joke gone wrong, the San Diego Chargers have gone back on yesterday’s firing of head coach Marty Schottenheimer.

Apparently, Chargers’ GM A.J. Smith and Schottenheimer have communicated exclusively through a third party since some time in 2005, and that disconnect led to a misunderstanding over the coach’s job status.

“I never meant for this to become such a big story,” Smith said Tuesday. “When I spoke to Marty’s people, I thought I was clear – sure, I said ‘we’re gonna have to let Coach S go after all,’ but then after a brief pause I clearly said ‘SIKE!’ I apologize for the misunderstanding, but you’ve got to admit it’s a pretty sweet burn.”

Schottenheimer’s representative apparently missed Smith’s “sike,” leading to the overblown story of the coach’s firing. To his credit, Schottenheimer seems to have found the humor in the situation, saying “it’s hard to fault A.J. for capitalizing on such a great ’sike’ opportunity. It’s never fun to be the butt of a joke, but this was pretty classic.”

In the course of clearing up the misunderstanding, Smith did point out that “firing him at this point would be silly, given that there’s nobody available to take the job. We’re looking at next year’s crop of free agent coaches to replace Marty, so we’re hoping to get one more successful regular season and early playoff loss before we cut him loose.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!