LA Times – May 10, 2002

Chargers Confirm Camp Move

As expected, the San Diego Chargers announced Thursday they were moving their football training camp to a sports complex being built in Carson.

The Chargers have signed a five-year agreement with the Anschutz Entertainment Group, which in February broke ground on a $120-million sports facility on the campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills.

UC San Diego has been the Chargers' summer home since 1976, but second-year General Manager John Butler said he hoped to "build team chemistry" by taking the team farther from "familiar surroundings and personal distractions" for training camp. "It helps players focus on the task at hand," he said.

Butler said the move should not be considered a precursor to the Chargers moving permanently to Los Angeles.

"I was hired here to take care of the San Diego Chargers and get this football team to a championship-caliber team," he said. "L.A. was never mentioned to me, and it still hasn't. My whole thing is I want a whole different site to train in. Now everything has come out of that."

The NFL vacated Los Angeles at the end of the 1994 season, when the Raiders moved from the Coliseum back to Oakland and the Rams moved from Anaheim to St. Louis.

The Chargers played at the Coliseum in 1960 before moving to San Diego the following year.