Chris Smith, director of equipment operations for the Chargers, inspects helmets at the team’s practice facility. (Sam Farmer / Los Angeles Times)
Chris Smith didn’t just saunter into his position as director of equipment operations for the Chargers. His career started at the ground floor.
As in the grass under his feet.
“We had a blank grass field at UC San Diego, and Sid said, ‘Oh, if you didn’t know, you’re painting the fields out there for training camp,’” said Smith, 58, referring to legendary equipment manager Sid Brooks, who was with the Chargers from 1973 to 2000 before a five-year stint at USC.
“I had never painted a football field in my life. So he handed me a schematic of a football field, and I had a group of four high school kids that were there to help me, and I had to figure it out. … And we did it.”
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That was a lifetime ago for Smith, known around the Chargers facility as “Smitty.” He and assistant equipment manager Kevin Duddy have been with the franchise more than 30 years, and now oversee an entire wing of “The Bolt” — the team’s new training facility in El Segundo — that’s dedicated to equipment storage.
The wing is next to the locker room, and players drift in and out, clearly at home and at ease with the staff.
“These guys are like my uncles away from home,” safety Derwin James said. “I won’t even call them like they work for us. It’s like family, man. These guys are first class with everything.”
One of the theories as to why players and equipment staff tend to have close relationships is that every other department is asking something of the players — coaches, front office, community relations — but in the equipment room, it’s the players doing the asking.
The Chargers recently gave the Los Angeles Times a peek at life on the other side of the equipment room doors.
Chris Smith, director of equipment…
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