9 Mark Vlasic starts the regular-season opener and takes the Chargers into the fourth quarter in Dallas with 14-10 lead, but Dan Henning's call for a fake punt backfires and leads to the Cowboys' 17-14 victory. "I called it and I shouldn't have called it," Henning says. "It's my dumb mistake."
11 UC San Diego men's soccer goalie Brian Siljander records his 27th career shutout, a school record, in a 2-0 victory over Biola.
12 Best Pal becomes that to bettors who wager on the 2-year-old gelding in the $344,100 Del Mar Futurity. Best Pal is named horse of the meet and troubled jockey Pat Valenzuela wins the riders title. Richard Mandella wins his last five starts to tie Bill Spawr and Wayne Lukas in the trainer standings.
14 Rashaan Salaam of La Jolla Country Day, a 15-year-old junior, scores a county record seven touchdowns in a 68-0 romp over Marian. Rancho Bernardo High wins its first ever football game, 20-7, over Coronado.
15 Padre outfielder Tony Gwynn breaks his right index finger in Atlanta, ending his season. . . . USD's Brian Fogarty becomes the school's winningest football coach after a 31-7 victory over Claremont.
16 After setting speed records all week long, Chip Hanauer, driving Circus Circus, wins the Budweiser Cup unlimited hydroplane race on Mission Bay.
20 Padre President Dick Freeman announces that a member of the grounds crew is responsible for the mutilated doll of Gwynn. No name is released, no one steps forward and no one believes it.
21 Jack McKeon addresses the Padre ownership group and, five hours later, is fired. In the next two months, 30 more Padre officials in the McKeon regime would be fired. . . . The hockey Gulls announce they have reached a partial working agreement with the NHL's Detroit Red Wings, who immediately supply the IHL team with seven players.
22 The Aztecs lose at Brigham Young, 62-34. The game was telecast by CBS to approximately 80% of the nation, and the two quarterbacks--SDSU's Dan McGwire and BYU's future Heisman Trophy winner, Ty Detmer--put on a show. McGwire passes for 362 yards and three touchdowns and Detmer passes for 514 yards and three touchdowns.
23 Mike Pigg of Arcata and Joy Hansen of Newtown Square, Pa., win the men's and women's divisions of the San Diego Bud Light Triathlon in Encinitas.
26 Jack Clark becomes the first player in baseball to heave a base, throwing the first-base bag toward the stands at Candlestick, resulting in his fourth ejection of the season. Padre officials secretly reveal that Clark will not be back. . . . Starting nose tackle Joe Phillips is badly beaten outside a Mission Beach Rastaurant. Phillips suffers a fractured eye orbit.
27 Craig Anderson of Fallbrook and Bill O'Connor of Beverly Hills combine to win the Trans-Mississippi Four-Ball golf championship at Rancho Santa Fe.
28 Markeith Ross of Rancho Buena Vista ties the county record with seven touchdowns, rushing for 329 yards in a 54-33 victory over Poway. The following week, Ross rushes for 294 yards and scored five touchdowns in a 58-19 victory over Vista.
29 Jack Clark blames Gwynn for most of the Padres' problems and says that unless they trade Gwynn, the Padres will continue to be a losing organization. "You hear all this talk about Mr. Padre, Mr. San Diego, and all that crap," Clark said, "I just want to laugh."
30 Chargers fall to 1-3 with 17-7 loss to Houston as placekicker Fuad Reveiz misses two field-goal attempts. Reveiz's 2-for-7 performance causes the Chargers to switch to John Carney.
OCTOBER 2 Joe McIlvaine is introduced as the Padres' new general manager and tries to be optimistic in his press conference. "I'm going to wipe the slate clean," he said. "I'm the new man in town. Anything that's happened in the past, I have no control over."
4 Rudy Suwara coaches his 400th women's volleyball match victory at SDSU as the Aztecs defeat Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 15-8, 15-10, 15-6.
5 Hockey returns to San Diego with much hoopla and a opening night crowd of 9,046. The Gulls' respond with a 4-3 victory over Salt Lake at the Sports Arena.
6 San Diego State's football team scores 51 points--only to see Wyoming get 52. The trip to Laramie turns into a nightmare. Dan McGwire passes for 415 yards and a career-high five touchdowns. The two teams combine for 13 touchdowns, four field goals and 1,263 yards of total offense.
7 Don Janicki wins the Coronado Bridge 6.5-mile race after runner-up Tony Niemczak of Poland took a wrong turn with less than a mile to go.
10 After Steelers end a four-game touchdown drought against Chargers with 36-14 victory, rumors circulate that owner Alex Spanos has been talked out of firing Dan Henning as head coach by General Manager Bobby Beathard. "That's bull," says Spanos. "There's no truth to it whatsoever."
