The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 90

GAMES EVENTS PEOPLE I I I SAN DIEGO COUNTY Cos Angeles Slimes Chargers Lose Games, Ortmayer Loses Job HIGHLIGHTS TUESDAY I jj I I A JJ I 1 I j) DECEMBER 19. 1989 CCt VT i -2-L- Jk- 1 tr JtT i1 San Diego County CHARGERS: Steve Ortmayer is out But will Bobby Beathard be in? Ortmayer. the team's director of football operations since January 1987. will not be offered a contract next season. There has been speculation that Beathard.

former general manager of the Washington Redskins, will replace Ortmayer. CI replacing Ortmayer with Bobby Beathard, former general manager of the Washington Redskins who left the Redskins at the conclusion of the 1988 season. Spanos said last May that he planned to "make an effort to hire" Beathard. and that he had discussed his intentions with Ortmayer. Beathard, who owns a home in Leucadia.

was with the Redskins for 10 years. During that time. Washington played in three Super Bowls and Beathard earned a reputation for having a keen eye for talent Sources have said Beathard may be reluctant to accept a position with the Chargers because of Spanos' propensity to involve himself heavily with draft and trade decisions. Beathard, currently a once-a-week television commentator for NBC, could not be reached for comment Please tee CHARGERS, C13 By DON PATTERSON SAN DIEGO The Chargers announced Monday that Steve Ortmayer, director of football operations since January 1987, will not be offered a contract next season. Ortmayer cleaned out his office at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and left at mid afternoon.

"Steve and I met today," Charger Owner Alex Spanos said. "I want to thank him for the effort he has made to make the Chargers a stronger team. Our meeting was amicable, and we wish him well in future endeavors." Ortmayer. 45. could not be reached for comment.

There has been speculation throughout the season that Spanos was considering FIRE V1NCE COMPAGNONE Urn AngcleTime Charger tins at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium displayed a sign of the times ahead for Steve Ortmayer who was, indeed, fired Monday as director of football operations. HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL: Shon Tarver. Santa Clara High of Oxnard's answer to Sean Elliot, is indeed, the real thing. Tarver was on his game Monday night in Santa Clara's 70-46 romp over the University of San Diego High School. CI Elsewhere MR.

VERSATILITY: Magic Johnson is known as basketball's pre-eminent point guard, but in the absence of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Johnson has had to play all five positions at various times. CI JIM MURRAY: History tells us Androcles removed a thorn from the paw of the lion and was rewarded when he faced the lion in the arena. Sam Wyche put a thorn in the paw of the Houston Oilers Sunday in a 61-7 Bengal victory. CI MIKE DOWNEY: There is no joy among the families of Tom Gray, Mike Goff, Ramon Ramos and Kevin Copeland this holiday season because their homes have been visited by tragedy.

CI COMING-OUT PARTY: Sports attorney Leigh Steinberg says that as many as 40 collegiate underclassmen will make themselves eligible for the 1990 NFL draft C2 NHL SCORE Toronto 6, St Louis 3 Story C9 ALLAN MALAMUD: Would you believe the Western Conference-leading Lakers and the Clippers are on a collision course to meet in the first round of the playoffs? C3 RAIDERS: How important is the game Sunday against the Giants in New Jersey? According to Howie Long, it's the most important game in the organization's history. C3 RAMS: It was 14 degrees in Fox-boro, Monday, and you have to wonder what it will be Sunday when the Rams try to pass. C3 FALCON DIES: Brad Beckman, a reserve tight end, has become the second Atlanta Falcon to die in a traffic accident in a month. C4 PRECOCIOUS: Freshman Lucious Harris scored 17 points in leading Cal State Long Beach to a 92-74 victory over North Texas. C6 SPOILERS: Cal State Fullerton had hoped to enter Saturday's game against UCLA unbeaten, but Colorado State dashed those aspirations with an 84-55 victory.

C6 SUDDEN REVERSAL: The Philadelphia Eagles are in jeopardy of losing the NFC East title to the Giants after losing to the Saints, 30-20. Monday. C9 NBA COLUMN: Golden State has found recent success, winning four games in a row, but that should not hide the fact that the Warriors have front-line weaknesses. Cll TV's BEST BET The Season He Became Point Pivot Lakers: These days Magic Johnson is playing so many positions, people are inventing new names for the roles. By SAM McMANIS TIMES STAFF WRITER As versatile as Meryl Streep, Magic Johnson can play any role the Lakers ask.

Lately, that has included everything short of portraying Woody Allen's estranged wife or wearing a wig and speaking with an Australian accent. Best known as a point guard who has so transformed the position that a new statistical category called the triple-double was devised, Johnson now has been asked to stretch his talents and his 6-foot-9 body to other positions on the court No costume change is needed, only a different approach and attitude. Tune in to a Laker game at almost any juncture, and Johnson is likely to be playing any one of four positions. It has almost gotten to the point where public-address announcers should identify Johnson as Charlotte Hornet Coach Dick Harter did recently point pivot. Johnson, of course, starts and plays most of his 37 minutes a game at his natural point-guard spot But in these post-Kareem transition days.

Johnson will also play as many as 15 or 20 minutes a game at small forward and big forward, the latter mainly, on defense. There also have been rare times, whenever Coach Pat Riley wants a quick lineup or is beset by foul trouble, that Johnson has played center. "Magic this year is like a politician's promises," teammate Mychal Thompson said. "All over the place." The difference, of course, is that Johnson often delivers. Although he has always had the ability to be an interchangeable part in the Laker attack-remember his 42-point, 15-rebound effort subbing for Abdul-Jabbar at center in Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals? until now it has not been necessary for him to do anything except orchestrate and create from his point-guard spot.

Abdul-Jabbar's retirement created the need for his expanded activity, and the important addition of backup point guard Larry Drew made it possible. "My role has really changed," Johnson said. "I'm running all five positions now at one time or the other, and I'm having to do more things than in the past I love the challenge of doing something I don't do all the time. We all need challenges to keep us going. Life gets stale without them." Please sec MAGIC, Cll Sometimes, Because I am feeling all Christmassy, I suppose, this is going to be the most melancholy, most maudlin column I have written in some time.

Hope you won't mind. I am in a bad. sad mood, because I have just read the most depressing newspaper pages I have read in a long, long time. Wasn't the paper's fault It just printed the facts. Didn't blow them out of proportioa Treated them with the proper dignity.

It's just that by the time I stopped reading. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Because these stories made me think of human beings, and what they have to endure. Made me think of the JIM MURRAY He Sees They Know This Score It was shocking. A scandalous breach of etiquette.

Beatrice Fairfax, or whoever oversees public manners and morals these days, would be mortified. I'm referring to the unconscionable behavior of the coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, Sam Wyche. Perhaps you noticed over the weekend. He shattered the football coaches' code in a thousand pieces well, 60 anyway. First of all, he beat Houston, 61-7.

You heard me. Poured it on. I mean, with a trowel. With a 45-0 lead, they tried an onside kick. Match that around football for cruelty.

With 21 seconds to go. with a 58-7 lead, they kicked a field goal! We haven't seen this kind of runaway kicking a man when he was down since Nuremberg. But then, what I really liked were the postgame quotes. They belong in a time capsule. You know what you're supposed to say when you give an opponent that kind of humiliating butt-kicking? You're supposed to moan that you tried to hold the score down by putting in the fourth string but "You know how kids are there was no holding them." You wear a long face and do Not Coach Wyche.

He got up on a podium to say he wished there had been a fifth quarter. He wanted a hundred points. He was sorry Houston got seven. Now, there is a form and protocol to be observed among coaches. It is customary to say of your defeated rival.

"He is a great coach, his offense is superb, it just couldn't get untracked today." It's even considered good manners to add, "We were lucky." Know what Coach Wyche said of the coach he just slaughtered in Riverfront? "Drop me a note if you find somebody who likes this guy, will you?" You ever heard that kind of locker room talk? Neither has anybody else. The team he beat didn't escape, either. Wyche characterized their play as "sorry." In alluding to a game next week against the Cleveland Browns, which will be a division decider, he predicted, "They will be just as sorry as they were today." He added: "We know one thing: Cleveland won't quit" He implied Houston would and, in fact had that very afternoon. Now, this goes so far beyond the norms of coaches' behavior as to constitute aberration. Custom calls for a coach in this situation to soften the damage he has done to his opponent's team and morale with soothing words and to put a man's head on his shoulder and pat him on the back with a There, there.

Don't cry." There is even precedent for holding down a score when you have everything Please sec MURRAY, C8 Holidays couple of Christmases ago when both of my parents occupied rooms in the same hospital, one floor apart, too immobilized even to visit one another, one by a stroke, the other by lung disease. You haven't hated Christmas until a doctor telephones you at 3 a.m. and tells you to get back over to the hospital, because your father might not make it through the night Everybody wants to go out and sing carols and be cheerful each Christmas. Well. I'm sorry.

I just don't have it in me. Christmas to me means only two things this year. It's Christ's birthday. And it's Monday. That's it But we go along, doing what we have to do, making our plans, buying our gifts.

Please tec DOWNEY, C8 Vi Magic Johnson had reason to smile Without Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he has STEVE DYKES Lot Angela TUnct when the Lakers won the 1988 title. reason to assume an even bigger role. the Cheer Goes Out of the mos, a rookie basketball player for the Portland Trail Blazers, remained comatose in a hospital after being critically injured in an automobile accident He is 22. The paper reported that Kevin Cope-land was honored as Southern California's top high school football player at a banquet Sunday in Anaheim, a few weeks after collapsing during a Dorsey High School football game against San Pedro and dying of heart failure. He was 17.

My heartfelt sympathy goes out to the families and friends of these kids, and I pray that not too many others need know such silent nights this Christmas. I know what it's like. It was only a MIKE DOWNEY holidays, and how merry we all long to be. The paper reported that Tom Gray, a football player from Cal State North-ridge, collapsed while socializing with friends Friday night and died after desperate efforts to revive him. He was 21 years old.

The paper reported that Mike Goff, a basketball player from Fullerton College, collapsed at his Anaheim home Saturday after eating breakfast and was rushed to a hospital, where he died. He was 19. The paper reported that Ramon Ra PRO BASKETBALL LakersChicago. 5 p.m., Ch9 Complete listings C12 INDEX Morning Briefing C2 Horse Racing CI 3 San Diego Day in Sports C10 The Day in Sports C12-13.