Nearly 100 fans gathered at Chargers Park Saturday afternoon to give the Bolts a proper send-off as they headed to the San Diego International Airport to catch a flight to Denver for Sunday’s playoff game.
A week after the Chargers victory in Cincinnati, Bolts fandom has reached a fever pitch in San Diego.
Since last Sunday, Bolts gear has been flying off shelves, the official travel package for the Denver game sold out in mere hours, big-time bets have been made, and hundreds of fans can't get enough of a one-of-a-kind bolo tie worn by Philip Rivers.
Fittingly, "Bolo Up" was one of the many chants heard just after 11 a.m. at Chargers Park Saturday as the team’s supporters kept the enthusiasm going when the Bolts began boarding several buses headed for Lindbergh Field.
For some fans who spoke to NBC San Diego, the celebration surrounding the Chargers was much more than just hype about the game against the Broncos on Sunday -- for them, the recent flurry of excitement was also about proving naysayers wrong.
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“They need to know that San Diego is backing them up,” said fan Daniel Montoya. “No one else believes in them across the nation …but we believe in them.”
Fellow Bolts fan, Marcelino Ugarte, agreed.
“You know, the attitude is right now, it’s basically us against the world," said Ugarte who came to Chargers Park with his daughter and her friends in tow, all of whom were decked out in Chargers jerseys.
Making the playoffs, a feat the team hadn't accomplished since 2009, wasn't something everyone was expecting from the Chargers as the season unfolded.
However now, Ugarte and fans like him say that kind of thinking should remain in the past.
“There’s been a lot of people that the Chargers have proven wrong, so the expectation now, as opposed to back then, is we want them to continue to win, regardless of what was said before," said Ugarte.
As hopes of entering the Super Bowl get closer, superstitions of all sorts of come to the forefront, including a man dubbed a Chargers "lucky charm" who was sent to the game by a local pub hoping his presence will make a difference on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Chargers Head Coach Mike McCoy has his own plans for Sunday.
In an interview with NBC San Diego McCoy said the team was in a good position heading into their next game. "We got to put a good plan together to [get] another win," said McCoy. "Go out there [and] do whatever you got to do to find another one."
Saturday's scene at Chargers Park was similar to the hero's welcome the team received Sunday when they returned to the park just after their victory in Cincinnati.
Art Aguirre and his young son Tristan were there.
“We’re just [seeing] the boys off to Denver. Just celebrating with the fans here,” said Aguirre.
When asked what he was looking forward to Sunday, Tristan put it simply: "A win."
