Love keeps longtime Chargers PR director at home

Bill Johnston needed to be convinced.

So, he looked.

The Chargers’ director of public relations, who’s been with the organization the past 38 years, scoured skilled-nursing homes in Orange County. He personally visited seven of them, observing each venue’s accommodations and experience level with patients whose condition renders them entirely care dependent. The process brought him clarity.

For his wife, there is no place like home.

Several dozen full-time Chargers employees must decide by March 15 if they’ll follow the franchise in its relocation from San Diego to Los Angeles. Johnston will not. His decision was made with wife Ramona in mind, as she continues a lengthy battle with Huntington’s Disease, a genetic neurodegenerative disorder that has robbed her of basic motor functions, including speech.

Hollywood covets its love stories.

Theirs will stay in San Diego.

“Everybody would make the same decision I am making if they were in my shoes,” Johnston, 59, said. “It’s just the situation I find myself in.”

Over the years, colleagues have marveled how Johnston handles his situation.

Many have worked for the Chargers long enough to remember Ramona before her 1999 diagnosis. Yet, if not for the changes seen in her or the visible campaign Johnston has waged to raise funds to combat Huntington’s Disease, they wouldn’t know of it.

They wouldn’t know he wakes up at 4:55 a.m. each day and is out of the house by 5:15, driving to visit his wife at Edgemoor Hospital in Santee. He chooses mornings rather than evenings because that is when, over the course of a day, she is considered most alert.

Even then, she cannot walk to him.

She cannot speak to him.

She cannot hold him.

“She can’t talk anymore, but she’ll make some sounds,” Johnston said. “Sometimes, I think she’s trying to say my name. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.”

Her eyes trace him as he talks to her, telling her the latest life developments of him, their 31-year-old son Jared and 28-year-old daughter Hayley. He cannot be sure Ramona understands him, but he speaks as if she does. They watch the news on television. Before he leaves, he plays a movie for her that nurses will rotate throughout the day.

Before all this, Ramona always enjoyed watching movies.

For years, Johnston has made a tradition of delivering the Chargers office a boxful of donuts every Friday morning. Most colleagues don’t know the box is one of two he delivers that day; the first is to the staff providing his wife care.

Johnston knows her nurses, and they know him.

He cannot find that in Orange County, no matter how long he looks.

What coworkers see every day from Johnston at Chargers Park, they say, is professionalism. He oversees team media responsibilities and strategies, not including those involving the stadium. He walks off the field after each practice with the head coach before both speak to media. Johnston reads the injury report. The coach follows, taking questions. On game days, he walks with the coach from the locker room to a postgame press conference, discussing talking points and potential forthcoming topics.

In times of crisis, he is often a reporter’s first call or message.

He is available at seemingly all hours.

“I think it may be his escape, for lack of a better word, “ said Scott Yoffe, the Chargers’ assistant PR director who’s worked under Johnston for 21 years. “For those hours when he’s at work, it provides a respite from the real-life stuff he’s dealt with the past 15-plus years.”

For decades, Johnston has not needed a career resume.

He’ll have to figure where to start.

The La Mesa native interned for the Chargers in 1979, a 21-year-old San Diego State student whose baseball career as a speedy middle infielder ended following shoulder surgery. The Chargers then went 12-4 in their first full season under head coach Don Coryell. The PR department needed extra help, so his summer internship became a full season one.

He hasn’t left since.

Johnston graduated with a journalism degree in 1981. He married Ramona, a fellow Helix High grad who caught his eye as a cheerleader, in 1983, and became assistant PR director in 1984. He oversaw the creation of the Charger Girls in 1990. He helped create the All-Star Spanos Classic, an annual showcase game between San Diego prep athletes that last month completed its 27th year, as well as an annual shoe drive for local youth in need.

The 15 marathons in which Johnston’s run have raised more than $800,000 toward Huntington’s Disease research. When including the “Celebration of Hope Gala” and “Shoot to Cure HD,” which are two annual events he’s spearheaded with support from the Chargers and others in the community, his fundraising efforts approach $3 million.

“How do you lose someone like Bill Johnston?” club Chairman Dean Spanos said via email. “He has been a trusted and integral part of this team for 38 years. His personal impact, not only on our organization but also on our lives, is simply without question. Bill’s tireless work to support his wife Ramona and others afflicted with Huntington’s has educated all of us to the ravages of this horrible disease.

“To know what he has gone through each day to do his job, raise his family and still be there for his wife — to me, it speaks volumes of his love and commitment to her. There’s no question Bill’s departure will leave a hole, but he has Susie’s and my deepest respect and admiration for his decision to stay and do what is best for his family.”

Said General Manager Tom Telesco: “His accomplishments go well beyond what he did in the PR department. Bill is as fine a person, husband and father I have ever been around. And no one has more passion for this team than he does. I can’t thank him enough for the work and guidance he has provided for me the last four years.”

Johnston is unsure his final day with the Chargers.

He is unsure his next job, the next San Diego office to which he’ll deliver donuts on Fridays. Maybe it is the old baseball player in him, but along with the people, he is certain he’ll miss most the Sunday atmosphere of a winning locker room.

Yet, he finds peace.

He knows his first Friday delivery stop, the place his wife has lived for nearly the past decade, will remain. Wherever he works, he knows he’ll find comfort in the belief that while he’s in the office, Ramona is there, receiving the best possible care.

San Diego is home for her.

San Diego is home for him.