Mike Chismar, the ASU Associate Athletic Director for Operations and Facilities, said he started to hear the rumors Sunday afternoon as he sat in the south end zone of Sun Devil Stadium watching the Cardinals-49ers game.
Different staff members visited and called Chismar, asking if the Monday Night Football game featuring the San Diego Chargers and the Miami Dolphins might possibly be moved. The early word was Sun Devil Stadium was the front-runner of all potential sites.
As the game clock ticked down and overtime started, the rumors got louder and louder. Finally, Chismar heard word officially at 8 p.m. in his office that the game would be moved to Tempe.
"Within a short period of time, we made a decision that [taking the game] is something we wanted to do," Chismar said. "We wanted to do this to help the NFL and help the city of San Diego."
Qualcomm Stadium, the home of the Chargers, has been used as a major hub for evacuations during the wildfires that have ravaged the San Diego area, making it impossible for the city to host an NFL game.
Other possible sites for the game included 3Com Park in San Francisco and Seahawks Stadium in Seattle, but the NFL's decision was an easy one: Tempe was just a few hours away from San Diego by car, and the officiating crew from the previous Cardinals game was still in town.
"I had our staff contact those staff members that were still here cleaning up from the Cardinals game and tell them that there was a 99 percent chance this was going to happen," Chismar said.
From ASU's perspective, Monday's game means that over an eight-day period, Sun Devil Stadium will have hosted four games, with the Chargers-Dolphins game being the second. The staff at the stadium is typically used in back-to-back games since the Cardinals and Sun Devils share the facility.
This coming week, ASU will play against California on Saturday, and the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Cardinals the following day to end the eight-day marathon on the hybrid Bermuda grass.
"To have four games in our facilities ... is not about the dollars but about the tax it puts on people," ASU athletic director Gene Smith said. "These people are doing an unbelievable job to accommodate possibly 70,000 [people]."
Like any other typical home game for the Chargers, their giant logo was painted in the end zones. Chismar said the Chargers were thinking of sending their stencil for the design, but with time a factor, the Sun Devil Stadium workers decided to take matters into their own hands.
"[Groundskeepers] went out, pulled it up on the Internet, did a trace of it and did it freehand," Chismar said.
All extra expenses that come from the game will be billed to the Chargers and the NFL.
There has been concern over whether the field would need to be resodded after the extended play, a problem Smith said would be completely taken care of by the school.
"The field, no question by next Monday, will be different," Smith said. "We'll probably be in a position where we might have to make a change on that. But that is something we will deal with. That is not something that will go back to the NFL or San Diego. We are not here to make money on this game. We are here ... to help our partners in the NFL and help San Diego."
Reach the reporter at jeffrey.hoodzow@asu.edu.
