SAN DIEGO _ Courtney Hall is still sticking his neck out, while knowing the hits are coming.
Twenty-five years since he played center in the Super Bowl _ for the lone San Diego team to get that far _ the 51-year-old Hall is plunging into the mosh pit that's U.S. national politics.
The former Chargers center and captain said he's joined the campaign of Michael R. Bloomberg, a presidential candidate.
Wait a minute.
Hall is a longtime Republican.
Bloomberg is a Democrat.
"Go figure, right?" Hall said by phone this week. "Go figure."
Hall said he still respects certain red-team policies, and praised GOP leaders such as the late John McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
"But," he said of joining a blue-team ground game, "I'm a Bloomberg Democrat. I'm all for Mike."
Hall lives in New York City, where Bloomberg was mayor.
The candidate, said the former Bolts pivot man, calls to mind Bobby Ross, the coach who took the Chargers to the Super Bowl in his third season. Playoff victories against a pair of future Hall of Fame coaches, Don Shula and Bill Cowher of the Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers, respectively, sent the Boss Ross Bolts to Super Bowl XXIX in Miami.
"Bobby Ross had a plan," said Hall, who began his NFL career with San Diego in 1989. "He knew what we were going to do, he got the right people around him and he was able to effectively execute the plan."
Bloomberg is a self-described "data nerd" who created and ran a financial data services firm.
Hall, who manages a venture capital firm based in New York, said NFL teams succeed through organization and understanding and applying data.
