The 52: Greatest San Diego sports moments – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Anyone with a drop of San Diego sports blood dancing in their veins remembers Jan. 15, 1995. Specifically, they remember three goosebump-inducing words: Dennis Gibson’s deflection.

The Chargers were backed up in the rain-soaked AFC championship game at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium with just a little more than a minute to play and 3 nail-chewing yards left to decide which team would reach the Super Bowl.

On fourth down, quarterback Neil O’Donnell spotted running back Barry Foster in the end zone. As the ball neared, No. 57 washed over the top like a crashing wave, poking the season-altering throw away.

The play that preserved the Chargers’ 17-13 victory is one of the biggest moments in San Diego sports history.

“I’ve played it over and over in my head,” Gibson said this week. “It’s unbelievable to think it’s been 20 years.”

The Union-Tribune is embarking on a year-long journey to relive and rank Gibson’s play and so many of the other snapshots that turned throats hoarse, moistened eyes and stalled hearts. The “52 Greatest Sports Moments in San Diego History” begins today and will continue each Sunday until we exhaust 2016.

The first installment, No. 52, is Mark Zeigler’s account of the 2011 college basketball game played on the USS Carl Vinson. Competition for a spot on the list proved so tough that even a well-connected fan like Pres. Barack Obama — he watched North Carolina and Michigan State dribble across the flight deck that day — failed to crack the Top 50.

Who else found themselves on the outside looking in?

Jimmie Johnson crossing the finish line at Homestead, Fla., in 2013 to capture his sixth NASCAR championship, for one. Florence Chadwick, the San Diego native who became the first women to swim the English Channel in both directions for another.

What about Shawn White, who made the gnarliest of cultures mainstream by winning gold at the Winter Olympics? Other-worldly pitcher Stephen Strasburg striking out 23 batters at San Diego State? Barry Bonds launching a giant asterisk into the air above Petco Park, sparking performance-enhancing drug debate about his 755th homer that tied Hank Aaron?

All in the running, but no.

The list we assembled captured the good, the bad and the bewildering. One contender, for example, might be a rendition of the National Anthem (hint). As in, a bad one (another hint). I mean blood-trickling-out-of-your-ears bad (last hint).

So, debate away — because I know we did. It seemed like we argued our way through 52 versions of our 52-moment list. And that’s the best part of this, really. If your bar stool back-and-forths approach anything close to ours, it will be a fun and fascinating trip.

Challenge us, too. What did we miss? What would you rank higher? Tell us with your comments tagged on stories at www.sandiegouniontribune.com.

The series will touch on far more than the most popular sports like football and baseball, because, well, San Diego’s sports history is profoundly richer than that. There’s golf. There’s boxing. There’s horse racing. There’s track and field.

And there’s Gibson.

Everyone who approaches the former linebacker about that fourth-down play quizzes him on the details that birthed a city’s Super Bowl dream. Fewer recall another dive, two plays earlier, minutes before Dick Enberg barked to a national television audience, “The San Diego Chargers flood the field!”

O’Donnell, marching the Steelers into the heart of the red zone, rifled a ball toward All-Pro tight end Eric Green. Gibson flew through the air, achingly close to hauling in a game-clinching interception as the ball slithered away.

“Green was like the equivalent of (Patriots star Rob) Gronkowski in those days,” he said. “He was so big (6-feet-5, 280 pounds) that they liked to do a basketball move where he’d get into you, then kind of push off — like getting the ball to a big guy in basketball.

“I stayed with it, but it killed me that the ball went through my hands. The ball was so wet. I thought, ‘You blew it. There was the chance to end the game right there.’ It’s funny how things work out.”

Yes. It truly is.