Anaheim Hillbilly? : Defensive Back Jerry Gray, the Rams’ Top Draft Choice, Is Hoping He Can Strike It Rich
Jerry Gray has noticed on his brief visits to Los Angeles that it isn’t much like his hometown of Lubbock, Tex., most famous for cattle and Red Raider football at Texas Tech.
“I love California,” Gray says.
Lubbock, of course, once inspired a country music lyric: “Happiness is Lubbock in my rear-view mirror.”
Gray hedges. “I won’t say that, because I want to get my mom a home there.”
But he long has aspired to improving his standard of living, which may explain the nickname.
“Ever since I was in elementary school, they called me Jed,” Gray said.
It came from the character Buddy Ebsen played in “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
“I like to watch ‘em,” Gray said. “I still watch ‘em when they come on the cable in Austin, every single day, from 8:30 until 9.
“It’s because of the type of people they are. They’re not really big-city people--and you can see that--but they want to fit in.”
And, oh, does Jed Gray want to fit in.
A defensive back out of the University of Texas and the Rams’ first-round draft choice, Gray already has a 1985 Porsche.
“I’m renting to buy,” Gray said. “We worked it out at the bank after the draft.”
The first payment will be due when he signs a Ram contract, which probably will be worth more than $1 million over four or five years.
“I don’t see a difficult time (reaching an agreement),” Gray said. “The way I love the game, I’m gonna try to get as much money as I can, but I don’t want to be sitting out because I don’t think you should start off like that.”
Already, however, Gray’s agent, Calvin Guidry, has advised him not to participate in the Rams’ volunteer spring drills and risk an injury that could weaken their bargaining position.
Gray wouldn’t mind taking that chance.
“If you’re an incoming guy and you have to go up against guys like Gary Green and LeRoy Irvin at the corners here, you have to get out there as soon as you can to be learning, because if you don’t learn, someone else will,” Gray said.
He was in one workout, in fact, that Guidry didn’t know about.
“I had a chance to cover Henry Ellard,” Gray said. “The first play, the coach sent him on a fly pattern. I was about five yards behind. I didn’t come out of my back-pedal soon enough. I knew he was fast, but I didn’t know how fast he was.
“That’s why I really want to come in, because there are a lot of coverages and different terminology I don’t know anything about.”
But Gray can only fidget while Guidry negotiates with John Shaw, the Rams’ vice president in charge of finance.
“I’ve talked with him,” said Guidry, who met Shaw for lunch one day while in Los Angeles on other business. “We haven’t got down to specifics. I don’t consider him an adversary. We think alike on a lot of things.”
The United States Football League is no longer competing for talent--Gray said he has hardly heard from San Antonio, which has his territorial rights--so National Football League clubs figure to be more difficult to deal with this year.
Guidry said: “We want to see what’s going on with the other guys (first-round picks). We may have to set some precedents.”
One thing Gray has going for him is a desire for contact. “I love to hit,” he said.
That’s good for him, because if the NFL reduces its roster limit from 49 to 45, as expected, more first-line players will be required to play on special teams.
“I would love to be on kickoff teams, punt teams,” Gray said.
He can practically count on it. Coach John Robinson is switching Gray from free safety to cornerback, but does not plan to start him immediately.
“He’s one of those marvelous physical specimens,” Robinson said of the 6-1, 185-pound Gray. “He’s well built--tall, like (Ram free safety) Johnnie Johnson.”
Gray’s 40-yard time is 4.4 seconds. In high school he ran 200 meters in 21.3, and a leg on the 1,600-meter relay in 46 seconds flat.
Ram Notes
Quarterback Vince Ferragamo, whom Coach John Robinson decided to trade when Dieter Brock signed, is in Buffalo to try out for Bill Coach Kay Stephenson today. Stephenson coached the Ram quarterbacks under Chuck Knox when Ferragamo was a rookie in 1977. He said the clubs haven’t discussed terms of a possible trade, pending the tryout. . . . Even if Ferragamo signs with the Bills, his annual golf tournament benefiting the Special Olympics will be held June 4 at Los Coyotes in Buena Park, organizers said.