Former Ram Executive : Nagel Is Alive and Well in Hawaii-and Has One Question

Whatever happened to Ray Nagel?

You know the name, you say, but you can’t quite place it.

Here are a few clues: blond, handsome, personable, articulate, intelligent.

Need more help?

Football, L.A. Rams, executive.

Oh yeah, you say, he’s the guy who Georgia Frontiere gave some big position to. What did he do?

Don’t feel bad if you can’t remember. Nobody seemed to know what he was doing even while he was on the job.

Nagel came to the Rams as a savior in January of 1983 to put Georgia’s house in order.

Unfortunately, in February of ‘83, another savior arrived in the form of Coach John Robinson. Only one savior to a team, even one as messed up as the Rams were at the time.

But Nagel hung around for a little more than a year as an executive vice president before quietly agreeing to a financial settlement on the remaining two years of his three-year contract.

And today, at age 58, he’s back in Hawaii, where he had been athletic director at the University of Hawaii since 1976 before coming to Anaheim.

He sounds happy and why not? Since June of ‘84, he has been a corporate development officer for the Bank of Hawaii, for whom he also does community relations work. He is also an official with the Aloha Bowl, an event he helped found. He is involved in team selection for the game, the formation of radio and television packages and general promotion. And he finds time to play plenty of golf and tennis.

“I like it here,” Nagel said by phone from his home in Oahu.

Nagel said he had received some feelers about sports jobs, but added: “It would have to be some spectacular offer and then maybe I would look into it. You can never say never on anything. Anything is possible. But I enjoy what I’m doing right now. It fits into my life style real well. This is a nice place to consider as a base.”

Nagel’s wife, Shirley, and four of his five children are with him on the islands, two involved in sports. Daughter Nancy, 32, is a high school tennis teacher and son Bruce, 30, is a teaching pro.

The senior Nagel has a long background in sports. An honorable mention All-American quarterback at UCLA,, he became, at age 29, head football coach at Utah where the highlight was a trip to the Liberty Bowl. From there, he moved on to Iowa as head coach, to Washington State where he was athletic director, to Hawaii, and finally to Georgia (the owner, not the school).

Nagel was hired as the Rams’ general manager. That meant he would handle three basic areas--football, negotiations and the day-to-day operations. When Robinson came in, he took over the football side. John Shaw was already doing the negotiating. The Rams had Dick Beam and Jack Faulkner handling the day-to-day operations.

No Ram official would comment on Nagel, and when asked about his experience with the Rams, Nagel had a terse “no comment.”

But he hasn’t been able to divorce himself totally from his past.

As a reporter prepared to end the telephone conversation, Nagel had a question.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Is (Eric) Dickerson going to sign?”