WHEN THEY’RE HOT, THEY’RE HOT : The Fast and The Fat : Ron Brown Came to Rams With Olympian Speed That Has Burned Pass and Kickoff Defenders . . .
Away from football, Ron Brown’s mind sometimes wanders into fantasy.
“I dream about how my life is gonna be,” he said. “Whether it’s a daydream or a night dream, it’s a dream I’d like to live.”
He did that a lot in 1983, the year after he left Arizona State and a year before he signed with the Rams. His whole year was devoted to preparing for the ’84 Olympics.
“It was an everyday training period for me, except on Sundays when I was in church,” Brown said. “I was able to concentrate on just running. I’d set goals for myself, like dreams. I’d dream and then live my dreams. That’s what I was doing just being in the Olympics and now playing for the Rams. I’m living a dream.”
In his dreams it isn’t all gold medals and touchdowns, Brown said.
“Not always. But I never give up. I just keep trying.”
Switch scenes, now, to Anaheim Stadium last Sunday. Brown is on fast-forward with the opening kickoff: 98 yards against the Green Bay Packers. Then, 86 yards. Then, 39 yards with a pass from Dieter Brock.
Once Brown gets the ball, he seems all by himself, running off into another dimension in one of those “Twilight Zone” episodes in which everybody else is in suspended animation.
There are fast guys and faster guys. The Rams claim that Brown is the fastest in football. He has run 40 yards on grass in 4.28 seconds. He also has run a 6.06-second 60, and a 10.06 100 meters. He once beat Carl Lewis in the 100.
“There are a number of sprinters in the league that are just as fast (but) I won’t say faster,” Brown said. “I’d like to one day all line up and find out.”
Somebody tried to promote a series of 60-yard dashes among football’s fastest on the indoor track circuit last winter, but it didn’t work out. Brown was there but the other guys didn’t show up.
Football coaches recruit for size but lust for speed. Opponents fear it more than physical strength.
Lew Erber, who coaches the Ram receivers, said: “The No. 1 ingredient is speed. The most pressure a defensive back can have is the threat of getting beat deep.”
But it isn’t speed alone. The National Football League waiver lists are sprinkled with the names of guys who run like deer but play like Bambi. Brown has more than speed.
Ram Coach John Robinson said: “He has football instincts, and on kickoff returns, obviously, you have to have some vision and some courage. If you have speed alone and lack the other qualities, you don’t get a chance to use it.”
A lot of sprinters turn up in football camps right after Olympic years. Unlike Brown, most soon disappear.
“I’ve been playing football all my life, so I don’t know exactly what it’s like to just run track and then come over to play football,” Brown said. “I couldn’t tell you why they fail. Maybe the lack of experience.”
Bob Hayes was the first world-class runner to become a bona fide football star. He won the 100 in Olympic Games at Tokyo in ‘64, then played nine years with the Dallas Cowboys. He still holds several Cowboy records for pass receiving and punt returning. He finished his career at San Francisco in ‘75, when Erber was the 49ers’ receivers coach.
The 49ers’ other receiver, Gene Washington, may have been the best receiver in the league, Erber said. “But (Washington) wasn’t getting double coverage. Hayes was.
“Hayes and Ron Brown are a lot alike. They’re built the same (Brown is 5-foot-11, 190 pounds), they run hard, their dispositions are similar. Both very coachable, easygoing guys, but very physical and tough.
“That’s the greatest asset they have over other track guys who come out for football. It’s just not natural for (the others) to run into a crowd.”
Brown started playing football at Baldwin Park High School as a running back. Arizona State switched him to defensive back because it had too many good runners, among them Gerald Riggs and Robert Weathers, and a flock of future pro wide receivers.
Not until his senior season did Brown become a receiver, catching 19 passes--5 for touchdowns. Then he missed his first Ram training camp in ’84 because of the Olympics and most of this year’s camp after having arthroscopic knee surgery.
His recovery was so slow that the Rams became concerned.
“He couldn’t run 5-flat,” Robinson said. “It was shocking.”
After the second game at Philadelphia the Rams sent Brown in for tests and learned he had pancreatitis. He missed the next three games, then started his comeback by returning kickoffs, something he hadn’t done since his freshman year at Tempe.
“It gave me an opportunity to get back into a rhythm,” he said.
He leads the NFL with 15 returns for a 36.4-yard average, which puts him eight yards ahead of the next man, and his performance against the Packers earned him the NFC offensive-player-of-the-week honor.
What Brown does on kickoff returns, said Gil Haskell, the Rams’ special teams coach, is to upset the opponents’ angles of pursuit.
“All of a sudden here comes this guy with world-class speed going the other way,” Haskell said.
Brown had a knee injury before the Olympics and finished fourth in the 100 before running a leg on the victorious 400-meter relay team. He would like another shot at a medal in Seoul in ’88 if a current trend to permit pros from other sports to compete is extended to track.
“It looks good,” he said. “But I’m only going to do it if the schedule permits it. I have a job to do here.”
What he means is, he’s a football player first.
Ram Notes Henry Ellard, averaging 14.5 yards on punt returns, not only leads the NFL this season, but his career mark of 13.8 is the best in league history, topping the previous high of 12.78 by George McAfee of the Bears (1940-41, 1945-50). As a team, the Rams are first in punt returns and punt coverage, second in kickoff returns and fourth in kickoff coverage. . . . The Rams signed free agent safety Mark Pembrook from Cal State Fullerton to a 1986 contract. Pembrook was a sixth-round draft choice of the New York Giants.