This Time He’ll Be Playing, Not Watching : Rams’ Irvin Will Get Better View of Pro Bowl

An admitted football fanatic, he and a pal have made an annual ritual of going to the Pro Bowl, hanging around the players during the week, and partying outside Aloha Stadium prior to the game.

There’ll be a difference today, though. He’s going to play in the Pro Bowl.

“Right up there is where we usually sit,” said Rams cornerback LeRoy Irvin, pointing to the stands where he and a friend, business executive Bob Duff, have watched the National Football League All-Star game in past years.

“Bob told me at the last Pro Bowl that next year, I’d be playing in the game. I didn’t believe it.”

After a 1985 campaign in which he had six interceptions and defensed a team-high 22 passes, Irvin was voted by his fellow NFL players to the National Football Conference All-Star squad.

“I can’t believe I finally made it,” he said. “I’ve been in the league six years and two of those years I thought maybe I should have made it.

“I was disappointed that I hadn’t been picked, and Bob and I decided we’d just come and watch the Pro Bowl. This is my fourth trip over for the game.”

Irvin, the league’s leading punt returner in two of his six NFL seasons, said he enjoyed being a spectator at previous Pro Bowls because “I’m the biggest football fan.”

“I admire these guys so much,” he said. “I’m like a little kid around them. When I came over for the Pro Bowl, I’d go over to the hotel where they were staying and just mingle.

“I got I chance to pretend I was one of them, like a true fan.

“I guess I was sort of lobbying, too,” he said with a grin, “to let them know Leroy Irvin exists so they’d remember me and maybe vote for me to play in the Pro Bowl some day.

“Now, being picked by the other players to be in the game is the ultimate honor.”

Irvin said that, during his years as a visitor to the Pro Bowl, he made a lot of friends with local football fans, and that he really enjoyed the pregame parties in the parking lot.

“We’d go from party to party, eating barbecue,” he said. “The people here are really receptive to the Pro Bowl and to the players. I think they need an NFL team; I think they’d give it good support.

“The people here who know me are excited that they’re finally going to get to see me play in the game. A lot of them have been asking me for sideline passes to get in ... Sorry, guys.

“You know, I’m kind of going to miss the barbecue and everything before the game.”