Norwood Vann: Special Breed of Football Player : As Rams’ Special-Teams Leader, He Pursues a Literally Dizzying Game Plan

It’s a great life, being a special-teams player in the National Football League.

Sometimes after a game you can even count how many fingers the trainer is holding in front of your face.

Of course, some days you can’t.

Last year, after a road win against Tampa Bay, the Rams’ plane landed back in Los Angeles.

Norwood Vann, the Rams’ main special-teams man, was sketchy on a few details.

“I said, ‘Doc, are we ready to take off for the game,’ ” Vann recalled. “He said we had already landed from coming back from the game.”

Yes, you’ve really got to love a game to be willing to forget it so often.

“I’ve been knocked out four or five times,” said Vann, counting the KO in Tampa Bay. “Now, knocked dizzy . . . well, that’s an everyday occurrence, an occupational hazard.”

Vann is in his third season with the Rams. You may have noticed him from time to time, running off the field after a big play with all the restraint of someone dancing bare-foot on a bed of hot coals.

“Excitable boy,” they all say about Norwood.

Last Sunday, Vann recovered a fumbled punt by New England’s Irving Fryar in the second quarter.

Vann took the ball, ran a few steps and spiked it with such ferocity that he lost his balance and could only escape embarrassment by doing a somersault.

Vann recovered two fumbles against the Patriots. It was almost too much for his heart to take.

“If I ever get into the end zone, there’s no telling what I’ll do,” Vann said.

No question, you’ve got to be a little weird to play special teams. You need an emotional, crazy, masochistic side to you. You’ve got to fully enjoy running head-on, full speed, into people who are sometimes bigger and faster than you are.

“It’s kind of frightening,” Vann said of running downfield on an NFL kickoff. “The guys are so strong and fast. The impact is tremendous. It’s the immovable object and the irresistible force. It’s like a melt-down.”

You’ve got to be a wide-eyed wild man who doesn’t mind bruising his cerebellum every now and then. You’ve got to do what no self-respecting human being would ever do on a Sunday afternoon.

In this profession, you’ve got to live with the frustration of beating your man on punt coverage only to find the ball landing in the hands of some whippet like Atlanta’s Billy (White Shoes) Johnson.

“He put a move on me once that I know is going to make the highlight film,” Vann said. “He stopped, and I ran straight by him.”

To make it in this business, you’ve got to be like Norwood Vann, probably the best suicide-squad player the Rams have to offer.

You’ve got to be strange enough--and Vann is--to wrap a red bandanna replica of the Japanese flag around your head at practice.

Kamikaze squad. Get it?

“The only difference is that I’m always coming back,” Vann said.

You also have to adjust your cultural tastes in art and music.

“There are a lot of guys who listen to AC-DC on special teams,” Vann said. You also have to enjoy what you’re doing even when nobody else does.

“No one seems to watch us,” Vannsaid. “It’s like intermission. It’s like ‘They’re kicking, let’s go get a beer.’ ”

Vann, a linebacker by trade from East Carolina, would love to get off special teams and into the starting lineup.

But that isn’t the reality of the moment. So Vann, who plays with the enthusiasm of a 6-year-old, straps on his helmet each week and prepares himself for an afternoon of concrete-wall crashing.

Vann, the man the Rams call Woody, is on every Ram special team; kickoff, kickoff return, punt, punt return and field goals.

He moves to the call of “Third down!” for he knows fourth down and the punt team can’t be far behind.

Some men dream of Sunday afternoons at the park, of lakes and picnics.

Vann’s idea of a great time is to be buried underneath a pile of sweaty players, all of whom are fighting for a fumble.

“I like trying to pull it away from guys,” he said. “Special teams is a war, like modern-day gladiators.”

On one of last week’s fumble recoveries, Vann said he didn’t have the ball at first.

“It exchanged hands at least two times,” Vann said, smiling.

Vann’s enthusiasm is hard not to notice.

Sometimes Ram Coach John Robinson has to restrain Vann from cheerleading too much on the sideline.

The problem is that Vann just can’t help it. He’s always been a foot-stomping, hand-slapping, I’m-screaming-if-I-recover-a-fumble guy.

“In the pros, there’s not the enthusiasm that there is in college,” Vann said. “Some of it (enthusiasm) seems too rehearsed.”

Vann remembers a time during his rookie season with the Rams when his enthusiasm overwhelmed him.

‘My first game, I was so hyper that by halftime I was drained,” he said. “I had no energy.”

Of course, these days he is always under control, the picture of composure. For that he has been tabbed by a small but loyal group of Ram fans at Anaheim Stadium as the wild man.

Vann can relate.

“I think they were special teams guys in high school,” he said of his following. “You know, not quite good enough to play, so they were on suicide squad. It’s fun, to hear them talking. I makes me say, yeah, I guess they do notice me.”

Being on special teams isn’t such a bad job after all.

“How many guys can go down, knock a guy’s clock off and it’s a legal thing to do . . . on a Sunday . . . when everybody’s watching?”

Life is good.

Ram Notes Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Assn., visited Rams Park Thursday and met with the team after practice. This was a stop on the NFLPA’s second sweep through the league. The main topic of discussion was the NFL’s free-agency issue, which figures to be the key negotiating topic when the current collective bargaining agreement expires in August. . . . Ram guard Dennis Harrah has a slight ligament strain in his left knee but is expected to play Sunday against New Orleans. Harrah injured the knee in last Sunday’s loss to New England. “The knee brace saved me for the second time this year,” Harrah said. . . . Safety Tim Fox, who was presumed to be out of Sunday’s game against the Saints with a thigh injury, is making progress and may play, Coach John Robinson said. . . . Tight end Tony Hunter will miss his fifth straight game with a shin injury, meaning, of course, that the Rams should have put him on injured reserve.