Rams : In His Travels, Mel Owens Gives Even the Bulls the Runaround

Some Rams have grumbled about having to make such a long trip for an exhibition game that will likely be a short memory.

But to linebacker Mel Owens, this trip is another glorious page in his travelogue, more golden moments through customs, another stamp on his passport.

“A civilized New York,” Owens calls London.

No one was about to argue with one who has dined in Rio and Soho, rickshawed through Hong Kong, floated down the Amazon, tangoed in Thailand, been silly in Chile and danced the floors of Ecuador.

Owens, 28, hopes to write it all down some day, the way Ernest Hemingway did. And he may well begin his book by recalling Pamplona, Spain, a setting for one of Hemingway’s novels.

While the famous author was intent on capturing moments, Owens, the semi-famous outside linebacker, seems intent on living them.

Which takes us back to July 6, 1987, and Pamplona, and the festival of San Fermin. And Mel Owens.

“Hemingway never actually ran with the bulls,” Owens said. “He just kind of ran from bar to bar.”

Owens, joined as always by Garrett Giemont, faithful world companion and team strength coordinator, was determined to run with the bulls.

First, though, it would necessitate a history lesson. Well before his date with destiny, Owens carefully read Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” which romanticizes the legendary bull runs through the streets of Pamplona.

Owens not only read the book, he studied it as an actor preparing for a role.

“San Fermin was a missionary 600 years ago,” Owens said. “Legend has it he died and then came back. They celebrate his return on the sixth day of July.

“When Hemingway committed suicide, he did it on July 6, at noon. He shot himself in the head. The festival starts at noon with the firing off of cannons. He coincided his suicide with the running of the bulls.”

Owens and Giemont arrived in Pamplona the night before the festival. The streets were jammed so tight with people that Owens reported “there wasn’t a breath of fresh air.”

Owens and Giemont had no place to sleep but were befriended by a 12-year-old boy named Miguel, who invited the Rams into his home.

With six days of bull running ahead, Owens decided it would be best to observe the action on the first day and plot a strategy.

“It took the bulls two minutes to run the three-quarters of a mile,” he said. “They’re going about 30 m.p.h. We’re going about 6. The first day, 17 people were hurt, but there were no gorings that day.

“I was scared to run. I was relieved we didn’t run the first day. I saw the madness. But we’d come 10,000 miles to run with the bulls, so we were going to run.”

Owens awoke the next morning and fought his way through the thousands who had poured into the streets.

“Ninety-eight point six percent of these people are really messed up,” Owens said. “They’ve been drinking all night. They’ve had no sleep.”

Owens insisted that he was not messed up.

He was, though, pushed rudely by a policeman who was trying to clear the streets. Owens retaliated with an “accidental” forearm shiver once the bulls were released.

Owens remembers the rush to his head when the cannon fired, signaling the release of the bulls, which are funneled from a pen through the tight streets of the city before finally, sometimes violently, reaching the bullfight stadium.

Owens wore the traditional dress of the run--white pants and shirt with a red sash and a bandanna.

“I added my own accessory, a red hat,” Owens said. “I slipped in and got in front of all the madness. I ran for about 300 yards and then ducked out, right before the bulls started coming.

“You can’t see them but you know, you can feel them. You run and look back, run and look back. They were close enough, believe me. Everyone was getting gored. Thirty-six people were hurt, four died. It wasn’t a good day for the runners.”

Owens doesn’t try to explain the ancient ritual, which has become an integral part of a city’s culture.

“They even have a little-bull run so all the little boys can also endanger their lives,” he said. “They had canceled the little-bull run, but then everyone started protesting--moms, dads, kids--so they had the little-bull run. The people love it.

“I mean, 600 years they’ve been running. It’s the damnedest thing you’ve ever seen. Some guys run every single day. They can’t wait to run.”

Owens said he never really considered the danger. He said you can’t understand what it’s like until you do it. He also said that Ram owner Georgia Frontiere and Coach John Robinson both knew of his plans to run and did not object.

“Georgia told me to wear my jersey,” Owens said.

But even Owens agreed that he was in way over his head.

“Not until you’re there do you know the severity of what’s about to happen,” he said. “They put up the pictures of the day before of people who were gored, and you say, ‘Oh, my God, this is crazy.’

“I was scared, frightened for my life. You can be out of the bull’s way and he can turn on you and gore you. Nothing’s predetermined. You’ve got to be skillful, lucky or both.

“I was a little of both. I got out in front, where I belong. I was one of the fastest runners there. One of the bulls, Toro the Tremendous, he must have gored seven people. He’s a monster.”

But, of course, there was reward.

“It was probably the best time I’ve had traveling,” he said.

For now, Owens has returned to a life of stopping human bulls coming out of the backfield. Somehow, though, the National Football League will never seem quite the same for a linebacker and his strength trainer.

If there is a better adventure out there waiting to happen, Mel Owens is ready.

He has already lined up a trip to Nicaragua for next year. It seems that Miguel’s father in Spain was once a missionary in now war-torn Nicaragua and knows officials in the Sandanista government. Owens wants to determine for himself whether the United States should be backing the contras.

“I’m no mercenary,” Owens said. “I’d just go there as a guest. I’d just like to go and groove in the rubble, just see what’s happening. Hey, if it’s safe and on the up-and-up, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

Owens’ life seems to be full of those.

“It’s just like running with the bulls,” he said. “You don’t meet many people who run with the bulls. You just don’t do it.”

Owens said he would one day like to return to Spain. This time, though, as a spectator.

“You know, I’d go back, but this time I’d do the cafe scene,” he said. “I’d be like Hemingway, maybe write my own book.”

He could call it “Mel Owens’ Wild Kingdom.”

Ram Notes

Speaking of Mel Owens, he strained his back during practice this week and is questionable for Sunday’s exhibition game against the Denver Broncos. If he can’t make it, Kevin Greene will take his spot. . . . Kicker Mike Lansford, who had to return home earlier in the week to take care of personal business, is back in London and will play Sunday. . . . Missing from Thursday’s practice were Coach John Robinson and guard Dennis Harrah, who were guest speakers at a U.S. Air Force Base. . . . Perhaps the biggest surprise of training camp so far is safety Michael Stewart, the team’s eighth-round draft choice from Fresno State. “He can really play,” Fritz Shurmur, defensive coordinator, said.