Nicest Kid on the Brock : Little Lou Takes After His Dad

You might say Little Lou is a chip off the old Brock. Lou Brock--the father--was skinny and fast, always remembered your first name and always gave you and your kid his autograph. Lou Brock--the son--is just as skinny, just as fast and has never met a fan he didn’t pamper. The other day, some guy got lost on the UC San Diego campus here, and Little Lou gave him directions to the freeway.

“Take care of yourself,” Little Lou told the man. “And if there’s ever anything I can do . . . “

The two Lous are two peas in a pod. The only difference is that Big Lou stole bases, and Little Lou steals passes.

Little Lou, 23, looks as if he should be stealing bases, too. His playing weight at USC was 175 pounds, but now he’s not a shade over 167, and he has been as low as 163 during this year’s Charger training camp. The day he weighed in at 163, he got on the scale wearing thongs. Wayne Davis, a teammate who has since been traded to Buffalo, said: “Hell, Lou. Take off those thongs, and you’ll weigh in the 150s.”

Somehow, word got back to the Charger coaches that Little Lou weighed 157 (though it wasn’t true), and Ron Lynn, the defensive coordinator, said he got a little paranoid. But Lou assured everyone he weighed in the 160s and was eating two steaks a night. Not to worry, he said.

Still, Charger coaches still wonder if Little Lou, drafted in the second round as a cornerback, can hit. Funny, but his baseball coaches used to wonder the same thing.

“He’s frail,” Coach Al Saunders said of Brock this week.

So far in this exhibition season, Brock hasn’t proven he can catch. Against the Rams, he dropped an interception that would have thwarted Los Angeles’ game-winning drive. And against the 49ers, he tipped a long pass that eventually fell into the arms of wide receiver Tony Hill to set up the game-securing touchdown.

“I’ve got a bad case of the bad lucks,” Brock explained.

To be honest, Little Lou admits he’s a little small to be wearing a chin strap for a living. Before training camp, he was home in St. Louis, eating dinner with Big Lou, 48, and his two little brothers (8-year-old Danny and 9-year-old Emory), and Big Lou remembers explaining to Danny and Emory why Little Lou was leaving for San Diego.

“He’s gonna be a defensive back for the Chargers,” Big Lou said.

“What’s that mean, Daddy?” Emory asked.

“Emory,” Big Lou said, “that means when Walter Payton gets by the linemen and linebackers, Lou has to stop him.”

“Hey, Lou!” Emory screamed to his older brother. “You’re gonna get creamed, man!”

So we ask the inevitable question: Why in the world didn’t Little Lou play baseball like Big Lou? Part of it stems from the identity theory. Does it always have to be like father, like son? Little Lou chose his own path, not a basepath.

“Yeah, there was a time when I wanted to stay away (from baseball) and create my own identity,” Little Lou says now. “But I never took it as a negative thing. A lot of people say I wanted to be my own man and that’s why I chose football. Truth is, football has provided more of a vehicle, just because of the way society is set up. I wasn’t offered baseball scholarships. Schools offered me football scholarships and just expected me to play baseball, too.

“The Expos drafted me out of high school. I could have gone to baseball, but if you don’t make it, what else do you have to fall back on? A high school education? Football’s more practical.”

In a sense, it doesn’t seem practical for Little Lou to be tackling Walter Payton, either. At USC, he tackled with his hands and his head, but Lynn has advised him to dive and use his body to make a tackle. It’s either that or injured reserve.

“Yeah, I’m probably more suited for baseball,” Little Lou admits. “. . . But, you know, Greg Luzinski was more suited for football, and he played baseball.”

Big Lou saw this coming a long time ago. Big Lou, as a St. Louis Cardinal outfielder, helped lead his team to the 1967 World Series championship and also is baseball’s all-time stolen base leader. In 1974, Big Lou stole a then-record 118 bases.

Little Lou was there.

In fact, Little Lou hung around the clubhouse daily. The one thing he remembers about those early World Series days was pitcher Bob Gibson spanking him.

“You know why?” Big Lou says. “It’s because he used to walk up and kick Gibson as hard as he could. Gibson would turn around and kick him back.”

The point is, Little Lou spent so much time around a big league clubhouse that he took the sport for granted. According to Big Lou, Little Lou was so good so early that he got bored with it all. And by playing football, there were homecoming dances and so forth. High school baseball games, meanwhile, were attended by mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and hardly anybody else.

“They didn’t have homecoming baseball games,” Big Lou points out.

Big Lou and Little Lou didn’t live in the same home. When Little Lou was 9, his mom and dad were divorced, and Little Lou lived with his mom, so he had to deal with the Brock image without his dad. Still, Big Lou rubbed off on him. Little Lou says he never remembers his dad turning down an autograph request.

“Well,” says Big Lou, “there’s two ways to get through a crowd: Smash through it or tiptoe through it. Tiptoeing is easier. Fewer headaches.”

Little Lou tiptoes, too.

At USC, Little Lou had a great senior season. He led the team with four interceptions, scored a touchdown, blocked a punt, had a 58-yard punt return and made 42 solo tackles. But he hurt his shoulder in the Hula Bowl, and some scouts wondered about its severity. So, Big Lou took Little Lou to the Mayo Clinic for a complete physical. The doctors gave him a clean bill of health and wrote a letter to that effect. Big Lou made copies of the letter and sent one to nearly every National Football League team.

Then, Big Lou found a public relations firm. This firm, Lapin and Rose in Los Angeles, put together what they call a “packet,” explaining to all NFL teams that drafting Little Lou Brock wouldn’t be such a risk. First of all, you had the letter from the Mayo Clinic, and second, the public relations firm listed a number of players who were Lou’s size (5-10 and about 170 pounds) and who had made it big in the NFL.

Jackie Lapin, the public relations director, also spent time with Lou, filling him in on the best way to answer questions. After the 49er game, Lou initially said: “I had a good game.” But he immediately caught himself and said: “Uh, I take that back. That sounds too arrogant. Let’s just say, ‘In my opinion, I had a good game.”

During rookie camp, he and about 10 other rookies gathered in an elevator near the Charger offices. The only non-player in the elevator was Rick Smith, the Charger public relations director, and no one said a word to Smith but Little Lou.

He stuck out his hand and said: “Hi, I’m Lou Brock. How are you?”

During training camp, he has been a delight.

Little Lou says when he was in line for lunch one day, he began telling a series of stories to receivers coach Charlie Joiner:

“Hey, Charlie. I’m so fast, I once hit a line drive up the middle and it hit me in the head as I slid into second.

“Hey, Charlie. I came up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth once, and they walked me intentionally so they’d lose by one instead of four.

“Hey, Charlie. I was doing the high jump once, and I made a perfect takeoff and cleared the bar by two inches. But when I landed, the judge came over and said, ‘Son, this is the pole vault. The high jump pit is over there.

“Hey, Charlie. I hit a ball so hard once to dead center field that it landed at home plate an inning later.”

Well, it took Joiner a few minutes to realize Little Lou was just joking.

“Yeah, I tell those jokes just to get other people to relax around here,” Little Lou says. “But, man, it’s gotten to the point where I need to hear some jokes myself.”

Little Lou is convinced he’s struggling. He says he worries about getting cut, even though Charger coaches say that’s unlikely. He says he has never had so many injuries before. He has had a sore knee to contend with besides his shoulder. He says he has to “do a John Wayne” sometimes.

“Doing a John Wayne means playing with pain,” he says.

His shoulder injury has prevented him from lifting weights, and Little Lou says that’s why his weight is down. He admits he would be feeling a lot bigger if he had made those interceptions against the Rams and 49ers.

Cynics say he would have made the catches had he worn a mitt.