Harrah Knows Just What Rams Need to Hear Now

Dennis Harrah--retired guard, traveler, statesman ?--is back at Rams Park this week, as welcome a sight as there can be for a team in desperate need of a win and a sense of humor.

Just visiting, Harrah says, which means that awful cackle-laugh of his is here too, as are those chicken legs that support an upper body the size of a major kitchen appliance. With Harrah, his chest first enters a room, followed several minutes later by the rest of his personage.

Harrah played 13 seasons for the Rams, just 2 fewer than anyone else in the team’s history. He was chosen to six Pro Bowl teams, the most recent one in 1987, a season when his injured back prevented him from doing much of anything except wince.

Had he wanted to, Harrah probably could have lasted another year, pocketed another cool half-million or so, maybe nursed his back through 16 regular-season sessions in the land of the behemoths. Instead, Harrah simply quit. When offensive line coach Hudson Houck asked him for a reason, Harrah thought about it for a moment and then, in his best West Virginia drawl said, “I’d like to come back, but my butt kicker is broke.”

Actually, he used another modifier, but you get the idea.

Without knowing it, Harrah may have stumbled onto the reason for the Rams’ recent and mysterious 4-game losing streak: Their blankety-blank kicker is broke.

At times, lots of them, in fact, the Rams’ play has been as stale as a month-old piece of bread. Something, perhaps as intangible as a state of mind, is missing. After all, this is a team with a 3,000-yard passer in quarterback Jim Everett, a 1,000-yard receiver in Henry Ellard, a 1,000-yard rusher-to-be in tailback Greg Bell, a defense that, despite its recent poor play, still leads the league in sacks, two cornerbacks with Pro Bowl credentials and, if you don’t count last Sunday’s loss to the Denver Broncos, a dependable kicking game.

So what’s the problem? No Harrah. Or at least not enough players like Harrah, players willing to do whatever team leaders do.

Mind you, Harrah isn’t criticizing anyone. He praises the Ram offensive line. He says John Robinson was the best coach he had ever played for. He compliments Everett for a job well done.

“I came out here as a friend, not a critic,” Harrah says.

But like everyone else, he has his theories. Harrah, who has been through a losing streak or two, offers a solution so simple that it makes perfect sense.

“The answer is, each individual takes care of himself,” he says. “That’s the only speech you can come up with. This is that speech that you pull out of the file (that reads) Getting Butt Kicked , now what do we say here?

“So that’s all you say, that each individual take care of their job. And if you don’t take care of your job, you might not be here next year. If that doesn’t put enough fear in them to get their butts motivated, then I don’t think you need to say anymore.”

In his own way, Harrah still is part of this team. He helped Everett through the confusing passages of a difficult rookie season. He helped anchor a proud offensive line. He even says, “we” rather than “them” when referring to the Rams. Allegiances die hard.

So does habit. About noon every Sunday, Harrah says his stomach gets this queasy, need-a-Bromo-Seltzer feeling. A thousand Monarchs flutter about. His nerves stand on end. Makes sense: For 13 pro seasons, noon meant that only an hour remained before kickoff.

“There’s a gut, sickening feeling you get before a ballgame,” he says. “That’s the ultimate of your nerves and I still feel that. To be honest with you, I’m glad I don’t have to go do it anymore.”

Harrah has few regrets about his stay in the National Football League. It made him wealthy. It gave him a certain amount of fame. It taught him pride and perseverance.

“I miss the good feelings and I don’t miss any of the bad, which is the pain and losing,” he says. “I don’t like waking up on Monday and it takes until Saturday before the pain stops hurting. But I miss the scoring. Hey, when the ball went into the end zone, it was like I carried. I miss that part. And I miss bragging after a ballgame how great we did, and we probably didn’t do that great. I miss being with the guys and having a couple of cold ones and talking about the ballplayers we slayed. Those laughing stories. Those womanizing stories, things of that nature.

“But now I’m married and I’ve got a kid,” he says. “Now the stories are far and few between. And if there is a story, it’s a whisper.”

Former hell-raiser that he was, Harrah credits his marriage and the birth of his son, Tanner Calvin Harrah, for making the transition from player to civilian. He says he has fewer wants, different priorities. Family comes first. Always family.

“Hey, if that doesn’t change your life, then you shouldn’t have ever got married,” he says. “Then you ought to get yourself a Porsche and hang out at the Red Onion. I’ve seen a lot of 40-year-old men hanging out there, half bald, all that gold on. Hey, they got their Porsche keys hanging around their necks. Yeah, when you’re 40 years old, you gotta have a Porsche because those 20-year-old (women) don’t like driving around in a Comet.”

Harrah returns to West Virginia as soon as he files for workmen’s compensation (back problems from his playing days) and attends the Rams’ Monday night game against the Chicago Bears. When he gets back home, he has an appointment with the new governor. Harrah wants to organize an anti-drug and stay-in-school program for children and teen-agers in the state. He also wants the governor to hire him for the job.

Coaching is out of the question, of course. He tried that at Charleston’s Stonewall Jackson High School as a volunteer assistant and it failed miserably.

“Last year with the Rams we were losers,” he says. “Then I went to help a high school coach and they had the worst record they’ve had in the history of the school. They’d had three state championships in the last 6 years and I go there and it’s the worst record they’ve ever had. So I fired myself as a coach.”

Harrah is safe here, though. And now that he knows his way back west, maybe he’ll visit more often. Say, one day, for the retirement of his jersey number?

“Nah, I wouldn’t want it done,” he says. “I think that would be pushing it a little bit. I mean, have they retired Jack Youngblood’s?”

Uh, no. They retired his jersey, but haven’t officially retired No. 85.

“Well,” Harrah says, “until they retire the Duke’s, how they gonna retire Jerry Lewis’?”

Then he laughs. He laughs that cackle-laugh for what seems like minutes. Such sweet music it is.