Blocking Is Old Hat for Newberry : Rams: For an offensive lineman, All-Pro guard gets a lot of attention.

Tom Newberry, a 200-pound high school fullback who learned to pass-block at Wisconsin La Crosse, was named to another Pro Bowl by his NFL peers a couple of weeks ago. Then the nation’s media made him an Associated Press All-Pro again.

And as the Rams’ playoff adventures continue, television commentators are helping transform the fourth-year guard into some sort of tough-guy cult hero. You can’t watch a Ram game without hearing about the time Newberry knocked out four guys in under three minutes during a winner-take-all brawl-a-thon that resembled boxing only because it was staged in a ring.

If the Rams advance to the Super Bowl, Newberry undoubtedly will have expended more energy recounting his two nights of prize-fighting glory than he did decking those four guys.

In any case, it appears Newberry is plenty tough enough for the NFL. He’s a bit small--6 feet 1 7/8 inches, to be exact--for an offensive lineman, but when it comes to holding rampaging pass rushers at bay and blasting holes in defensive lines, few do it better.

And he certainly hasn’t wasted any time entrenching himself among the league’s elite in the trenches. Today, when the Rams meet the New York Giants in their NFC divisional playoff game at Giants Stadium, Newberry will be making his 62nd start in the 64 games the Rams have played since drafting him in the second round in 1986.

On Feb. 4, he will be in Honolulu, making his second consecutive Pro Bowl appearance. And he will surely be a consensus All-Pro for the second year in a row. After just four seasons, Newberry has built a reputation as one of the league’s finest offensive linemen, playing a position that is difficult to master quickly. Like quarterbacks, offensive linemen usually require seasons of experience to become adroit at the intricacies of their jobs.

So how did a guy who’s too small and attended a too-small school on a small academic scholarship make such a big hit in the big time?

Probably because he’s small, smart, and that little college’s football program never abbreviated when it came to the fundamentals.

Oh yeah, lest we forget, Tom Newberry is a real tough guy.

WHO’S THE LITTLE ONE?

Former Ram guard Dennis Harrah and his wife, Teresa, are proud parents of a one-week-old baby boy, Blake Edward, eight pounds, 12 ounces.

“We would’ve named him Tom,” Harrah said, “but he was too tall. Heck, the kid was four hours old and he was taller than Newberry.”

Harrah is 3,000 miles away from Ram Park, home on the range of his West Virginia farm, but he still never misses a chance at taking a short shot in Newberry’s direction.

“He’s so small, he’s only six inches taller than a reporter,” Harrah said.

The Rams call Newberry “Weebles,” after the childrens’ toy, small pear-shaped characters who have no arms or legs.

No arms? Newberry has the wingspan of a man who’s 6-foot-7, and at 285 pounds, he can still dunk a basketball with two hands.

No legs? The man’s thighs look like columns on the steps of a building in Rome. He pulled his hamstring while water-skiing in Florida last summer, and it’s a good thing it didn’t snap. Someone could have been killed.

“We give him a hard time about being the shortest guy on the line,” said Jim Everett, Newberry’s roommate on the road, “but he’s got a combination of great leverage and great strength.”

Harrah said Newberry is built like “a swollen spider monkey,” but the Ram guard looks more like a bear than any other animal in the forest. And when he walks by, you get the urge to climb the nearest tree.

“Actually, I guess he’s perfect for what he’s doing,” Harrah said. “His arms hang on down below his knees and his head will meet most people right in their chest. Perfect for what he does for a living.”

Newberry said he was always powerful for his size, even when he was an 180-pound, 6-1, 14-year-old at Onalaska High School in Onalaska, Wis.

“I was always in three or four sports and I wasn’t really that big, but I was always pretty strong for my size,” he said. “And I always ran well.”

His extended reach helped him in high school basketball games. Now, it’s helping him reach the heights as a guard in the NFL.

“It helps to have long arms when you’re pass-blocking,” he said. “You can lock out on people and keep them away from you. That’s one of the main problems of being short. If you don’t have real long arms, people can get to your body on the pass rush.”

Everett thinks Newberry is doing just fine at keeping things at arm’s length. He points out that he seldom has had to “smell the breath” of anyone Newberry was blocking the past couple of years. So he has no qualms about going out with his roommate for Italian food and getting a bit of garlic on his own breath.

Newberry is a self-made hulk and his passion is pasta.

“The night before the game, we always go somewhere and have Italian food,” Newberry said. “It’s both tradition and superstition now. But you’ve got to get those carbohydrates.”

Newberry is merely maintaining his physique these days. In college, he was building the bulk, and, well, growing boys need nourishment.

“When I was oriented toward gaining weight, I’d eat 10,000 calories a day--fruit, pasta, eggs,” he said. “If I was short at the end of the night, I’d make a shake with a dozen raw eggs in it.”

He gained 90 pounds in four years at Wisconsin La Crosse.

“Tom’s got all the physical potential to be one of the best offensive linemen to ever play the game,” Harrah said. “He’s not only got the potential, he’s hard-headed enough to make it happen.

“I wouldn’t want him to operate on me, I mean he’s no brain surgeon, but he has adapted as quick as anyone in terms of learning his plays and knowing how to get his job done.”

But how smart can a guy be if he drinks a dozen raw eggs before bed?

SMARTER THAN THE AVERAGE BEAR

The Rams picked Newberry after they selected offensive tackle Mike Schad, who has just now found a starting job--with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Until his contract was renegotiated in 1988, Newberry, already a fixture at left guard, was making less money than Schad, who was still considered a “project” by the Rams.

But the Rams knew they were getting a lot of guard for the money from the outset with Newberry. They were so high on the rookie that they traded five-time Pro-Bowl guard Kent Hill to Houston in a deal that gave the Rams the rights to Everett.

Supposedly, Newberry was so impressive in one exhibition game against Denver that the Rams were convinced he could start.

“Dennis (Harrah) took a game off, I played the whole game and played really well, for a rookie anyway,” Newberry said in a matter-of-fact manner. “And that’s when they felt they could afford to trade Kent Hill away.”

Obviously, the Rams were just as impressed with Newberry’s poise and grasp of his assignments as with his considerable physical talents. While others marveled at the country boy’s savvy, Newberry landed in the big leagues and the big city with a yawn.

“I guess I wondered if I’d be able to play in this league,” he said, “but after just a few days in training camp, I knew I could play.

“I started four years in college at guard and I had enough time to learn the position. And the coaching here is really good. They did a good job of getting me ready in training camp.”

With his agent hinting that he might pursue a boxing career, Newberry staged a short holdout during his first training camp, but it hardly retarded his progress.

“I took a playbook home with me when I was holding out,” he said, “and I learned as much as I could every day.”

Former Ram Tom Mack had taken a young Harrah into tow and guided him through his rookie season. Offensive linemen--Harrah calls them “pie faces”--are a close-knit group, and Harrah, in the waning years of his career, wanted to maintain the tradition.

He lifted his wing for Newberry but this bird wasn’t seeking shelter.

“Tom Mack helped me adapt to the surroundings, and I wanted to pass that on before I left,” Harrah said. “You know, coaches are always yelling at you and you have to try to hold it in and not yell back. Things like that.

“But Newberry did most of it on his own,” he said, sounding genuinely disappointed.

Newberry said: “It was an adapt-or-die situation. Sure, there was culture shock, but that was just one more thing I had to ignore. You have to ignore all the outside things.”

So he kept his eyes on the guy across the line of scrimmage and his mind on the business at hand and earned a spot on the most-decorated offensive line in football.

“I think the learning curve in any job is different for different people,” Ram Coach John Robinson said. “And obviously, Tom is a quick study.

“He came in here with great physical tools, balance and explosiveness, and, although his college background wasn’t Division I, I still think he must have had good coaching. The big thing is he got an opportunity to play early. We traded Kent Hill right away and that forced Tom into playing, and that’s when you make progress.

“He’s a smart guy. And he’s a tough guy.”

SUNDAY PUNCHES ON SATURDAY NIGHT

As far as his teammates and much of the rest of the Wisconsin State University Conference were concerned, Tom Newberry could have been crowned the Toughest Man in La Crosse long before they held that contest in 1985.

“Tom was always a bright young man, but he’s also very aggressive,” La Crosse Coach Roger Harring said. “Those two attributes, matched in with the obvious athletic skills, have served him well.

“On Wednesdays during his senior year, he would usually miss practice because he had a class. And when he wasn’t there, a somewhat looser attitude prevailed. But if there was a pro scout around and he came out, you could hear all the chin straps buckle at the same time when they saw Tom run out of the locker room.”

Newberry was all-everything at Wisconsin La Crosse and, not surprisingly, a dominating force on small-college football fields.

“When he’d block people on the pulling-type plays, he’d patty-cake them, knock them clean off their feet and flat on the back of their heads,” Harring said. “He used to watch film and count patty-cakes. He liked that kind of thing.”

Newberry, who worked as a bouncer in a saloon for four years, knew they wouldn’t be playing patty-cake at La Crosse’s downtown civic auditorium that night in March, 1985. He had no real skill--or ambition, for that matter--when it came to boxing, but he entered the town’s Toughest Man contest for a good reason.

“I needed the money,” he said.

Once again, Newberry used his brains before his brawn. He worked a deal with backers of the event. They could use his name to promote the fight, and he got 30 ringside seats worth $20 each.

Two minutes 11 seconds of brawling after the opening round, he picked up another $1,500 for winning the event.

One opponent lasted just seven seconds. The longest bout lasted 1:15. For some reason, the guy got up three times after Newberry knocked him down.

“There were four fights, one on Friday night and three on Saturday night, and I (competed in) a track meet Saturday morning,” he said. “My track coach didn’t like it very much but he knew about it.

“There was no boxing involved. I didn’t let anybody box. I just went right after them.”

Newberry’s preference for seizing the initiative is still helping him these days. He would much rather run-block than pass-block, because he can unleash his aggressive instincts, but he’s satisfied to do his part in helping the Rams win . . . even if they insist on focusing on this wimpy passing game.

“An offensive lineman’s job is totally controlled aggression,” Harrah said, “and a defensive lineman’s is totally uncontrolled aggression. When you play (guard), you have to know when to turn it on and when not to.

“Tom has had a good handle on that since the beginning.”

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A SCHOOL WITH A CITY AFTER ITS NAME

Forget Notre Dame and USC and all those schools in Florida. Want a sure route to the NFL? Well, Wisconsin La Crosse worked for Newberry, and maybe it’s not a fluke.

During his first year in college, Newberry, who was the NCAA Division III shotput and discus champion in 1984 and ‘85, didn’t play football, being content with his career in track and field.

But his track and field coach, Mike Sanders, was also the offensive line coach and talked him into giving football another try.

“Mike was a really, really good strength coach, and I was up to 230 (pounds) by the time I went out for football,” Newberry said. “I started at guard right away.”

But football is not a 24-hours-a-day existence for a player at Wisconsin La Crosse, and maybe less can sometimes yield more in the development of a player.

“Granted, it’s quite unusual for a guy to go from a Division III situation to the NFL,” Harring said, “but we are fundamentally sound here. And a lot of kids come from Division I programs and they’re kind of burned out from all the film sessions and all the constant control of their lives.

“Tom was able to do two sports and develop more fully because of the two sports. I think throwing the shot, discus and hammer helped his overall agility. And I think all the different competitive situations he’s been in have helped him prepare for a career in the NFL.”

Clearly, Newberry popped up in the NFL well-equipped to knock ‘em down and throw ‘em around, yet mature enough to turn down the intensity level when he is away from the field.

Just don’t get in his way if he’s headed for the noodle section at the supermarket. The guy is one tough customer.