Dupree’s Dream a Reality : Rams: Running back signs two-year deal after being out for five years with severe knee injury.

He was a lost cause a few months ago, remembered only for what he might have been and pitied for what he was. He was 50 pounds overweight, depressed and playing semipro baseball, the end result of a dream gone bad.

Only his dream hasn’t ended. Five years after he last played football, five years after suffering what was declared a career-ending knee injury, Marcus Dupree is a Ram.

Dupree was signed Wednesday to a two-year deal by a team operating under the theory that you can never have enough 6-foot-3, 220-pound running backs who look like the reincarnation of Jim Brown.

Dupree, who put on pads Wednesday but did not work out with the team, wasn’t even consigned to the Rams’ practice squad, and instead was placed immediately on the Rams’ 47-man active roster. He said it was a fulfillment of about everything he has hoped for since April, when he resumed training.

“I was dreaming and hoping and praying,” Dupree said of the days when he was fighting to get his then-270-pound body into NFL shape. “I did a lot of praying. And God gave me the will to keep going all summer.

“The biggest hurdle was this summer, working out, getting back into it, doing it every day. From July on, I went through two-a-days with Coach (Bob) Hill, who coached Walter (Payton) in college, two-a-days all the way until now.

“Every day, I just went out there and sweated and threw up and I just said, ‘It’s going to be worth it one day.’ ”

Dupree, 26, said it will take at least “three or four weeks” to get his left knee ready for action, and he wouldn’t be upset at all if the Rams decide to put him on the injured reserve list to make sure he is completely sound before letting him play.

Dupree, who gained 905 yards as a freshman at Oklahoma in 1983 before jumping to the United States Football League the next year, tore up his knee in the first game of his second USFL season. At the time, the doctors, the team, its insurance company and Dupree agreed that he would never play again.

But after receiving encouragement from Payton, the league’s all-time leading rusher, and others this spring, Dupree decided to make his bid.

“I just decided I need to play ball,” Dupree said. “That’s what God put me on this earthfor.”

Dupree turned immediately to the Rams because of quarterback coach Dick Coury, who was Dupree’s USFL coach and counselor in the years after the injury. The Rams, who drafted him in the 12th round in 1986, worked him out Monday, gave his knee a battery of tests and told him they wanted him. And that was it, since Dupree was dedicated to playing for the Rams if they wanted him.

The Rams are being cautious about Dupree, indicating that he probably will be put on injured reserve soon. Ram Coach John Robinson said Dupree definitely will not suit up this Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals at Anaheim Stadium, and possibly not at all this season.

“This is long range,” Robinson said. “This is one of those things where you say, you know, what if? You look at the man and say, ooooh, what if?

“We’ve decided on a course of action to take a closer look at this man. There’s no question that before his injury he was a great player.”

But Robinson also said Dupree’s knee has passed every test they have given it, and the Rams think he can make it all the way back. When, they do not know.

“This is new ground for us,” Robinson said. “And we’re going to treat it as new ground and take it step by step.

“We feel like he needs to be scrutinized under some pounding or some stress. I don’t mean scrimmage, I just mean running every day to see if it swells.

“Our early indications are, at some point in the near future he will be well. Obviously, there will be a period of adjustment. We hope that won’t be too long.”

Robinson said Dupree’s signing, on the heels of the Rams’ relative ineffectiveness running the ball lately, was not a sign that he is unhappy with his tailback position, shared by Cleveland Gary, Gaston Green and Curt Warner.

The Rams did not put Dupree on the practice squad, he said, because practice-squad players are virtual free agents, and the Rams did not want to lose him so easily.

Dupree signed for one year plus an option year at a salary believed to be slightly over the minimum base of $70,000, but stocked with incentive clauses and guarantees even if he never plays.

“We weren’t asking them to do anything, but the club was very, very generous,” Dupree’s agent, Bud Holmes, said. “For a club to pay a kid who’s been out five years and ruled to have a career-ending injury, I think it’s just unheard of. It’s beyond his wildest dreams.”