She Always Makes the Call : Sean Gilbert’s Mother Heavily Involved in New Ram’s Career

She has always been there for her son, so, of course, Aileen Gilbert was with Sean Gilbert last Monday at Rams Park, watching her 315-pound progeny deftly handle his first press conference as Orange County’s newest multimillionaire.

Where else would she be?

She was there when her son failed to meet Proposition 48 qualifications in his senior year at Aliquippa (Pa.) High School, in the district where she is a school board member, and was forced to sit out his freshman year at the University of Pittsburgh.

When her son thought about dropping out, she made the phone calls and visits that helped turn his mind from quitting.

“You know, at times, I felt college wasn’t for me,” Sean Gilbert said Monday. “I felt the football situation was just . . . maybe it was just a high school thing, maybe I won’t go any further than this.

“She was just saying, ‘Keep trying, keep working at it, hang in there, you’ll be OK. Graduate Sean. Stay in school, keep working toward the degree and keep playing football.’ ”

Said his mother: “He did not like having to sit out that year. We spent a lot of time on the phone, a lot of time. And it was just basically to let him know that the year will pass, that next year’s a different year and he needs to just get through the first one to be able to get to the next one.”

“Him being so close to home helped because I was able to go back and forth. It’s only about 20 miles from where Pitt is. That was a hard year.”

Later, with her son skyrocketing up pro scouts’ wish lists, Aileen Gilbert was there when Sean came home from Pittsburgh on winter break last year and told her he was seriously considering bypassing his senior year and making himself available for the NFL.

By declaring early, Gilbert will not graduate from college until he goes back after his football career is over, but she understood and, convinced of her son’s logic, agreed.

“I basically provide a sounding board for all of my kids,” she said, “and if I think the decision they’re making is a sound decision, I will support them. I think he made a sound decision.”

Through the tenuous eve of Sunday’s first round of the draft, she was with him, listening and chiming in on the hard bargaining to get him his Ram contract and the often-confusing maneuvering with the Indianapolis Colts, who almost drafted Gilbert with one of the top two selections in the draft.

“(Following the Colts’ situation) was very frustrating because we kept going back and forth, and I think that was the most frustrating part of it,” she said. “All the phone calls and negotiations that took place all the way down to Sunday morning.”

Rams’ negotiators confirm that everything they put on the table had to be checked through Mrs. Gilbert.

“I have been involved with all of it, yes,” she said. “I knew every step of the way what was going on.

“He wants me to be involved with his career . . . which makes him, I think, feel a lot easier, that he’s not dealing with a lot of people he doesn’t know. If I feel uncomfortable about something, then we need to deal with that and iron it out and work on it and see what is the best thing to do.

“So I’ll be involved with him forever, most likely.”

Most likely.

“She has to be,” Sean Gilbert said. “She has to be. I think she’s the one person who should know what’s going on in my life. Nothing hidden.

“She’s like the reason you can stand--gravity, OK? It’s like you can’t do anything without her. She’s been there all this time, and she’s a very important person in my life.

“I feel no reason to eliminate her now. That’s far from the imagination.”

Now all of this has led him into the arms of the Rams, a talent-poor football team that took him with the third pick and almost immediately handed him a starting job and a five-year, $7.2 million deal that includes a signing bonus worth about $3 million.

Sean Gilbert is the defensive tackle of their dreams, and his mother is definitely with him now.

“I think it was worth it,” Aileen Gilbert said. “I mean, all of the waiting and all of the time that went by and waiting and making decisions. I think it was well worth it.”

Ask Sean Gilbert’s mother a blunt question, with the cameras closing in and reporters soaking up every word of response, and she does not flinch, perhaps because of her years working with troubled teen-agers.

She appears to have raised her five children (two of them older than Sean and two younger) the same way: Speak the truth, have a sense of humor, expect the same back.

So when she is asked about her son’s reputation for inconsistent play and his relative inexperience (only 11 college starts in 17 games), Aileen Gilbert answers immediately.

“I think one of the things he’s going to have to work on is consistency,” she said. “I know he can do it, it’s just a matter of having the support and the people there to help him maintain it.”

Is he inconsistent because he is so young (22 last month)?

“Probably. And becoming more mature. And I don’t doubt he’ll be able to accomplish it,” Aileen Gilbert said.

Said Sean Gilbert: “That’s basically it. Seems like in the two seasons I played, I felt I was getting into a groove as the season was over.

“I’m not sure if I’m late bloomer or what, but I’d like to start strong and finish strong. It’s a matter of practice, staying on top of everything, weight, everything that might be a problem.”

Which brings up a point probably being discussed right now in the Gilbert house in Aliquippa: Does Aileen Gilbert move to the L.A. area to be with Sean, or does she stay in Pennsylvania with the rest of her family?

Sean’s youngest sister Tamu, 15, “has decided she’s moving (to L.A.),” Aileen Gilbert said with a broad smile. Then she grew serious.

“I don’t know. I’m going to have to work it out and figure out how long I can be out here and whether I move out here or what. I need to see . . . we’re going to go home and sit down and figure it out.

“He’s coming (to Southern California), but I need to see what I have to do.”

Sean talked about how “it’s good to miss people,” hinting that his mother might stay home with the rest of his family and that he planned on buying them plane tickets to come to L.A. whenever they wanted and whenever he wanted them near him.

But he made it clear who had the call on this one.

“Whatever she wants,” Sean Gilbert said. “If I could buy the world, I wouldn’t buy it for her because she doesn’t need the world. I’d buy it for her if she wanted it, though. If she needed it, I’d give her anything she wants, put it that way.”

Said Aileen Gilbert: “Sean is not a materialistic person and none of us are. We basically have what we need, some of the things we want, and that’s that. I don’t think he will become an extravagant person, a lavish person, I don’t think he’ll do that.

“Anyway,” she continued with a devilish smile and collapsing her voice into a stage whisper, “Sean is really stingy.

“Not cheap, but, if he sees a pair of shoes for $115, he will want to know every inch of why that shoe is costing that.

“He is not a person who squanders money.”

When Sean Gilbert made up his mind to go pro, he made it up for good--as he always does. He considered what else he could accomplish by staying in school, weighed it against the millions guaranteed him by declaring early, and the decision came down.

When the Rams brought him to Rams Park a few weeks ago to check out his personality, he impressed them with his directness, his humor and his general lack of the outrageousness that often accompanies those who are about-to-be- nouveau-riche.

He was normal, or as normal as an awesomely blessed 315-pound young man can be.

“He’s very strong-willed,” Aileen Gilbert said. “Sean is basically just a good person, and I’m not saying that because I’m his mother. He’s just a good person. He likes people, he has a very big heart, and he loves being able to do something for somebody if they need it.

“He’s done it for his brothers and sisters, they do it for him, and they are very close siblings. I mean, they were really upset that he didn’t come home yesterday (from the draft in New York before going to Anaheim).”

He didn’t come home then, but in a real way, he has never left and never will.

“I felt I was mature enough to make the decision that was best suited for my future, because in this business you have to concentrate on your future and your future only,” Gilbert said. “When it’s all over, when you go home, you go home by yourself.

“You can’t take the team with you, you can’t take the coaches, you can’t take 100 guys . . . you go by yourself.

“When everything’s bright, everybody’s there, but when the sun goes down, who can you find?”

Ten minutes later, Sean Gilbert left Rams Park, with his mother, to get on a plane home.