Story Incomplete for Rams’ Knox : Pro football: His teams have played big games, but never the Super Bowl--the ultimate measure of coaching success.

Chuck Knox listened as his words were read from the 1988 book, “Hard Knox”:

“I’ve coached in four conference championship games, but you know how many of those games I’ve won, how many Super Bowls I’ve coached in? None.”

No hesitation. No equivocation.

“I know I have helped a lot of people along the way and done some good things,” Knox said in response, “but I won’t know total fulfillment until we play in the Super Bowl.”

Miami Coach Don Shula has been there six times, and now he has the opportunity to make it seven.

Buffalo Coach Marv Levy, who will be Shula’s counterpart in today’s AFC Championship game, seeks a third consecutive trip to the Super Bowl.

San Francisco’s George Seifert pursues a second invitation in today’s NFC Championship game.

Dallas’ Jimmy Johnson goes after his first in this, his fourth year in the league.

The rich get richer while Knox spends his week in Alabama, standing in the rain to watch Senior Bowl practices.

“Strange occupation,” the Ram coach said from Mobile. “There are a whole lot more important things in life than football, like feeding starving kids and taking care of people, but we chose to be in this profession, and winning has got to be important to us.

“Ultimately you are judged by who wins and who loses. That’s why they keep score. The Super Bowl--that’s where a lot of people measure success. Maybe it’s not right or fair, but in our game that’s the way it is.”

Knox is the sixth-winningest coach in NFL history and the only coach to take three different teams to a division title. But it isn’t enough.

He has coached 30 years in professional football, 20 as a head coach, and while he has the respect of his peers, his resume lacks that exclamation point.

“I’ve done about everything else,” he said, “but I still don’t have that Super Bowl ring on my finger.”

Knox has climbed the mountain, like Shula, Levy, Seifert and Johnson, and has stood one step from the Super Bowl. Four championship games, four losses.

“Chuck Knox can’t win the big one,” Knox wrote, along with collaborator Bill Plaschke, in “Hard Knox.”

“Chuck Knox can coach a team to the edge of greatness, but then they slip, and in grabbing for their leader, they all tumble backward. I hear that. Hear it all the time.

“I don’t listen--I don’t think you should listen to anyone but yourself--but I’ll face these comments. . . . I want to discuss my failures so everyone knows how I view failure. So everyone knows, at least for this man, how it can hurt.”

They are his own words, and while they are more revealing than he might ever be in an interview, he does not shy from them.

“That’s how I feel,” he said. “You get that close and you don’t get it, and there is this bad feeling because you weren’t able to finish what you started.

“When it’s all said and done, there will be only one winner. People will be crying about the team that got there and couldn’t win the big one, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.”

He has been bombarded by the very same refrain. The Rams won five consecutive division titles under Knox in the 1970s, but such success became tainted with the team’s failure to make the Super Bowl.

“You’re just inches away from being in the Super Bowl,” he said. “Maybe an officiating call, an interception, a blocked field goal. The Pittsburgh-Raider game is decided on a Hail Mary reception. Joe Montana scrambles and hits Dwight Clark near the end line.

“Coaches can’t design plays like that. People talk about what a great call it was, but it’s a school-yard play. You have to have athletes capable of making impromptu plays. It’s God-given ability.”

A 6-10 finish in 1992 indicates that there was a shortage of such athletes in Anaheim. The Rams lost to Buffalo, 40-7. They fell to Miami, 26-10. They could not beat the 49ers in two tries. But on a promising Sunday in November they beat the Cowboys, 27-23.

“I said last year when I took the job, the first thing we had to do was become competitive and play hard week in and week out,” Knox said. “We had to establish a system where people became accountable, and we got that done.

“The next step is to get to the playoffs, and in order to do that, we have to upgrade our talent level.”

Shula and the Dolphins prepare for a conference championship under the glare of the national media, while Knox watches seniors try to impress in the cold and rain.

“I don’t think we’re miles apart from the teams at the top today,” Knox said. “Dallas could be in the big game, and they were 1-15 three years ago.

“I want to be realistic, though. It wasn’t just by accident the Rams finished 3-13 and 5-11 the previous two years. The talent level was allowed to fall off.”

Whatever the explanation, the Rams will not be in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 31, and for the 27th year in a row, Knox will view the Super Bowl as a spectator.

“I looked down at the Rose Bowl field and watched the Giants’ Bill Parcells and Denver’s Dan Reeves,” Knox wrote in his book, “and thought, ‘What wouldn’t I give to be there?’ I’d been so close to being there. I had coached several teams good enough to be there.

“And yet I was up in the stands. . . . That day I discovered tears in my eyes and resolved that if such a moment were ever mine, I would never let it go.”

Knox recalled the passage and his voice rose in excitement.

“Imagine what an incredible feeling it must be,” he said. “I’ve never been there, but I mean money can’t buy that feeling.

“We’ve enjoyed a lot of wins, and I don’t think that many come by accident, but these coaches will be out on that field playing for the world championship.

“At this point in my career, I look at success as going out every day to do the best job I possibly can do. But ultimately in the NFL, success is measured by one yardstick--winning the Super Bowl championship.”

And if his career were to end without advancing to the Super Bowl, would it be a black mark on his record?

“I think it would,” he said. “It wouldn’t haunt me, and I could live with it. But I still feel that way about the world championship. You always have that unfinished feeling. It’s the thing that keeps me going.”