Colleges Willing, Able to Take Team : Rams: Most O.C. schools say they could accommodate practice at least for short term.

The Rams, who could be homeless as of Thursday, might not have to look too hard or too long to find a new headquarters and practice facility. There are people willing to take them in, at least for the short term.

Officials from some local colleges said they would be more than happy to talk with the Rams, who were asked Thursday by Anaheim city officials to vacate Rams Park because of a lease dispute.

“Of course (we would consider it),” UC Irvine Athletic Director Dan Guerrero said. “I don’t know what the scope or magnitude of their desires would be, but our relationship with the Rams has always been very positive. If their needs were to have us accommodate something for the short run, we’d be willing to help.”

The Rams have had an ongoing relationship with county colleges since 1961, when they moved their summer camp from the University of Redlands to Chapman College. They have held camp at Cal State Fullerton 24 times, Chapman six times, Irvine in 1991 and ’92 and Long Beach State in 1972. They will return to Irvine this summer.

Guerrero said the Rams have not contacted him. He said the university would be able to handle the Rams for a season, which might be all they need. Team officials have informed the city that they will exercise an escape clause in their Anaheim Stadium lease on May 3 and explore the possibility of moving the team. The team would then be required to play only one more season in Anaheim.

Several sites likely could accommodate them through 1994. But if the Rams opt to stay at the Big A, a long-term plan would be more difficult to hammer out, at least at four-year universities.

“I don’t believe our facilities could accommodate them on the long term,” Guerrero said. “They’ll need offices and video rooms and all that sort of thing. And for them to actually build a complex on our campus, that would require a lot of steps (approval of regents, state committees, etc.). I would think that for them to move into a private site where they could make a few limited modifications would be in their best interest.”

Fullerton, the Rams’ summer site in 23 of 24 years from 1967 to 1990, would seem to be another logical spot in the short term. The school has a stadium, but no longer fields a football team. There is an outdoor weight room and several athletic fields.

“If they want to contact us and sit down to see if their needs match up with what we have available, we’ll be happy to do that,” said Sal Rinella, Cal State Fullerton’s vice president for administrative affairs.

But Fullerton would present some problems. The school uses its fields for physical education and recreation classes, and the stadium is used by the school’s nationally ranked men’s soccer team and by the Salsa of the American Professional Soccer League. And the Rams were unhappy with the meeting facilities and dorms during a one-year return to Fullerton for camp last summer.

Other possibilities might be Long Beach State and the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Long Beach has the facilities but perhaps not the space because of construction of its new events center and other renovations.

“I guess we could pursue the possibility, but right now we’re strapped for space and use of facility,” said Mark Edrington, Long Beach’s director of facilities and marketing. “We have the field space, but with so much construction, we don’t have any room available. I don’t know what kind of office space they’d look for, but our athletic department is located in temporary trailers now.”

Still, he said, Long Beach would be interested.

“Any time we can make revenue, we’d be interested, and there would be some notoriety having the Rams,” Edrington said.

The El Toro base has plenty of room, weight facilities and a training field but would also come with a mountain of red tape.

“We haven’t heard anything,” said Master Sgt. Don Long, a Marine spokesman. “If the request came in, they would have to seek a facilities license, which means we’d have to determine if it’s feasible, if it would interfere with military operations, and any kind of expenses that team would have to cover.”

Local community colleges are a lesser possibility; those schools have football programs of their own that would cause a conflict.

“We all have to practice ourselves,” said Golden West Coach Ray Shackelford. “Nobody has the space for them.”

Times staff writers Mike DiGiovanna, John Weyler and Steve Kresal contributed to this story.