ORANGE COUNTY HALL OF FAME : Anonymous No Longer : Former All-Pro Saul Toiled for Rams, Needed Golf Club to Make His Mark

Rich Saul lined up at center in six Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl, excelling at a position where anonymity was part of the job description.

But put a golf club in his hands, and all that changes.

Eight years after retiring from the Rams, Saul landed on national blooper shows when his wayward drive at the 1989 L.A. Open pro-am golf tournament struck none other than Hale Irwin.

Irwin ended up with 16 stitches in his forehead; Saul went coast-to-coast.

“A day that will live in infamy,” Saul said, laughing. “Twelve years in the NFL, and no one knew who I was. But I hit one little golf ball, and it’s all over the nation: ‘Hale Irwin hit in the head by former All-Pro center Rich Saul of the Rams . . . “

Saul will be inducted into the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame Sunday night, an honor not so much for his unpredictable golf swing--check those hard hats at the door, please--but rather a storied football career that spanned 12 seasons in which he . . .

Saul will stop you right there.

Sure, he will tell you all about his playing career--the injuries, the awards, the Super Bowl season--but he makes one thing perfectly clear: What he did on the football field was important, but so is the charity work he does with children in the Southland.

He speaks at schools and clubs about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, clean living and doing the right thing. He’s heavily involved in charity work with Children’s Hospital of Orange County, the cancer society and centers for abused children.

“The charities are so, so important,” Saul said. “All those honors in football were nice, but so what? I want to be out there helping kids.

“God gave me size and talent, yeah I worked a little too. But the question you have to ask yourself is: ‘What good am I going to do with it?’ That’s where I’m at.”

How appropriate: A guy who once cleared the way for quarterbacks now worries about protecting something he considers just as fragile--children’s futures. Forget Charles Barkley’s claim of “I’m no role model.” Saul isn’t buying it.

“I think we have a responsibility to try and help kids,” he said. “I’m not like Barkley. I think we have a responsibility to a higher being to go out and do something.

“I had (role models) when I was growing up. When I was a kid, everybody knew Deacon Jones was a Ram and Johnny Unitas was a Colt. You could go down to the park and they would sign autographs for you. You could count on that.”

Saul was one of nine children of a Pennsylvania coal-miner, and grew up playing football with his twin brother, Ron. They followed their older brother, Bill, through college and into the pros, Bill with the Detroit Lions, Ron with the Houston Oilers and Washington Redskins.

Rich nearly didn’t make it.

After tearing up his knee in his junior year at Michigan State, doctors told him he might not play again. Saul underwent reconstructive surgery, rehabilitated and returned to his starting middle linebacker position for his senior year.

Despite Saul’s bum knee, the Rams drafted him in the eighth round in 1970. Because of a lack of depth on the offensive line, Coach George Allen moved Saul to center.

“I had no idea how to play there,” Saul recalled. “I didn’t even know who the center was on my Michigan State team, couldn’t even name him. That tells you what I thought of the position.”

Saul played special teams and backed up Ken Iman at center for six seasons. But when Iman was traded to St. Louis Cardinals in 1975 and later retired, the starting job was all Saul’s.

Throughout his career, he played every offensive line position and sometimes changing jerseys at halftime--No. 61 to 87--so he could switch from the offensive line to tight end.

He played in six Pro Bowls and was a Ram co-captain in their 31-19 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XIV. He was the Rams’ offensive lineman of the year five times, and was named to the franchise’s all-time team after he retired.

Saul played in 176 consecutive regular-season games, the fourth-longest streak in Ram history behind Jack Youngblood’s 201, Merlin Olsen’s 198 and Tom Mack’s 184.

Counting exhibitions and playoffs, Saul played in 254 games, one of football’s remarkable durability records, especially the amount of athletic tape it took to keep him on the field.

He played injured and in terrible pain, earning the nicknames “General Hospital” and “Lazarus” from his teammates.

He once showed up for an interview wearing braces on both knees, a pad on a broken hand, a heavily taped separated shoulder, a heavily wrapped sprained ankle and a splint on the twisted thumb of his snapping hand.

It didn’t matter to Saul. He played anyway.

“It only hurt for a second,” Saul said. “The way I figured it, if I wasn’t in there, we would lose.

“Maybe we were stupid, maybe just crazy. But we gave everything. As long as we had a breath of air in us, we played, no matter what. You had to put a bullet in one of us to keep us out.”

Saul had his share of brushes with the Rams’ front office, but who hasn’t?

He once told the team to double his salary or he would play only half the season. Then he demanded to be traded to the Washington Redskins, so he could play with Ron.

“I was a team player,” Saul said. “Remember, the 11th Commandment is: ‘Don’t kid yourself.’ I knew I couldn’t play forever, that I had to move on.”

Saul eventually did, retiring after the 1981 season. He was captain of the NFC Pro Bowl team, and played against Ron in his final regular-season game, a 30-7 loss to the Redskins.

His transition to life after football went smoothly. He entered the real estate business full-time after working in the field for nearly 10 off-seasons.

He’s now vice president of major accounts with a title insurance company in Irvine and spends his spare time with his family and working with the charities.

He and his wife, Eileen, celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary this year. And their daughter, Jaime, a senior honors student at Villa Park, is drawing interest from Duke and several Ivy League schools.

Saul still keeps ties to football and the Rams. He attends as many home games as he can, keeping a close eye on 19-year veteran Jackie Slater, whom he remembers as a rookie back in 1976.

Saul helps coach the offensive line at Calvary Chapel High, where his son, Josh, played tackle football for the first time this season with the Eagle junior varsity.

His position? Defensive tackle and center, of course.