Rosenbloom: Dad Would Have Improved, Not Moved

Steve Rosenbloom, the 50-year-old son of the Rams’ late owner, Carroll Rosenbloom, said Tuesday his father would never have moved the team.

“I saw where Georgia (Frontiere) said if Carroll were alive he wouldn’t have waited so long (to move the team),” he said.

“That’s not true. My father made a commitment when we agreed to move the team to Anaheim. And he would have done something with that commitment. He would have made the grass greener there, not looked for greener grass elsewhere.

“We only moved from the Coliseum because we tried for five years to get the Coliseum Commission to give us the improvements in the stadium we wanted. When we moved to Anaheim, it was a good deal for both sides.”

Rosenbloom now lives in Covington, La., outside New Orleans, and is in the oil equipment business.

Rosenbloom was his father’s assistant with the Rams and, before that, with the Baltimore Colts. It was presumed that he would someday take over his father’s team.

But Carroll Rosenbloom gave controlling interest to his wife, Georgia, who fired her stepson when she took over after Carroll’s drowning in 1979.

Steve Rosenbloom spent two seasons as the general manager of the New Orleans Saints but has been out of football since 1981.

“If you had to write a paper on how to dismantle a successful sports franchise, and had the Rams write it for you, you’d have an A-plus paper,” Rosenbloom said.

“If you’re in the nut-and-bolt business, you make the best nuts and bolts possible. If you’re in the football business, you build the best team possible. The Rams didn’t do that.

“It took 15 years to dismantle this team, and that shows you how strong the team my father and I built was, and how strong the NFL is. If the Rams were in the nut-and-bolt business, it would have folded in six months.

“Now the team is headed for St. Louis. But you can’t run away from a mess. The Rams will carry the same philosophies with them.”