Rams Busy Trying to Improve a Team Without a Home : Football: Most players seem indifferent about where they might play next season. Three-day minicamp begins in Anaheim.
They began a three-day minicamp at Rams Park Wednesday, confident for now that covered fences and local apathy will allow their hired hands to prepare for the 1995 season without distraction.
The Rams don’t know where they will play football this season, but they know they will not conduct training camp in Orange County. Too many negative vibes, they hinted, and maybe not enough covered fences at UC Irvine or Cal State Fullerton.
Chris Miller is still the starting quarterback until he gets hurt again, but the team has dropped the “Los Angeles” on all its paraphernalia. Coaches sport caps that read “Rams Football.”
Ram President John Shaw reportedly has increased the team’s $25.5-million offer to NFL owners to $40 million to win a favorable vote, but a St. Louis zip code remains elusive.
Receptionists and secretaries have yet to be informed if they will make the traveling squad should the move to St. Louis be approved. Instead of wanting to know how the new cornerback looks, they want to know the latest on PSLs, Fox-TV payoffs and stadium trust funds as they relate to the Rams’ move.
Under different circumstances, reporters would crowd Christian Okoye, former Kansas City running back, after his minicamp audition for the Rams, but he’s lucky to get a mention in the local newspaper. Former Denver and New England running back Leonard Russell was a visitor Wednesday, but who cares?
Reporters want to know what the players think about the prospect of returning to Anaheim or moving to St. Louis, but players want to know what their new head coach is like and just where they fit into the plans.
“St. Louis or L.A., it just doesn’t matter to me,” said Robert Young, defensive end. “What I want to know is: Do I got a job?”
They are mercenaries, paid well to play in such places as Green Bay and Cleveland, and so what’s the big deal about residing in limbo waiting for marching orders?
“We go wherever they employ us,” kicker Tony Zendejas said. “You know that when you sign on to play professional football. You may be in one place for two years, another for a year and then move again.”
Defensive tackle Jimmie Jones won a Super Bowl ring with Dallas two years ago, but grabbed the money a year ago to join the Rams after a 5-11 season only to win four games last season.
“It’s a job,” Jones said. “If the dollar sign’s out there, you go for it . . . it doesn’t matter where you play. It just matters if you get your job done.
“My home is in Dallas anyway, so it doesn’t make much difference to me where we play football.”
According to the Rams, of the 60 or so players on their roster, 16 live in this area during the off-season and only six would have to sell a home should the team move to St. Louis.
“I don’t care if we go, I don’t care if we stay,” safety Anthony Newman said. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have a daughter that has to be in school, nothing like that.”
Poll the players, and the few who care respond with vested interest:
Linebacker Shane Conlan: “If we know by the 12th of this month--that’s fine. My lease is up at the end of the month and I need to know.”
Cornerback Todd Lyght: “I thought we were going to St. Louis, so my mother moved into my house and I took an apartment. I don’t think I can get her out of the house now.”
Linebacker Roman Phifer: “I would like to own a place, but first I’d like to know what’s going to happen. And where it’s going to happen.”
The young players point to St. Louis positively and say sellout crowds will energize them.
“The way the people are pursuing us in St. Louis they must want to come out and see us play,” offensive tackle Wayne Gandy said. “That would be a good change.”
The older players dig their heels into the soft grass, and fret about the artificial turf awaiting them inside St. Louis’ new domed stadium.
“Too bad you can’t have both grass and sellout crowds,” Conlan said.
Anaheim Stadium has natural grass, and once upon a time it had sellout crowds.
“We (ticked) off a lot of people here last year,” Conlan said. “I thought it was bad last year, but if we came back this year . . . God, I don’t know.”
Rich Brooks, hired to replace Chuck Knox and assigned to keep the Rams focused on football, began attaching faces with names Wednesday. A fresh start for all concerned in St. Louis has an obvious appeal, but a coach must be prepared for everything.
“If you’re going off to play your first game in Anaheim, we have a real job to do to recapture fans,” Brooks said. “Not impossible, but . . .”
Brooks has inherited a team that won four games last season and has been handicapped further by the uncertainty surrounding the proposed move.
“This off-season has not been nearly as productive as it needs to be,” Brooks said.
The Rams elected not to pursue a number of free agents before the owners meetings in March so they wouldn’t irritate other teams before the vote on the move. The strategy backfired; players such as Dallas wide receiver Alvin Harper went elsewhere and NFL owners rejected the move 21-3 with six abstentions.
“It has damaged our success,” said Steve Ortmayer, Ram vice president of football operations.
More roadblocks await the Rams, especially if NFL owners do not change their votes in an April 12 meeting in Dallas.
There has been talk about practicing in Southern California all season and flying to St. Louis to play each Sunday. The team has three exhibition games scheduled for the West Coast, so Thousand Oaks and San Diego are under consideration for training camp sites. The site for a practice facility in St. Louis has yet to be determined. Will the Rams play the regular season in the L.A. Coliseum? Will the Raiders play in Anaheim Stadium?
“I don’t think the players really care,” Zendejas said.
