Ex-Ram Great Dies

Tom Fears, who hand-delivered the Los Angeles Rams’ only NFL championship, died Tuesday afternoon in Palm Desert of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 77.

In the 1951 NFL championship game at the Coliseum, Fears caught a touchdown pass from quarterback Norm Van Brocklin, a 73-yard play in the fourth quarter, and that was the difference in the Rams’ 24-17 victory over the Cleveland Browns.

Fears, who grew up in a one-story, two-bedroom home in the largely Japanese-American neighborhood at 38th and Western Avenue in Los Angeles and who was a Manual Arts High and UCLA football standout, played nine NFL seasons--all with the Rams--and later became the New Orleans Saints’ first head coach.

He was a fast (6 feet 2, 215 pounds) receiver with big hands, known as much for his blocking skills as for making great catches.

He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1970.

A former Ram teammate, Don Paul, remembered Fears’ work ethic as much as his athleticism.

“He worked so hard he wound up in the Hall of Fame. He was never a guy to get by on ability,” Paul once said.

“He intimidated defensive backs because he was a great blocker. The defensive guy knew if Tom didn’t like the way he was tackled, he’d take his head off on the next play.”

Fears, who was the Saints’ coach from 1967 to 1970, returned to coach the Southern California Sun of the ill-fated World Football League in 1974 and ’75. The WFL folded after 1 1/2 seasons.

Even then, in his early 50s, Fears remained at his playing weight and in top physical condition. One of his 1974 Sun players, Dave Roller, thinking he was the team’s best tennis player, challenged his coach to an off-season match.

Fears won, 6-0, 6-0.

“I had no idea he was that good,” Roller said. “He’s a hell of an athlete.”

The late Frank Finch, a Times sportswriter who covered Fears’ Ram teams, once talked about a run Fears made on a sweep against the Chicago Bears.

“George Connor hit him twice and four other guys had solid shots at him and he scored. It was the greatest run through traffic I ever saw.”

Fears retired from the Rams after playing only two games in the 1956 season, when he was making his biggest Ram salary: $13,000.

In 1950, he caught 84 passes, an NFL record that lasted 10 years.

And his 18 catches against Green Bay in 1950 is still the NFL one-game record.

Thomas Jesse Fears was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, the son of an American mining engineer and a Mexican mother. The family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child and he grew up idolizing his older brother, Charles Fears Jr., who was a UCLA football standout in the early 1940s.

Fears was a tough, Depression-era kid growing up in South Central L.A.

As a boy he worked at a downtown L.A. wholesale flower market, earning 25 cents an hour for unloading truckloads of flowers. When asked once if he had been a tough street kid in his teens, he replied: “I suppose so. But I didn’t get in many fights. Tough kids don’t have to, right?”

As a Manual Arts football star, he was a Coliseum usher for 50 cents a day, while he was being recruited by schools nationwide.

He settled on Santa Clara but was called into the Army Air Corps in 1943. He was stationed at Colorado Springs and became a flight instructor. When he was discharged, he transferred to UCLA, after the Cleveland Rams had drafted him on the 11th round in 1945.

“The Rams wanted me to sign when I got out of the Army, but I’d already made a commitment to UCLA,” he once said.

Fears led a nifty life at post-war UCLA. He had the choicest campus jobs and frequent bit parts in movies. He’s visible for six seconds as a fighter pilot in a Humphrey Bogart film, “Action in the North Atlantic.”

He said in 1975 that when he signed with the Rams in 1947 for a $500 bonus and a $6,000 salary, “I took a cut in pay.”

Fears caught 400 passes for 5,397 yards and 38 touchdowns in his NFL career. He led the league in receptions each of his first three seasons.

When the WFL folded in 1975, he was philosophical about the coaching life.

“To be recognized as a great coach, you have to be lucky more than anything,” he said.

“Vince Lombardi? Would anyone have heard of Vince Lombardi if the Green Bay Packers had never hired him [Fears was a Lombardi assistant at Green Bay]? There are probably 50 Vince Lombardis on pro coaching staffs today [1975] who, because of luck, will never get a chance to show it.”

Fears was also a successful businessman. He owned restaurants, rented out numerous condominiums and owned avocado acreage in northern San Diego County.

He began experiencing memory loss in the early 1990s. His son, Dan, said his father was in a Palm Desert convalescent home when he died Tuesday.

“Dad died of Alzheimer’s complications,” he said. “He faded rapidly in the last year.”

Fears is survived by his wife of 48 years, LuElla, and three sons and three daughters: Pat, Jonathan and Dan Fears; and Kathleen Cook, Katie Prather and Joanna Fears. He also is survived by his brother, Charles Fears Jr., 80, of Newport Beach.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Killian’s Catholic Church in Mission Viejo.

Also, Randy Harvey, D2.