He Made Rams Fears-Some Long Before the Foursome

If someone asked you to name consummate L.A. football stars, you’d start with Tom Fears, Bob Waterfield, Kenny Washington and Jon Arnett.

They all starred here in high school (Fears and Arnett at Manual Arts, Waterfield at Van Nuys, Washington at Lincoln), in college (Fears, Waterfield and Washington at UCLA and Arnett at USC) and in the NFL with the Rams.

Fears, who died Tuesday at 77, still holds the record for most receptions in an NFL game, 18 against Green Bay in 1950. Critics contend that his friend, Waterfield, assisted greatly on that one by tossing him shovel passes in the backfield to assure the record.

But that doesn’t explain the playoff record Fears held until 1988 of 198 yards on seven receptions, an average of 28.3 yards per catch.

He also held the Ram record for most receptions in a season, 84, until Henry Ellard broke it with 86 in 1988.

When it became apparent that Ellard might break the record, he said he had never heard of Fears. That said more about Ellard than it did about Fears, whose experience remains relevant years after he last caught a pass as a player or drew a play as a coach.

The Rams have a chance to win the championship? Been there, done that.

Fears played in three consecutive championship games with the Rams in 1949, ’50 and ‘51, finally winning one--the only one in Los Angeles Ram history--in ’51 when he caught a 73-yard, fourth-quarter touchdown pass at the Coliseum from Norm Van Brocklin in a 24-17 victory over the Cleveland Browns.

The Saints fire Mike Ditka? Been there, done that.

Fears was the Saints’ first coach, thus the first one fired. His winning percentage of .286 from 1967-70 didn’t look good at the time, but it was better than successor J.D. Roberts’ .243. It also was better than the .250 of Hank Stram, who won a Super Bowl in Kansas City. Ditka, a Super Bowl-winning coach in Chicago, had only a .313 winning percentage in New Orleans.

Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday” wins raves from reviewers for its vivid depiction of life on the field in the NFL. Been there, done that.

Fears was the technical advisor for “North Dallas Forty,” based on the book by another former wide receiver, Pete Gent, and still the best football movie ever made.

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Fears also could relate to Kurt Warner, the St. Louis Ram quarterback named the NFL’s most valuable player Wednesday. Warner’s apprenticeship in the Arena Football League and the NFL’s European league is similar to the experience of Pat Haden, another singularly L.A. football star (Bishop Amat High, USC, the Rams), who played for the Southern California Sun in the World Football League before moving to the NFL. His coach with the Sun was Fears.

On the day the WFL folded in 1975, Haden once recalled, Fears got the word while on the field during practice. He immediately ordered his players to run two laps, then broke the sad news to them.

Why the laps? He wanted to give the staff time to clean out the lockers so the players wouldn’t steal the equipment.

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I don’t agree with the Associated Press’ choice of Warner as MVP. But I do agree with his choice. He said the award should have gone to teammate Marshall Faulk. . . .

Only the second player to gain more than 1,000 yards rushing and receiving in the same season, the threat of Faulk on every play prevented defenses from keying on Warner and enabled him to play like a far more experienced quarterback. . . .

By the time Warner is more experienced, some scouts believe he might no longer be a force in the league. One told Pro Football Weekly that Warner “is like the guy [Joe Hardy] in ‘Damn Yankees.’ ” . . .

Was that a national championship game on television Tuesday night or a pilot for a new family-oriented series called “The Bowdens.” . . .

It’s sort of like “The Waltons,” with kindly John Walton, like Bobby Bowden, having to take time out from his chores weekly to discipline one or two of the kids. . . .

I knew that Bowden no longer called the plays for Florida State. But I figured he at least knew what they were before they were run. . . .

When the Seminoles ran that second-quarter flea-flicker, Bowden was doing a sideline interview with Lynn Swann.

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I used to wonder whether Phil Jackson would have been so successful as a coach without Michael Jordan as a player. I’m now wondering whether Jordan would have been so successful as a player without Jackson as a coach.

I’m also wondering why Bill Belichick is the hot head coaching prospect in the NFL and whether the Dodgers, having hired Jack Clark to coach in their minor league system, are also considering Bobby Thomson, Reggie Jackson, Joe Morgan and Dave Kingman.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.