Harmony Off the Field Kept Mack in the Game

Anne Tollefson knew that life as the wife of a professional football player would be different. After all, in just more than a year she went from meeting Tom Mack on a blind date when he was in Pasadena for the 1965 Rose Bowl game to typing up her soon-to-be fiancee’s first NFL contract in a New York City hotel room with a lawyer looking over her shoulder.

There would be shared pain and glory and unconditional love and caring for an often bruised and battered husband over the course of his 13-year NFL career as the starting offensive left guard for the Los Angeles Rams.

“I never worried about him getting hurt because he had more mental toughness than anybody I ever met,” Anne said of her husband of more than 33 years. “It just wasn’t an issue. Sometimes he’d wake up and he’d have cleat marks all up and down his back from people walking all over him. But as an offensive lineman you spend a lot of time on the ground.”

These days, the Macks spend their time keeping tabs on their three daughters--Kristan, 30, Katy, 29, and Cari, 25--and doing yard work at their home in Lake Las Vegas. They moved to the exclusive planned community on the outskirts of Sin City about five years ago to be closer to his job as a deputy manager with Bechtel Nevada, an engineering contractor.

Mack, the Rams’ first-round draft choice from Michigan in 1966, played through the pain of nagging nicks and bruises before retiring after the 1978 season. He never sat out a game, playing in 184 in a row--the third-longest streak in Ram history behind Jack Youngblood (198) and Merlin Olsen (201)--and was an 11-time Pro Bowl selection. Last August, Mack was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his 16th and final year of eligibility.

Said Anne: “I’d like to think that because I kept everything running smoothly at home, he could concentrate on playing and doing his job on the field.”

Tom agreed.

“We did not have an acrimonious marriage,” he said. “If we had, it would have been a genuine distraction. A lot of games are lost off the field by people being distracted. If you’re distracted and you’ve got a lot of other issues, then you’re not focused on working through the pain . . . and injuries bother you a lot more.”

Anne considered hers a normal life when the Rams called Los Angeles home. Even if she was sitting in the stands at the Coliseum next to Sonny and Cher and going to after-game parties hosted by celebrities such as Rock Hudson, Bob Hope and Jim Nabors.

“They were there just like I was,” she said, “and I’m a fanatic about being able to watch the game.”

Said Tom: “She knew the game very well. Some of the wives didn’t even know their husbands were hurt.”

Anne made every home game but one. And that was because she had given birth to Katy the day before.

“When we’d be home watching away games on television,” Anne said, “I’d scream so much that the dogs would go upstairs and hide under the bed and the kids knew to stay in their room and color that day.”

It’s normal behavior for the dutiful and supportive NFL wife. Besides, she knew what she was getting herself into from the start. The Miami Dolphins, trying to sway Tom into joining them, offered to put Anne through college at Miami. And their honeymoon was reduced from two weeks in Acapulco to two days in Santa Barbara when the Rams moved training camp.

“I know I felt somewhat like a single parent because he was gone so much,” Anne said. “And that wasn’t his fault. But when he was there he was wonderful with the kids. Even hurt or banged up, Tuesday was Daddy’s day with the girls and he did his darndest to get to the PTA programs and the ballet recitals.

“But it was not all sugar and cream. Later, I railed against that. I felt as if I had lost my identity so much that I went out and got a job to feel viable as a human being. But I was just so proud of him that I accepted it. We feel so lucky to have shared that whole experience.”