Pressdog.com

Male Sheep Fever

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 10/23/99)

They've got their collective schwerve on down in St. Louis these days. Stylin' and profiling. Curly horns, blue and gold -- striking.

It's Ram fever, baby. My buddy at work, Jim the native St. Louisan, hasn't been this jiggy about a St. Louis sports event since Cardinal Mark McGuire's most recent home run lovefest. Jim and the other Ram faithful have even taken to murmuring the P-word ("playoffs"), something not heard in St. Louis since Lewis and Clark went two-out-of three for roast squirrel leftovers during their famous trip, circa 1806.

The St. Louis Rams are 5-0 and the lone undefeated team in the NFL. That's enough to get fans bum rushing the Rams bandwagon, claiming to have been born with the blue and gold in their diapers. I know exactly how that goes. Last year when my beloved Vikings went 15-1, you couldn't swing a dead cat at random Midwestern malls without hitting a replica Randy Moss jersey either on someone or for sale in a store. Oh yeah, the place was packed with LONG-TIME Viking fans about this time last year. They'd followed the Vikings for years. Been fans forever. Always loved them. Right.

Now, with the Vikings 2-4, I can feel the rumble of 100,000 butts jumping off the Vike bandwagon and heading down to St. Louis. Not that I blame them. The St. Louis Rams varied from hideous to awful last year. But now, well, now St. Louis Rams football fever has reached a frenzy sufficient enough to get the word p-word bandied around the Gateway to the West. Nobody has used the word "playoffs" in connection with the Rams since Eric Dickerson and his Super Fly goggles rang up big yards for the LA Rams.

The best part of the Rams story is that quarterback Kurt Warner (pride of Burlington, Iowa) stars in the role of Cinderella. In the era of quarterbacks with zillion-dollar deals and even bigger egos, the Rams are being shepherded by a guy who used to throw deep in the friendly confines of Des Moines' Veterans Auditorium as a member of the Arena League's Iowa Barnstormers. Arena football is beer-league football, a game for minor league hockey fans, really, played on hockey rinks covered with artificial turf and with padding along the walls boards. Basically, it's human pinball. A typical arena ball score is 65 to 63. Before that, Kurt took snaps for the University of Northern Iowa Panthers in Cedar Falls.

In arena ball, you just line up, fling the ball and dodge the beer that rains down from the stands if it's incomplete or intercepted. During his brief NFL career, Warner has been cut more times than Rocky Balboa so he's thrilled to tears to be playing for the league-minimum $250,000 a year. That's entourage maintenance money for most NFL stars. On top of all that, Warner is a deeply religious guy.

Warner maintains control on the field, but he'll tear up over how lucky he is during interviews. He's a great fit with Rams coach Dick Vermiel, who gets farklempt so often he has to carry a bronchial inhaler. During a press conference after starting Rams quarterback Trent Green tore up a knee in pre-season, Vermiel had to stop and compose himself about eight times. I thought they were going to have to carry him out on a stretcher.

That says passion to me. Passionate people achieve great things. I've shed a tear or two myself over football, the last time being in January when the Vikings urinated away their chance to go to the Super Bowl, thereby touching off the bandwagon exodus.

Sure, the Rams have benefited from a slack schedule so far, but for now, their 5-0 start feels like good things happening to good people. Long-suffering Ram's fans, and there are more of them every day, get to root for a winning team. The emotional, religious, fellow-native-Iowan, Kurt Warner is proving nice guys can go deep. And throw slants, fades, bombs, screens -- Kurt's got it all going on.

I'm not trading my Viking's John Randle jersey for a Ram's Warner model any time soon, but I'm down with Kurt putting the hurt on the high-dollar quarterbacks on behalf of all us little guys. He just lines up, flings touchdowns and gives credit to God. There's something pretty cool about that.

My advice to the Ram faithful: Wear your Ram stuff every day, talk a little trash and make room for the bandwagon jumpers who catch male sheep fever. Enjoy it while it lasts. Next thing you know you're team could be a pouty 2-4.

Wait a minute. Maybe I have always loved the Rams. Yeah, that's right. Me and the Rams go way back. That's the ticket . . . .

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