I thought this article was interesting, how some former Ram greats feel no connection to the St.Louis Rams.
Poor little Rams have lost their way
Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times
Says former Rams running back Eric Dickerson of his days in L.A.: "The history that I had here is gone."
Dennis Harrah, Eric Dickerson and others bemoan the lack of identity of the Los Angeles Rams.
Bill Plaschke
November 23, 2008
Throughout the NFL today, former players will roam their old stadium homes, shaking hands, hearing cheers, spreading history.
In Southern California, former Los Angeles Rams guard Dennis Harrah won't even turn on the television.
"I don't love Sundays," he said. "It's like I never even played."
Throughout the NFL today, former players will provide living links to current ones, on sidelines, in broadcast booths, a weekly melding of past and present.
In Southern California, former Los Angeles Rams running back Eric Dickerson doesn't really care.
"I'm not a big NFL fan," he said. "The history that I had here is gone."
They were once the cornerstones of Los Angeles' most popular franchise, the builders of one of the nation's most solid sporting skylines.
Today they don't even have a working address.
They are legends without legacy, history without memory, stars of a team that no longer exists in a town that no longer cares.
Almost 14 years after the late Georgia Rosenbloom packed up the Rams and dragged them to St. Louis, they are the strange collection of boxes that remain.
Alive, alert, but alone, former Rams who lost not only a team, but an identity.
"There's no place for our memories to go, there's nothing in our past that we can touch," Harrah said. "We're lost."
By most estimates, there are about two dozen former Rams still living in Southern California.
Many are successful businessmen who have parlayed their football skills into marketable careers. They do not wish for special treatment, nor have any interest in pity.
But sometimes they think, wouldn't it be nice if they could show their children who they were?
"I would love to take my sons to the place I played, to see the team that I played for, but that's not possible," Harrah said. "This has been like a bad divorce, where you just can't go back."
Then sometimes they think, wouldn't it be nice to occasionally feel the embrace of a sports community that they worked so hard to create?
"I go back to New York and see Lawrence Taylor go to Giants Stadium and hear everyone shouting nice things to him, like he's come home, and I kind of wonder what that would feel like," Dickerson...
-11-23-2008, 07:56 AM
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