The real reason for the affection for the Rams

This weekend, the Super Bowl will be played in Atlanta. And it just happens to be that my beloved favorite football team is getting a chance to avenge the loss that they suffered to the New England Patriots back in 2002.

Over the years, I’ve been asked thousands of times how someone from Jersey City ends up rooting for the Los Angeles, then St. Louis, then back to Los Angeles Rams as a favorite team.

Just last week, sportswriter supreme Dave Caldwell, a friend and colleague for many years and someone who I admire as a brilliant hard working wordsmith in our rapidly dying chosen field of work, reminded me that not a lot of people know the real reason why I became a Rams fan as a little boy. And it’s a good story, one that deserves to be told this week as the Rams prepare to lock horns with the Hoodie Genius and Joey Cleft Chin in Atlanta.

It was the summer of 1972 that I put my horns up for good. And I had good reason to do so.

On New Year’s Eve of 1971, I lost my father, Jack Hague, to cancer. He was sick, then diagnosed with stomach cancer, operated on and died in the span of three weeks. He was 54 years old. I was 10.

Still to this day, losing my father at such an early age was the most traumatic and devastating event that happened to my family.  He was my everything. He was a friend, a coach, a teacher, a mentor. He was funny and entertaining and loving and respected by everyone.

In fact, my father was so well respected by the neighborhood that he was the long-time Democratic committeeman for my neighborhood. If someone needed a turkey on Thanksgiving, then Jack Hague received a call. If someone needed to have their sidewalk shoveled after a snowstorm, Jack Hague was called. If an elderly person needed a trip to the grocery store, they called Jack. A ride to the doctor’s appointment? If Jack was home, he was driving Miss Daisy, minus the cap.

So with his passing, the Greenville neighborhood and St. Paul’s Parish didn’t know where they would go to call. In fact, no one was tabbed to replace my father with the Democratic Party committee for almost a full year.

But someone wanted to do something to honor Jack and what he did for the neighborhood. So money was raised in order to send Jack Hague’s young son to the National Football League Players’ Association Camp that was held at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

It was an expensive gathering of about 50 of the NFL’s top players, who served as instructors and clinicians. I have no idea what the cost was, but I’m willing to guess that it was at least $2,000, probably more. It was a time where the players could really use the extra cash that came with the work at the camp. In the early 1970s, NFL players weren’t getting seven-figure contracts, so it they received $5,000 or so for the week in Easton, it was quickly gathered.

I never found out who was behind the fundraising efforts, but I have strong beliefs that the mastermind behind the efforts was my grammar school football coach Bill DeFazio. As I grew older and the relationship between Billy and I morphed into a very close friendship.

Billy had the ability to squeeze money out of a beggar on Kennedy Boulevard, so if he saw a chance to get the neighborhood together and raise some cash to pay tribute to a pillar of the parish, a devoted Little League coach and daily St. Paul’s Courtyard monitor during the hours before the first bell and during lunchtime while helping develop one of his learning and burgeoning football players, then he was going to do it.

I asked him many times before he died in November of 2010 whether he was behind the fundraising efforts to send me to the NFL Players Camp that summer and he never did admit to it. He would just smile, tilt his head to the side like he always did and shrug his shoulders like a little boy who had his hand caught in the cookie jar. Billy must have made a pact with the Devil not to spill the beans, because he never truly did. But I think he was the one who did it. And if someone knows for sure, they haven’t told me in all these years since.

So in any case, I was handed all the information to go to the camp. There was only one problem. My mother didn’t drive. She had my father’s pristine Chevrolet Impala, but no driver’s license. She eventually got her license later that year after failing the driver’s test an astounding four times. If anyone saw my mother drive, it wasn’t hard to figure out why she failed four times. She was clearly the worst driver to ever grace the roads of New Jersey. I never could understand how she was able to pass the test in the first place.

To get me to Bethlehem, my mother went with me on the No. 99S bus to Port Authority and watched as I climbed aboard a bus to Bethlehem. When I got to the bus station in Easton, there was a shuttle bus for campers going to the camp.

It was the first time I was away from home without one of my parents. Later that summer, I went on a trip to 

Lake George, N.Y. with Father George, the chaplain at St. Ann’s Home near my house. I got to know Father George from being an altar boy. He also liked my father and took me and another altar boy to Lake George for the week.

Can you imagine something like that happening now? I can also assure you that Father George Mader did not touch me or try anything with me. I think Father George was fine with the other altar boy who went on the trip with us.

I know all the signs were there. I was an impressionable 11-year-old going on a week’s vacation with a priest. I had just lost my father. So did the other altar boy, who will remain nameless here. All I can say was that I had a fantastic time on this trip. I learned how to fish in a fresh water stream, even baiting the hook with a worm, and caught a pretty reasonable sized bass that I brought home for the Polish lady who lived next door to us to clean and cook. There was nothing felonious taking place on this trip. It was fishing and baseball and laughter.

Father George died last year. I saw him a couple of times when he was teaching and coordinating campus ministry at Ramapo College and another time when he was teaching at Paramus Catholic. He was a wonderful man and I couldn’t thank him enough for taking me on that memorable vacation.

Okay, back to football camp. At first, my mother was a little reluctant to send me to this camp, but someone (probably DeFazio) told my mother it was the chance of a lifetime and that I should go. So off I went on the first journey without her. I let go of the apron strings long enough to allow the Mama’s boy to go to play football with legends.

When I first got off the bus, there were people instructing the kids to quickly break into groups separated by positions.

“OK, running backs go over there and receivers go in that line,” someone bellowed. “Linebackers over here, quarterbacks over here, linemen over here...”

Believe it or not, the first position I played when I was in organized tackle football was quarterback. I kid you not. When I was from the ages of eight through 10, I was a quarterback. The growth spurt didn’t come until way later. At age 10, I was skinny, fairly scrawny and average height. I was not gargantuan by any means.

So when the campers were heading off in different directions, I was all set to take my rightful place with my fellow brethren signal callers. Or so I thought.

“You’re a lineman, son,” the counselor who obviously had impeccable foresight said. “You go with the linemen.”

I tried to explain that I was a quarterback and I was all set to graduate from the Pee-Wees to the big boy team later that fall. I was groomed to be a quarterback. I dreamed I was going to be the next Johnny Unitas. I practiced throwing, signal calling and watching Unitas, idolizing every movement, every step the man with the flattop haircut and high top shoes made.

But those words fell on deaf ears.

“Son, you’re a lineman,” the man insisted. “Get with the linemen.”

So the really big kids set off to one dormitory and the sleek skilled kids (trust me, I was never ever sleek) went to another dorm.

“But I’m a quarterback,” I reiterated. “I’m honestly a quarterback back home.”

“Well, you’re a lineman here,” he said. “So get with the linemen.”

I’m now 90 miles away from home for the very first time in my life. I certainly can’t call my mother, because honestly, what was she going to do? I thought about calling my brother, who lived in Hackettstown, which was about 45 minutes away from Bethlehem. I knew my brother would come get me if I really needed him.

Tears were flowing like a river. Trust me, I cried an awful lot back then. I cry a lot now for someone 57 years old, but when I was 11, especially within six months or so after losing the most important human being in my lifetime, I cried all the time. Something would trigger a memory of my father and the water works would just flow.

Now, I’m facing the most emotional moment of my life since Dad’s passing and I really don’t know how to handle it. What should I do? Should I call Jackie and have him come get me? Or should I suck it up and become a lineman? I didn’t know a thing about blocking. I knew how to be Unitas, the short choppy steps dropping back to pass, the release at three-quarter arm’s length, not directly over the top, the two-minute drill. Yes, I was 10 and practicing the two-minute drill, like what plays I’d call for Tom Matte and John Mackey. I was nuts, but I was a quarterback through and through.

Until that day, when that counselor told me for the last time in a high-pitched shrill, “Son, I told you 37 times already. You are a lineman. Now hurry up and get going with the linemen.”

More tears. Half Pint on Little House of the Prairie (perhaps a little foreshadowing here?) didn’t cry as much as I did that day. Ricky Schroeder in “The Champ” had nothing on me. Tom Hanks could have said, 

“There’s no crying in football,” but I didn’t care. The emotion poured down my red cheeks and the sniffles were too ferocious to be stopped by a Kleenex.

I was so upset that I meandered over to an area away from all the activities, buses or not. I was like Eric Carmen doing “All By Myself,” but the song wasn’t released until three years later. As the sun began to set in Easton, I sat myself on a log that was used to corner off the buses. I was sure I didn’t want to be a lineman (more foreshadowing), but I thought about it over and over about what my next line of defense would be.

I knew that the people of my neighborhood pooled their money together to send me to this camp. How could I leave after a half hour? What a disappointment I would be. I couldn’t show my face to those caring people ever again.  To my football coach DeFazio, who I feared tremendously, but who I admired and respected immensely. I knew it would be a gigantic disappointment to him. If I called my brother, he would have come to get me, but it would have been a colossal embarrassment to him that I cried my way out of a football camp.

The emotions were flowing, no doubt. So I just sat on the log and cried.

At that time, I heard a booming voice that changed my life forever.

“Son, I heard you don’t want to be a lineman,” the hulking man said. “Get up, I’m going to teach you how to be a lineman.”

I had to look up at him, but couldn’t see a face because of the setting sun. The sun was so bright that I couldn’t make out the face, just the immense frame. He put out his humongous hand to help me up. I put my hand in his and got to my feet. As I stood up, I recognized the face right away. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Merlin Olsen.

Yes, it was Merlin Olsen, yes, that Merlin Olsen, arguably the best defensive tackle in the game, the upteen time All-Pro defensive lineman from the Los Angeles Rams. MERLIN OLSEN JUST PICKED ME UP FROM A LOG AND HELPED ME TO MY FEET. MERLIN OLSEN!!!!! THE GUY ON LITTLE HOUSE OF THE PRAIRIE AND THE GUY WHO BECAME FATHER MURPHY SELLING FTD FLOWERS ON TELEVISION!!! THE GUY ANNOUNCING GAMES ON NBC!!!! THAT MERLIN OLSEN!!!

Olsen then brought me over to the side and gave me some quick pointers, like the three-point stance.

“I’m going to watch you all week to make sure you learn the position,” Olsen said.

He not only taught me how to be a defensive lineman, but he also taught me the basics of being a good offensive lineman. He brought his brother, Phil, who also played for the Rams, over to work with me as well.

Every single day of the six days, Olsen took the time to personally work with me.

“I’m going to make sure you are a good lineman, James,” Olsen said.

The week was tremendous. Some of the other NFL stars in the camp included John Mendenhall of the Giants, Rich Caster of the Jets, as well as Harold Carmichael of the Philadelphia Eagles, Phil Villapiano of the Oakland Raiders, Bruce Taylor of the San Francisco 49ers, Jim Kiick of the Miami Dolphins,  Ted Hendricks of the Baltimore Colts, Pete and Charley Gogolak, who were placekicker brothers, John Mackey of the Baltimore Colts. It was a great collection of players.

The dormitory counselors were prominent college players. The guy who ran my bunk was Steve Davis, the quarterback at Oklahoma at the time. At the end of the week, Steve and I became very close. He was teaching me all the intricacies of the Wishbone offense. Because of my association with Davis, I became a Sooner fan in college football. Davis had a great career at OU, posting a 32-1 record as a starter from 1973 through 1975 and was the MVP of the 1976 Orange Bowl, capping the Sooners’ national championship that year.

Unfortunately, Davis, who became a respected broadcaster, died in a plane crash outside Notre Dame in 2013.

Steve and I were close throughout the week and then after. He asked for my address, which of course I gave to him. I’ll never forget about two weeks after the camp, my mother came around the corner to where I was playing to tell me that I received a package from UPS. So I raced home to find this huge box and it was filled with Oklahoma gear like pennants, hats, bumper stickers, an autographed football from then superstars Joe Washington and Billy Sims and the Sooners. I was hooked for life.

The same goes for my association with the Rams, all because of that fateful day in Easton in July of 1972. If Merlin Olsen didn’t extend his hand to me and teach me how to be a lineman, who knows who I would be rooting for in the NFL? Maybe the Indianapolis Colts, because of my obsession with Unitas.

But that’s not the case. I’m a Rams fan, right to the core, right down to the blue and white of Roman Gabriel days to the blue and gold days of Eric Dickerson and Jack Youngblood. Of course, Merlin wore both uniforms. Unfortunately, we lost Merlin to cancer in 2010. So he’s the reason why I root for the Rams for the last 47 years and will root Sunday when they play in the Super Bowl. I’m proud to say this is the fourth time the Rams have played in the Super Bowl since I’ve been a fan. We lost to the Steelers in 1980, beat the Tennessee Titans in 2000, lost to you know who in 2002 and now this. And as Paul Harvey used to say, “Now, you know the rest of the story. Good day.”

And one last thing: GO RAMS!!!!!

You can read the rest of my work at www.hudsonreporter.com and www.theobserver.com