Loss of NFL should bother L.A.

  Adam Karon To join Karon’s Jim Everett
fan club send your credit card number and expiration date to
[email protected].

Jon and Justin grew up in Bel Air. They went to private
schools, drive nice cars and would rather spend four 15-minute
segments shopping than watching football. They are also die-hard
Raider fans, and like many in Southern California, they hardly
remember that other L.A. team ““ the one that appeared in this
year’s Super Bowl.

But as a Rams fan from the early ’90s, I could only think
of one thing as the seconds ticked away and Adam Vinatieri kicked
himself into Super Bowl lore.

Jim Everett would have won it. He would have marched the Rams
down the field, from end zone to end zone, hitting Henry Ellard and
Flipper Anderson on deep posts and tight curls.

He would have made Kurt Warner look like Chris Miller.

Heck, he probably could have played linebacker and stopped
Antowain Smith, not to mention blocked Vinatieri’s kick.

But it wasn’t meant to be. Everett played for the Rams a
decade too early, leaving clinically insane fans like myself
clambering for more.

For all three Rams fans in the Los Angeles area, Sunday’s
game was doubly troubling.

It’s bad enough that the team skipped town to win a Super
Bowl after decades of disgrace. But to be beaten on the
year’s biggest television paycheck, in pewter uniforms, no
less, was almost intolerable.

For some reason, Angelinos’ love for the Rams ended faster
than a sixth-grade crush. Jon and Justin couldn’t have
cared less about Sunday’s events. Jon kept complaining about
how the Raiders were screwed while Justin fussed with his
hair. Hey, even if they were robbed, the NFL was probably just
making up for all the muggings that take place prior to Black and
Silver Sundays. As for Justin’s hair, judging from my
mug shot, I’m not the man to analyze such things.

I wonder why Los Angeles fans found it so easy to let the Rams
go. Perhaps it is because the Raiders play just up the street
in Oakland. Maybe it’s because Cleveland Gary and Tony
Banks are about as easy to love as Mike Tyson and John Rocker.

I grew up in Northern California, about an hour away from San
Francisco. That means that all my friends were 49ers fans. Imagine
hanging around with a bunch of Trojans for 10 years, during the
decade of Trojan dominance. When they’d get on my case about
Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott, I’d just shrug and say,
“Hey, the Rams are having a re-building century.”

Oddly enough I couldn’t have been more right. It
wasn’t until the end of the millennium that the Rams decided
to play football.

I didn’t cry when the Rams left town, and neither did
you. In fact, the most stunning part of the Rams’
departure was the silence of this city. I would compare it to
losing a classmate, but the one who sat in the fourth row flinging
spitballs at the back of your head and drawing pictures of the
teacher naked. But enough about my troubled childhood.

What would happen if the Dodgers, or even worse, your beloved
Lakers packed up and headed east? This city would freeze in
July. The public transit system would shut down, grown men would
cry and bootleg T-shirt vendors would be laid off. There would be
riots the likes of which this city has not seen, uh, at least not
lately.

Sure, it’s easier to give up on a loser, but if that were
always the case then where would the Expos be? Could it be that the
Rams were the Expos of the NFL?

Los Angeles fans have a reputation as the worst sports fans in
the world outside of those crazy Brits who trample people at
worthless soccer games before going to a pub to sing in their pale
skin and tightie-whities.

Do we deserve this title?  Absolutely not. Just look
to the fellows in the front row of the shrinking UCLA student
section or the crazy guys camping out before big games. Most
likely they’re the same group of people, but the fact remains
that this city throws its weight behind a winner as much as New
York or Milwaukee.

I can’t pretend to be a better fan than any of you, but I
loved the Rams when they were in Los Angeles, and I find it tougher
to like them today, even when they are consistently the most
exciting team in the NFL. Call me a sadomasochist, call me terribly
disturbed, but there was something romantic about blue and gold,
Eric Dickerson’s goggles and Kevin Greene’s hair.

The best thing to come out of the Rams’ 1994 departure was
increased interest in UCLA football. It helped that their departure
coincided with five bowl appearances in seven years, keeping
Southern Californians tuned to the weekend gridiron. But should pro
football be the cost of increasing interest in college sports?

Consider that both Houston and Cleveland, two cities not worth
living in long enough to watch a football game, get professional
football teams less than four years after losing their
originals.

Neither city has strong college football teams. I often wonder
if Los Angeles is big enough for a third group of gridiron
warriors. After all, Cal State Northridge only hosted two football
games this year, and they draw from the same large loyal fan base
that the Rams looked forward to on Sunday afternoons.

We no longer hear much protest over professional football in Los
Angeles. The Xtreme probably left the taste of rancid milk in our
collective mouths, but it would be nice to hear sports fans in the
area call for the return of the Rams.

If nothing else, Jon and Justin should have been a little more
upset on Sunday, even if their new shipment of Bed Head just
arrived postage-free.