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Five Rams recall L.A. roots
Posted: Wednesday January 26, 2000 03:20 PM
With the Rams in the Super Bowl, Coach Dick Vermeil has been doing a lot of reminiscing about his past, recalling everything from his days in Philadelphia to the first team meeting he held as Rams head coach before a minicamp back in April 1997. On Thursday, Vermeil said he has at times this season looked over the notes he prepared for that meeting. Among the topics he addressed at that meeting was the fact that the Rams were not starting over but just plain starting. He never wanted the team to feel like a transplanted organization. With the Rams in the Super Bowl, some of his players have had to rethink that notion. Five players who once played for the Los Angeles Rams are left on the St. Louis Roster. And this week they've been thinking a lot about where they came from. "We were at a standpoint one time when you know we didn't get any attention. We didn't win many football games," wide receiver Isaac Bruce said. "Just to have us all here right now and preparing to play a Super Bowl is special." In addition to Bruce, Keith Lyle, Todd Lyght, D'Marco Farr, and Jay Williams all have L.A. roots. "Sure there was a time I thought it would never happen," Lyght said. "You know, with this organization, different coaching changes, the changes of city, all the turnover that we had there was no consistency there that gave us a foundation where we could build toward this day." Bruce said it really hit him how far the quintet had come on the plane home from San Francisco after beating the 49ers during the regular season. That was one of the times the "LA Five" got together. Farr described another. "We laugh about it when you see Keith or Todd or Jay," Farr said. "We laugh about it. This is a far cry from where we were in LA, you know, when we had four or five Melon Heads in the stands or when we played the Raiders and they had more fans than we did in our own stadium."
The five players are also part of another exclusive group. They're among the nine players from Vermeil's first St. Louis team on the Rams Super Bowl roster.
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