How many times have you heard of athletes who signed mega-million dollar contracts and who went broke? They include baseball players Tony Gwynn, Bill Buckner, and Jack Clark; football players Johnny Unitis, Harvey Martin, and Danny White; and athletes from other sports including Steffi Graf, Dorothy Hamill, and John Daly. Basketball player Kenny Anderson earned $63 in salary; went bankrupt; and became a K-12 school teacher. Baseball player Lenny Dykstra turned a chain of car washes into an empire that eventually included a luxury airline, Wayne Gretsky’s $17 million mansion and a $60 million personal fortune. Dykstra filed chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008 listing over $30 million in debts to various banks and law firms. He is currently serving a three year sentence for grand theft auto.

What does this have to do with Coach Jeff Fisher of the St. Louis Rams football team? Coach Fisher has initiated a team policy along with General Manager Les Snead and Kevin Demoff, executive vice-president for football operations. The essence is that players drafted out of college are not offered professional contracts as soon as possible after the team develops sole negotiating rights with them following the draft. The Rams have seven draft picks, none of them signed as of June 11, 2013. In contrast, seven teams have all their draft picks signed. All thirty- one of the teams other than the Rams have at least two players signed.

Until several years ago, it used to be difficult to sign players that your team drafted. But in an effort to make the playing field more level, the league established a system where each player would fall into a “slot” on the basis of in what order the player he was chosen. That slot would have narrow parameters for what the player could be paid. So the Rams are not being cheap; they’re just trying to take advantage of the time they have with the players before they get ahold of the millions that will be coming their way.

Some of the former players on the “bankruptcy list” once played for the Tennessee Titans when Jeff Fisher coached that team. He doesn’t want to see that happen again with players on the Rams.

“We just feel like they’ll be better suited if we can take them through step A and B of Financial Planning 101 before we give ‘em the money,” Fisher said. “It’s just that simple. We’ll get them all signed and we’re communicating with them.”

It’s been pretty well documented how many pro athletes squander their money by the time their careers have ended. Fisher figures the players, and the team, will benefit if he and the rest of the Rams’ organization can set expectations for the rookies on and off the field before showing them the money.

“Exactly,” Fisher said. “It’s a life-changing event for them. We try to better prepare them for that.”

Demoff continued: “A big focus of our entire program, with an emphasis from Coach Fisher and (general manager) Les (Snead) is on player development and skill development. We get La’Roi Glover involved, and really taking a holistic approach to the maturation process of the rookies and the vets.”

Kudos to Fisher and the Rams. We can certainly appreciate any competitive sports team that takes a “holistic approach” to player development and maturation. There obviously is some “good citizenry” in what the Rams do, but it’s also good business for them. The team is better off if its players are not squandering money and going on the edge of bankruptcy. The Coach won’t keep his job if the players handle their finances well, but whatever the won-loss record is at the end of the season, he will have a sense of accomplishment if the rookies succeed in the “Game of Life” version of Finances 101.

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Some may groan when someone tries to relate sports to larger issues in our society, but sports = money, which equals societal priorities. There’s a looming issue in St. Louis, MO with the professional football team, the Rams. They have a 20-year lease on the Edward Jones Dome (aka TWA Dome), and it runs out in 2014. The team came to St. Louis from Los Angeles, and it seems quite possible that it could turn into a round trip, just with a 20- year layover.

Ownership of the team is currently in transition, but it seems likely that it will fall into the hands of Wal-Mart-heir-in-law Stan Kroenke. This is a man who has been successful in business, but who seems to leave a wake of disappointment, possibly despair, behind his enterprises. Most recently, he secured a seven- million- dollar TIF (tax-increment financing) from the small town of Bridgeton, MO in order to build a Wal-Mart. Bridgeton doesn’t have money to sacrifice; its median household income is nearly 20% less than that for St. Louis County as a whole.

Mr. Kroenke has neither committed himself to keeping the Rams in St. Louis nor in the Dome if they remain in St. Louis. The Rams organization secured a rather unusual provision in their lease for the dome prior to coming to St. Louis in 1995.  After 20 years in the Dome (meaning 2014), the team can opt out of its contract, if the Dome is not among the 25% best stadiums in the National Football League. This was part of the price of getting the Rams to leave the City of Angels to come to the Gateway Town. St. Louis was desperate, in part because it had already begun construction on the Dome in anticipation of securing an N.F.L. franchise; it didn’t want the dome to be a stadium where no one played.

There are two reasons why this provision seems absurd, even if it was deemed reasonable by former Senator Thomas Eagleton and other “movers and shakers” who arranged for the Rams to come to St. Louis.

First, how does one measure which stadiums are the best. Second, if every team had the same policy, you would have 75% temporary losers resulting in “stadium-palace-inflation;” i.e. each team trying to build a stadium more like the Taj Mahal at huge expense to tax payers with no particular gain to fans or players. It’s still football; you need a field, a couple of goal posts, and some place to sit.

So having gone to a Rams exhibition game at the Dome, I’ll acknowledge that there probably are “better stadiums.” But, while it was 92-degrees outside, it was 72-degrees inside, and when it’s in the teens in December (and hopefully January for the Rams), it will still be 72-degrees inside. The jumbo-tron shows replays; it’s fine by me. I only wish that at the game I could do what I do when watching it at home; TiVo it and start watching about 90 minutes into the game, fast-forwarding through the commercials.When they build a stadium where you can do that, maybe I’ll think that it’s worth building.

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Here’s what I like about football:

1. It’s a wonderful game of strategy.
2. Players have to be remarkably alert and aware of contingencies.
3. It involves tremendous athleticism.
4. The conclusion of the game can be in doubt until the very end and there are multiple options for ending the game.
5. It doesn’t have to be violent

Earlier this month I had the pleasure, the kind that comes along once a year, when I went to Lindenwood University to see a St. Louis Rams inter-squad scrimmage.  The Rams invited the public; the only charge was to bring school supplies for children who do not have them.

At the beginning of training camp, each NFL team is allowed to have 80 players under contract.  By kickoff for the first game, the roster is reduced to fifty-three of which only forty-seven can suit up for a given game.  This means that of the nearly 80 players who were on the field that August night (some were injured and couldn’t participate), close to half of them were “on the bubble;” competing for a position against teammates who are simultaneously their friends and rivals.  The coaches try to build a sense of team cohesiveness and unity when ‘marginal players” are really wishing the worst for anyone competing for their spot on the roster.

Football can be very precise and militaristic, and that’s the way the practice was run.  First the kickers came on the field to test their timing, strength, and accuracy.  Actually “long snapper” (the center who hikes the ball for extra points, field goals, and punts) Chris Massey came on the field at least a half hour before anyone to begin stretching.  He should be secure; no one else has ‘LS’ by their name on the roster sheet, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking back to the day last December in the Dome when his knee was mangled, he was carted off the field, and shortly thereafter had surgery.  Was his knee up to withstanding the abuse that the long snapper experiences when on each play at least three defenders try to run him over because through him is the shortest distance to blocking the kick.  Massey looked nervous and he addressed it by stretching some more and kindly going over to sign autographs before any other Ram was on the field.

Finally the whole roster was on the field; coaches seriously leading them in calisthenics.  It seemed that the seriousness with which each player took the exercises was a function of how certain he was that he would make the team.

The “scrimmage” was a series of match-ups.  It began with the first team offense against the second team defense; then the second team offense against the first team defense.  Quarterbacks were shuffled in and out, protected unlike any other player by the red jersey that they wear.  The coaches experimented with different match-ups and while each defender might know which offensive player or players was his responsibility, the offense is the keeper of the secret; they know what the play will be; the defense has to “read and react.”  That particular evening the offense dominated, at least when they put the ball in the air; they could never get the running game untracked.  It seemed that each of the 8,000 fans in attendance had their eyes glued on #8, Sam Bradford, the first player chosen in this year’s draft and the quarterback who hopefully will lead the team back to glory.

As a spectator, I tried to do what was beyond my reach; to fully understand what was going on each play.  A quarterback drops back, looks to the right, and then throws left to a receiver who has run a five yard “down and out” pattern.  It doesn’t work; the ball is off line; the receiver can’t hold on to it.  So what happened?  Did the quarterback simply make a poor throw?  Did an offensive lineman fail to make his block?  Did the receiver drop a pass that an NFL wide-out is expected to catch?  Did the defensive back have outstanding coverage because the team was in the perfect defensive alignment for that play, did the defensive back simply “read” the play quickly, or was his sound coverage because he was just physically superior on that play?  And what about everyone else seemingly uninvolved?  Seemingly the right offensive tackle has little to do on the play because it’s a quick timing play going in the opposite direction.  But he can’t dog it because the camera never blinks and he along with the twenty-one other players on the field are videotaped.  After the scrimmage one or several coaches will assess with or without the player how he did on that play and every other down.

Watching the scrimmage was a wonderful challenge; trying to observe, absorb, and analyze as much as I could.  I couldn’t keep up; only able to focus on three or possibly four players at a time while everyone else was seemingly out of sight and out of mind.

The scrimmage ended in less than 90-minutes, about 40% the length of an actual game.  But I think that they ran more plays in quicker sequence than you’d ever see in a game.  There were no television time-outs.  There were no injuries with players being carted off the field because this was controlled mayhem (you can wish the worst for a teammate, but you can’t be responsible for injuring him).

Not only was the scrimmage crisp and intense, it was held without distractions.  There were no cheerleaders (now I know I’ve offended someone), there were no fans with painted faces, there was no video-board telling fans what to say and when.  It was the skill-building that is essential to the game that the fans who pay with more than t school supplies to watch on Sundays.  A very kind gentleman from the Rams had offered me a bargain price for season tickets.  I haven’t decided what to do; this scrimmage was my Super Bowl for the year because to me a game and a sport is great when it can stand on its own without hype.  That’s what happened that Saturday night in August.

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