St. Louis fans honor Rams legends indoors, trash Stan Kroenke outside
ST. LOUIS — Jeff Schnurbusch spent his hard-earned money on his beloved St. Louis Rams for more than 20 years, but he has made his final two purchases toward the team whose owner broke his and thousands of others’ hearts when the franchise moved to Los Angeles.
One was a ticket to Saturday’s Legends of the Dome game that honored the great Rams teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The other was a custom-made Rams jersey with one clear message.
That would be Stan Kroenke, perhaps the most hated man in Missouri. As much as Saturday’s event was a celebration for most of the Rams legends that lit this city on fire starting in 1999, it also served as another painful memory of the team that the city now has lost, the second time in 30 years an NFL left St. Louis behind.
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“It’s going to be retired after today,” Schnurbusch said before the game. “I am going to try to get the players to sign it. Then I am going to make a shadowbox and it’s going to be the only Rams memorabilia that I’ll own.
“We had these players who won us a Super Bowl in St. Louis. And ‘Suck It Stan’ reveals my dislike for us getting shafted by a guy who was supported this city.”
Schnurbusch was not the only one. Inside The Dome at America’s Center it was a comfy 72 degrees for the flag football game to sponsor the Isaac Bruce Foundation to support health, wellness, nutrition, fitness and education for children.
But outside, it was 97 degrees without a cloud in sight. Yet dozens of tailgate groups parked and partied hours before for one last time as Rams fans. The smoke from the charcoal grills only added to the heat. But the Kroenke cranked the mercury up even more.
“I don’t want to hear Stan’s name,” said Bob Aebel, another tortured Rams fan. “Today has nothing to do with Stan. This is for Isaac Bruce’s charity and to honor these Rams players.”
Added another 20-year Rams supporter, Steve Norwood: “They played us. We go from the ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ to whatever we had the past few years … and this is how they play us? We’re heartbroken! We’re really heartbroken.”
Bruce was the pied piper for the game, which pitted some of the best Rams legends from the glory days against each other. Mike Martz coached the Blue Team featuring Kurt Warner, Bruce, Pro Football Hall of Famer Aeneas Williams, Ricky Proehl and others. The White Team, coached by Dick Vermeil, was led by Marc Bulger, Torry Holt, soon-to-be Pro Football Hall of Famer Orlando Pace and more. (Marshall Faulk was one big-name player from that era who did not show.)
There was joy and pro football — sort of — for one more day in St. Louis. The team that put the fun back in the NFL passing game in 1999 relived the good times. On the first drive, Warner hit Proehl, who gave his signature first first-down demonstration. Then Warner hit Bruce on a corner route for the first touchdown of the day and the first of the final “Bruuuuuuuuce” chants to ever rain down in the dome. At the end, Bruce led a “Bob & Weave” celebration from back in the heyday.
Warner to Bruce. Touchdown. pic.twitter.com/ZRgijcGynZ
— Eric Edholm (@Eric_Edholm) July 23, 2016
On the White team’s first play, Holt caught an 80-yard touchdown from Bulger. “I’m home,” Holt said to the sideline reporter over the Dome PA system.
The fans — several thousand of them — ate it up. For a brief moment, they could close their eyes and it was just like old times when Warner and Co. used to blow the roof off the joint on a weekly basis in the fall. The participants marveled at the attendance and the response.
“I am amazed at the crowd,” Vermeil told Shutdown Corner. “I am amazed at how many people there are. I didn’t anticipate this kind of reception. I came to a game here a couple years ago and there weren’t too many more people here than there are today.”
But Proehl, now the wide receivers coach for the Carolina Panthers, wasn’t surprised. He expected a first-class reception from the St. Louis fans.
“I knew there would be a lot of support. This fan base always supported us,” he said. “I played in six different cities, and these were the best fans in the league. The five years I was here were the most I ever felt at home away from home.”
The game featured some hilarious moments, too, with Martz drawing up a Fumblerooski run play for offensive guard Adam Timmerman in the red zone, followed by a touchdown pass from Warner to … kicker Jeff Wilkins. Proehl had his shorts completely ripped off after one catch. Timmerman scored a touchdown. Some lesser-known Rams, such as Roland Williams and Dane Looker, were treated just as warmly as the stars.
A gift for Orlando Pace making the HOF pic.twitter.com/MD5WtiiSO9
— Eric Edholm (@Eric_Edholm) July 23, 2016
Pace, a few weeks away from his induction into Canton, also was honored with a halftime ceremony with his family on the field. He’s a St. Louis native and almost unnaturally beloved by the locals despite playing a position — left tackle — that sometimes doesn’t receive its proper share. Not here.
“I’ve always been humbled by the people here. They’ve always been great to us, which is why I live here still,” he told Shutdown Corner. “I can’t predict what the future will hold with us here, but I live here and will always be a part of it. I wish we could do this every year, just to bring back the good feelings to the people here.”
But as the game wore down, a bit of the air was let out of the building. It was the reality and the reminder of what Rams fans once had here — football nirvana for a few years — and what was ripped from them in a Los Angeles cash grab by Kroenke. This might not be the last time the team is honored in St. Louis as its only non-baseball championship team in nearly 60 years, but it’s almost certainly the final one in the building in which these Rams became the Greatest Show on Turf.
“It’s bittersweet,” Wilkins said. “You’d like to think there’s a home here for us when we come back for events. But it’s like anything else — as we get older, time passes by and memories fade. I think the support will always be here and the guys will always want to come back.”
Said Warner, “You never know if there’s one proper sendoff, especially everything this city gave to me, my family and my teammates. It was at least a fun way to say ‘thank you’ one more time to them.
“I don’t think guys are ever going to stop coming here. … But now you just wonder where the excuses are going to come from guys like me to come back and be able to interact with the community. I am fortunate that my son lives here. My foundation does stuff here. But a lot of these guys, there’s nothing that draws them back like a football game or an event like that. But I hope we feel like we have a home and guys continue to come back.”
Two #Cardinals and #Rams legends, Kurt Warner and Aeneas Williams, chatting at #LegendsOfTheDome pic.twitter.com/vXEJDo2UUs
— Eric Edholm (@Eric_Edholm) July 23, 2016
Several players, including Wilkins and Pace, indicated that they were Rams for life and would continue to follow the team in Los Angeles, and it’s possible that with no NFL in St. Louis that many of them might not return for a long time after this weekend.
Rams head coach Jeff Fisher told Shutdown Corner last month that the team plans to reach out to as many former members of the organization as it can to be a part of things even after the move.
“We’ll do what we did when I first got to St. Louis, which is bring those guys back for games and pregame and halftime events and other things in the area,” Fisher said. “We want that connection. There are three groups of [Rams] fans — the ones from L.A. back in the day, the ones from St. Louis and the new fans I think we’ll have. We’re going to try to merge all those things together and make it one big family going forward.”
Don’t count, however, on many St. Louis fans spending much time or money in L.A., though, not with their wounds that appear to be still fresh. They showed up Saturday — a White 56, Blue 49 final — for a variety of reasons: for autographs, for photos with the players, to support Bruce’s charity, and to watch their favorite players run around for a few hours and take their minds off the fact that there’s no more NFL in their town.
“I am an emotional guy and I appreciate the passion of these fans,” Vermeil said. “The relationship all of these coaches and players have not only with each other but also with the fans here, it hasn’t diminished at all. In fact, I think time has made it grow. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say.
“This is our way to come back one more time and say, ‘I am sorry, I understand. It’s the nature of the business.’”
Which is why the fans also came to spite Kroenke, who likely was blissfully ignorant of Saturday’s events, a few times zones away in his new city.
“I can tell you now that the entire NFL is dead to me,” Schnurbusch said. “I am going to watch college football. I will have a hard time watching anything NFL. To me, it’s just supporting people who took advantage of us.”
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
