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Bonsignore: Jeff Fisher comes full circle with LA Rams
By Vincent Bonsignore, Los Angeles Daily News
http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20160224/bonsignore-jeff-fisher-comes-full-circle-with-la-rams
INDIANAPOLIS— Jeff Fisher could not have known the circle he was beginning as he climbed the steps of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum 49 years ago with his father. You don’t think about life goals and objectives when you’re a 9-year-old kid attending your first professional football game.
At the time, it was all Fisher could do just to take it all in as his heroes on the Los Angeles Rams warmed up before their game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
“If you had asked me the names of the Rams starting line up at the time, I probably could have,” Fisher recalled Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Turns out that fall afternoon at the Coliseum was the beginning of a journey for the young football star, one that transported him to Taft High School in Woodland Hills to USC to the Chicago Bears to head coaching stops in Houston and Tennessee and St. Louis.
And now, finally, back home.
When the Rams step foot in the Coliseum sometime next season in their first game as the Los Angeles Rams since moving to St. Louis in 1994, the kid who grew up rooting for them with his dad will stand alongside them as their head coach.
And if you don’t think the nostalgia of that hasn’t been hitting the former USC safety like a pair of pass rushing defensive ends ever since the Rams were approved for relocation back to L.A., you probably don’t know Jeff Fisher very well.
“You know, when all this was coming together (Rams president) Kevin (Demoff) called me and asked: ‘Hey, do you want to be the coach of the Los Angeles Rams?” Fisher remembered.
For an L.A. kid who idolized Roman Gabriel and Merlin Olson and Deacon Jones, it nearly took his breath away.
But he gathered himself and replied: “Yes. I. Do.”
And so completed a life circle.
“It’s exciting,” said Fisher.
The strangeness of it all hasn’t quite worn off. When it was Fisher’s turn to talk to the media Wednesday at the combine he was introduced not as the St. Louis Rams coach, but as the Los Angeles Rams coach. Afterward he was asked if that still seemed weird to him.
“Yes, it is,” he conceded.
“You know,” he continued. “It’s exciting times for the franchise. We know that the fanbase is extremely excited based on some things that took place the last few weeks with respect to the commitment to season tickets at the coliseum. So it’s exciting times for us.”
The move to Los Angeles is merely in the beginning stages. In fact, the Rams are still operating out of their St. Louis area offices in Earth City, Missouri, until moving to their temporary practice facility in Oxnard in early April.
“There’s a lot of work ahead, believe me,” Fisher said, “As you can imagine, there are so many things to do.”
Like putting together a roster, preparing for the draft and free agency and getting an offseason program up and running while simultaneously transferring an entire franchise from one city to another.
“You’re moving a franchise. You’re leaving one city and going to another, which is difficult from a fan standpoint, from a fan-base standpoint, but you have to take care of the detail things,” Fisher said. “As you go through that step-by-step process, from my standpoint, my job is to keep in mind the player needs. Thirty-one other teams in the league right now are staying put, and they’re going through an offseason program and there is stability there.
“It’s how quickly can we bring stability, from a player perspective, into this offseason program? Because we’re going to kick the season off like everyone else, and we potentially will have made a couple moves during the offseason.”
Fisher, along with members of the front office, is doing his best to update players and staff members on the relocation process, but with so much still up in the air – namely where the Rams will hold training camp and where their team headquarters will be through the 2016 season – there are still a number of unknowns.
And that creates a waiting game.
“At this point, there is still a lot of uncertainty,” Fisher said. “I can tell you that we’re going to have (the offseason program) at the Cowboys’ (Oxnard) facility,” Fisher said, “We’re currently trying to figure out and work out where we’re going to have training camp, because the Cowboys are going back there, and then, two, where we’re going to set up our facility. We have a meeting scheduled in Los Angeles a week from Friday with all the players, and we’re going to try to give them as much information as we can, from the standpoint of where this is going to take place and where that is going to take place.
“If we’re going to put a temporary facility someplace up north, you don’t want to put yourself in Newport Beach where you have a two-and-a-half-hour commute every day. So you can appreciate the things that we’re going through. The organization, Kevin, is doing a great job with each one of those steps. Hopefully we will have enough information for the players, to let them know.”
It’s something Fisher is actually experienced in. Back in 1997 he was the head coach of the Houston Oilers when they moved to Tennessee.
“I learned the most important thing is top put yourself in the shoes of the players. And I also learned eventually, things settle down. But the players need to understand eventually we have to play games.”
And that means the Rams running back onto the field at the Coliseum next September.
Jeff Fisher will be right there with them.
And so will that 9-year-old kid who climbed the steps of the Coliseum to watch the Rams play nearly 50 years ago.
By Vincent Bonsignore, Los Angeles Daily News
http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20160224/bonsignore-jeff-fisher-comes-full-circle-with-la-rams
INDIANAPOLIS— Jeff Fisher could not have known the circle he was beginning as he climbed the steps of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum 49 years ago with his father. You don’t think about life goals and objectives when you’re a 9-year-old kid attending your first professional football game.
At the time, it was all Fisher could do just to take it all in as his heroes on the Los Angeles Rams warmed up before their game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
“If you had asked me the names of the Rams starting line up at the time, I probably could have,” Fisher recalled Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Turns out that fall afternoon at the Coliseum was the beginning of a journey for the young football star, one that transported him to Taft High School in Woodland Hills to USC to the Chicago Bears to head coaching stops in Houston and Tennessee and St. Louis.
And now, finally, back home.
When the Rams step foot in the Coliseum sometime next season in their first game as the Los Angeles Rams since moving to St. Louis in 1994, the kid who grew up rooting for them with his dad will stand alongside them as their head coach.
And if you don’t think the nostalgia of that hasn’t been hitting the former USC safety like a pair of pass rushing defensive ends ever since the Rams were approved for relocation back to L.A., you probably don’t know Jeff Fisher very well.
“You know, when all this was coming together (Rams president) Kevin (Demoff) called me and asked: ‘Hey, do you want to be the coach of the Los Angeles Rams?” Fisher remembered.
For an L.A. kid who idolized Roman Gabriel and Merlin Olson and Deacon Jones, it nearly took his breath away.
But he gathered himself and replied: “Yes. I. Do.”
And so completed a life circle.
“It’s exciting,” said Fisher.
The strangeness of it all hasn’t quite worn off. When it was Fisher’s turn to talk to the media Wednesday at the combine he was introduced not as the St. Louis Rams coach, but as the Los Angeles Rams coach. Afterward he was asked if that still seemed weird to him.
“Yes, it is,” he conceded.
“You know,” he continued. “It’s exciting times for the franchise. We know that the fanbase is extremely excited based on some things that took place the last few weeks with respect to the commitment to season tickets at the coliseum. So it’s exciting times for us.”
The move to Los Angeles is merely in the beginning stages. In fact, the Rams are still operating out of their St. Louis area offices in Earth City, Missouri, until moving to their temporary practice facility in Oxnard in early April.
“There’s a lot of work ahead, believe me,” Fisher said, “As you can imagine, there are so many things to do.”
Like putting together a roster, preparing for the draft and free agency and getting an offseason program up and running while simultaneously transferring an entire franchise from one city to another.
“You’re moving a franchise. You’re leaving one city and going to another, which is difficult from a fan standpoint, from a fan-base standpoint, but you have to take care of the detail things,” Fisher said. “As you go through that step-by-step process, from my standpoint, my job is to keep in mind the player needs. Thirty-one other teams in the league right now are staying put, and they’re going through an offseason program and there is stability there.
“It’s how quickly can we bring stability, from a player perspective, into this offseason program? Because we’re going to kick the season off like everyone else, and we potentially will have made a couple moves during the offseason.”
Fisher, along with members of the front office, is doing his best to update players and staff members on the relocation process, but with so much still up in the air – namely where the Rams will hold training camp and where their team headquarters will be through the 2016 season – there are still a number of unknowns.
And that creates a waiting game.
“At this point, there is still a lot of uncertainty,” Fisher said. “I can tell you that we’re going to have (the offseason program) at the Cowboys’ (Oxnard) facility,” Fisher said, “We’re currently trying to figure out and work out where we’re going to have training camp, because the Cowboys are going back there, and then, two, where we’re going to set up our facility. We have a meeting scheduled in Los Angeles a week from Friday with all the players, and we’re going to try to give them as much information as we can, from the standpoint of where this is going to take place and where that is going to take place.
“If we’re going to put a temporary facility someplace up north, you don’t want to put yourself in Newport Beach where you have a two-and-a-half-hour commute every day. So you can appreciate the things that we’re going through. The organization, Kevin, is doing a great job with each one of those steps. Hopefully we will have enough information for the players, to let them know.”
It’s something Fisher is actually experienced in. Back in 1997 he was the head coach of the Houston Oilers when they moved to Tennessee.
“I learned the most important thing is top put yourself in the shoes of the players. And I also learned eventually, things settle down. But the players need to understand eventually we have to play games.”
And that means the Rams running back onto the field at the Coliseum next September.
Jeff Fisher will be right there with them.
And so will that 9-year-old kid who climbed the steps of the Coliseum to watch the Rams play nearly 50 years ago.
