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Almost gone: Rams Park will be empty in a week
By Jim Thomas St. Louis Post-Dispatch
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...tml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
There will be no convoy of moving trucks at the end of this month departing Rams Park in Earth City. The team’s physical departure from St. Louis to Southern California has been going on for most of the past two months — gradually but steadily.
And now, it has reached its final days. By the end of this week, the Rams’ business and scouting departments will be shut down in the building.
Before the end of next week — Thursday, March 24 to be precise — the last vestiges of the Rams in St. Louis will be gone. That’s when football operations shut down; in other words, the coaching staff, athletic trainers, equipment staff and video department.
At that point, the building will be empty, and the Rams officially out of St. Louis and en route to Los Angeles.
On Monday, April 4, the Rams open their temporary headquarters in Oxnard, Calif., about 70 miles northwest of downtown LA. In fact, draft meetings start that day.
The offseason conditioning program starts there April 18, and the team will be at Oxnard through the late spring practices known as OTAs in June. Those are the same practice fields the Rams shared with Dallas for joint practices in August.
The Rams can’t hold training camp at Oxnard because the Cowboys still hold their camp there each summer. Instead, the Rams will gather the last week of July at the University of California-Irvine in Orange County, about 45 miles south of Los Angeles.
After training camp, the Rams are expected to set up shop in the Thousand Oaks area for their practice facility for the next two or three years before they finally move into a permanent facility.
In the meantime, the team has been in a strange kind of limbo in Earth City as the facility — which the team has called home since 1996 — gradually empties.
The pictures are off the walls throughout the building. The two glass trophy cases that line the main lobby of the building are empty. The glimmering Lombardi Trophy, commemorating the team’s Super Bowl victory over Tennessee to cap the 1999 season, had been on display in one of those cases.
The positional meeting rooms on the first floor, where Isaac Bruce once met with the wide receivers and Kurt Warner once met with the quarterbacks, etc., are cleared out.
The locker room has been gutted. Even the locker stalls that lined the walls are gone. Weight training equipment remains, but there’s a sign in the weight room stating it will be shut down as of 1 p.m. March 23.
The media workroom is basically empty. Most of the media relations department space has been cleared out as well.
The near wall in the 80-yard indoor practice field is cluttered with containers to be shipped to the West Coast. “Trainers” reads the small sign over one cluster. “Oxnard ‘AV’ ” reads a sign over another.
Near the elevators that lead to the second floor is a makeshift photo-copied picture of Janoris Jenkins, taped to the wall. A little humor to commemorate the monster $62.5 million free-agent contract Jenkins signed last week with the New York Giants.
Upstairs, the long wood bar in what once was the private suite of late owner Georgia Frontiere is gone. Many desks have been cleaned out already on the second floor, where the coaches have their offices and the “non-football” or business side of the organization has its desks.
Many longtime employees either weren’t invited to LA with the team or decided they wanted to stay in St. Louis. Among those not going to Los Angeles:
• Mike Moyneur, vice president for executive services and special projects, who has been with the team 37 years.
• Bill Consoli, director of information systems, who like Moyneur made the move with the team from Anaheim, Calif., to St. Louis in 1995. He has been with the team 27 years.
• Michael Naughton, vice president of finance, who has been with the team 21 years — or since the Rams’ inaugural season (1995) in St. Louis.
• And in the media relations department, media information manager Casey Pearce is not making the trek to LA. He has been with the team six years.
By Jim Thomas St. Louis Post-Dispatch
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...tml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
There will be no convoy of moving trucks at the end of this month departing Rams Park in Earth City. The team’s physical departure from St. Louis to Southern California has been going on for most of the past two months — gradually but steadily.
And now, it has reached its final days. By the end of this week, the Rams’ business and scouting departments will be shut down in the building.
Before the end of next week — Thursday, March 24 to be precise — the last vestiges of the Rams in St. Louis will be gone. That’s when football operations shut down; in other words, the coaching staff, athletic trainers, equipment staff and video department.
At that point, the building will be empty, and the Rams officially out of St. Louis and en route to Los Angeles.
On Monday, April 4, the Rams open their temporary headquarters in Oxnard, Calif., about 70 miles northwest of downtown LA. In fact, draft meetings start that day.
The offseason conditioning program starts there April 18, and the team will be at Oxnard through the late spring practices known as OTAs in June. Those are the same practice fields the Rams shared with Dallas for joint practices in August.
The Rams can’t hold training camp at Oxnard because the Cowboys still hold their camp there each summer. Instead, the Rams will gather the last week of July at the University of California-Irvine in Orange County, about 45 miles south of Los Angeles.
After training camp, the Rams are expected to set up shop in the Thousand Oaks area for their practice facility for the next two or three years before they finally move into a permanent facility.
In the meantime, the team has been in a strange kind of limbo in Earth City as the facility — which the team has called home since 1996 — gradually empties.
The pictures are off the walls throughout the building. The two glass trophy cases that line the main lobby of the building are empty. The glimmering Lombardi Trophy, commemorating the team’s Super Bowl victory over Tennessee to cap the 1999 season, had been on display in one of those cases.
The positional meeting rooms on the first floor, where Isaac Bruce once met with the wide receivers and Kurt Warner once met with the quarterbacks, etc., are cleared out.
The locker room has been gutted. Even the locker stalls that lined the walls are gone. Weight training equipment remains, but there’s a sign in the weight room stating it will be shut down as of 1 p.m. March 23.
The media workroom is basically empty. Most of the media relations department space has been cleared out as well.
The near wall in the 80-yard indoor practice field is cluttered with containers to be shipped to the West Coast. “Trainers” reads the small sign over one cluster. “Oxnard ‘AV’ ” reads a sign over another.
Near the elevators that lead to the second floor is a makeshift photo-copied picture of Janoris Jenkins, taped to the wall. A little humor to commemorate the monster $62.5 million free-agent contract Jenkins signed last week with the New York Giants.
Upstairs, the long wood bar in what once was the private suite of late owner Georgia Frontiere is gone. Many desks have been cleaned out already on the second floor, where the coaches have their offices and the “non-football” or business side of the organization has its desks.
Many longtime employees either weren’t invited to LA with the team or decided they wanted to stay in St. Louis. Among those not going to Los Angeles:
• Mike Moyneur, vice president for executive services and special projects, who has been with the team 37 years.
• Bill Consoli, director of information systems, who like Moyneur made the move with the team from Anaheim, Calif., to St. Louis in 1995. He has been with the team 27 years.
• Michael Naughton, vice president of finance, who has been with the team 21 years — or since the Rams’ inaugural season (1995) in St. Louis.
• And in the media relations department, media information manager Casey Pearce is not making the trek to LA. He has been with the team six years.
