When I first moved to the States I played a little ice hockey mostly because I loved to play physical as a forward (Usually took the other by surprise that I would be more of a two way player instead of only focused on offence at that age). The daughter of the defensive coordinator for our high school football team was dating one of my teammates so he came to a few games with her. Late in the season as we were gearing up for a little playoff run I had a real physical game, put on a bit of a hitting clinic to help us grind out a tough win.
He asked me to check out their spring ball practices to see about slotting me in as a LB. Unfortunately, being a lad from Lucan, I had no clue how to play American football, so when I tried to be a LB I couldn't diagnose any play at all, way too slow in the mental aspect of the game, but the physical traits were there, I was fast, had good reactions, and could hit. They decided to try me out as a safety where I would have a little more time to see what was going on/correct things, as well as receiver.
I picked up an old copy of Madden and picked a team at random (literally just hit the random team button in a play now mode and then after playing I started a franchise mode with them) to help me get a better understanding of various football concepts, real basic things to help me get up to speed more. The team I randomly selected was the St Louis Rams, and after playing a few seasons of Madden I had grown to like the players since they were the ones I was using, and they just sort of turned into my team. It wasn't until later I found out that they had been in LA previously, so I thought that was a neat connection even if it ultimately didn't play any role in my selection of them.
I missed out on the GSOT years since I was in Ireland still, I was just starting to watch the team and really didn't have a ton of loyalty in the 2004 season when they went 8-8 and beat the Hawks in the playoffs. I do remember the first Rams game I watched was the Giants game that was Warners last the season before, but I had just recently moved to the States and was just watching because it was on TV, not because I cared for the sport.
My fandom between 2004 and 2008 sort of hovered around slight favourability, they were my team when I picked up Madden, but I still wasn't a die hard football fan. I watched the Pats 2007 SB loss in Iraq during a small skirmish, which I thought was funny.
2008 I watched the two Rams victories against Washington and Dallas with a bunch of Dallas fans in the Army, seriously I was the lone Rams fan, and I vividly remember Donnie Avery adjusting for the deep pass against Washington, I think to set up the game winning FG, and then Jackson running all over the Boys the next week. That basically drove my fandom home, we sucked but they were my team still, and I would be dammed if I didn't sit there getting slagged by all those Cowboy fans to abandon the team for nothing.
That's a long way of saying that the McVay era is the first era of winning Rams football that I've known, so I'm really loving these past few years.
must have been in Elementary school ...
