How Did The '95 Rams Win Me Over? By Losing, of Course

by Jeff Stahlhut

When an NFL fan grows up following the home team, it can be somewhat traumatic when that team up and leaves for, say, Arizona. And when a new team comes to town – say, the Rams, for example – you might expect some fans to resist the new team, others to immediately jump on the bandwagon because they’re just happy to have a pro team back in town, and then there’s the third group – those that decide “let’s see how this goes” before either rooting for or completely ignoring the new kids in town.

For this particular writer, it was the latter of those three options: A PSL (two, actually, one for me and one for a friend of mine), two seats upstairs and the hope that this team would feel like our team sooner than later.

The early season pep-rallies for the “St. Louis Rams” were indeed entertaining. The constant television specials, that first game against the Saints in Busch Stadium and starting off the season an unlike 4-0 all made that inaugural 1995 campaign at the very least entertaining and at the very most misleading. The team, after all, ended up posting just seven wins and missed the playoffs.

But the way the started the season – 4-0 – started to make believers out of doubters and definitely got the attention of the new fan base. Most of them, that is.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t the undefeated first month of the season that won this pundit over… it was their first loss. Sounds crazy, right? Perhaps, but it’s true.

For reasons still unknown nearly 15 years later, a group consisting of myself, a fella named Bob, his father and my mother had the bright idea to travel north to Indianapolis to watch the unbeaten Rams take on Jim Harbaugh, Marshall Faulk and the Indianapolis Colts in the ever-so-delightful RCA (formerly Hoosier, now non-existent) Dome.

Kickoff was set for noon. We were on the road by 6:00 a.m.

So what, right? It’s just a road trip. It’s just a little drive north to see your team play. It happens all the time, and it happens in every sport. But there was something different and special about this. This was unique. This was… new. This was the day we would become fans of the St. Louis Rams. Real, actual, fans.

Sure, the 4-0 start was fun. The 4-0 start was giving us hope. The 4-0 start was something nobody could have ever expected. But it was the traffic jam at 6:00 a.m. heading out of downtown St. Louis that I’ll always remember. It was fans tailgating at an Iron Skillet Restaurant in Evanston, Ill. at 9am that stands out. It was sitting in the upper bowl of that miserable venue, seeing your neighbors, old friends and watching future Ram Marshall Faulk go for about 400 yards in what would eventually be a 21-18 victory for the Colts. (Fact check: Faulk ran for 188 that day, picking up three touchdowns. He also had 45 yards receiving.)

All that said, the trip back left something to be desired.

Rams fans, you see, had taken a VERY large chunk of tickets for the game. We were loud. We were almost certainly obnoxious. And we were, for the first time in several years, trying to remember how to properly root for our team. The NFL had left us behind, and catching up was indeed a learning experience. Meanwhile we definitely offended some Colts fans, and heard about it on sports talk radio all the way home.

But I digress.

It was a long day. It was a disappointing game. It was a season that went south in a hurry. But it was the day I became a fan of the St. Louis Rams.