[max]

Looks like a cool fathers day read:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N8UFHT0/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

[Hacksaw]

"They were the first major professional sports team west of the Mississippi River, the first to integrate, even before Jackie Robinson, the first team to reach a million fans, and the first team with a TV contract. The Rams of the 1950s were, in so many ways, the first modern sports franchise.

Their roster is a who’s who of the NFL Hall Fame. Names such as quarterback Norm “The Dutchman” Van Brocklin, wide receiver Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch, Bob Waterfield, Tom Fears, defensive back Dick “Night Train” Lane, and linebacker Les Richter. Other notables from the era include a wunderkind public relations man named Pete Rozelle who would go on to become the boy commissioner of the NFL at age thirty-three. Head coach Sid Gillman was an architect of the modern passing game. Owner Dan Reeves was a genius in business, but troubled by alcohol. Heck, even the iconic comedian Bob Hope was a partial owner of the Rams at the time.

The Rams were Hollywood’s team. This is their story."

Our team is pretty iconic...

[max]

"They were the first major professional sports team west of the Mississippi River, the first to integrate, even before Jackie Robinson, the first team to reach a million fans, and the first team with a TV contract. The Rams of the 1950s were, in so many ways, the first modern sports franchise.

Their roster is a who’s who of the NFL Hall Fame. Names such as quarterback Norm “The Dutchman” Van Brocklin, wide receiver Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch, Bob Waterfield, Tom Fears, defensive back Dick “Night Train” Lane, and linebacker Les Richter. Other notables from the era include a wunderkind public relations man named Pete Rozelle who would go on to become the boy commissioner of the NFL at age thirty-three. Head coach Sid Gillman was an architect of the modern passing game. Owner Dan Reeves was a genius in business, but troubled by alcohol. Heck, even the iconic comedian Bob Hope was a partial owner of the Rams at the time.

The Rams were Hollywood’s team. This is their story."

Our team is pretty iconic...

Not pretty iconic, very iconic.

A lot of it got lost in StL. Hopefully, the great history gets attention again.

There is a great line from the musical Hamilton. "Who lives, who dies, who tells your story."

Its time to tell the story of the Los Angeles Rams of the 50's.

[Hacksaw]

Not pretty iconic, very iconic.

A lot of it got lost in StL. Hopefully, the great history gets attention again.

There is a great line from the musical Hamilton. "Who lives, who dies, who tells your story."

Its time to tell the story of the Los Angeles Rams of the 50's.

Agreed. It's time to start winning again so folks will take notice. Our players need to start dating actresses and our front office needs to be top flight. The uniform speaks for itself.

Cool thread and I am buying the book to read at the beach.

[aeneas1]

a look inside:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1945572264/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=eephus-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1945572264&linkId=18f693903d51d150743bb066318ba9c1#reader_B01N8UFHT0

ps: max, i added the book cover image to your post and fixed your link, hope you don't mind, just wanted to make sure everyone got a good look!

[max]

a look inside:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1945572264/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=eephus-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1945572264&linkId=18f693903d51d150743bb066318ba9c1#reader_B01N8UFHT0

ps: max, i added the book cover image to your post and fixed your link, hope you don't mind, just wanted to make sure everyone got a good look!

Thanks, a1. Looks great!

[RamsFanSince82]

Here's a recent Q and A with the writer, and son of former LA Ram, John Hock.

http://news.fordham.edu/fordham-magazin ... eles-rams/

[max]

This is cool. A podcast on the past and present LA Rams. Great listen.

#35: John Hock and Brock The Rock - Greatest Show on Grass


http://pca.st/episode/a1c82840-0b86-013 ... 14446340cb


a1c82840-0b86-0135-ecbb-4114446340cb.mp3

[RamsFanSince82]

John J. Hock (March 7, 1928 – December 9, 2000) was an American football offensive lineman who played for the Chicago Cardinals from 1950 to 1952 and Los Angeles Rams from 1953 to 1957. He was named to the Pro Bowl one time. He was co-captain of a Santa Clara University (California) football squad that defeated Bear Bryant's highly ranked University of Kentucky team in the 1950 Orange Bowl. Hock also participated in the Olympic Trials for wrestling and was a veteran of the Korean War. After his professional football career ended with a severe knee injury, Hock went on to a successful career as an executive with a variety of freight forwarding and transportation companies. Hock died from lung cancer in December 2000. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was survived by his wife Bernadette "Micki", seven children and thirteen grandchildren.

[aeneas1]

Here's a recent Q and A with the writer, and son of former LA Ram, John Hock.

a very nice read for those too lazy to click ramsfansince82's posted link! great find rfs82!

Seven Questions with Jim Hock, Author of Hollywood’s Team: Grit, Glamour, and the 1950s Los Angeles Rams
By Fordham News on January 27, 2017 - Fordham Magazine, Profiles/Q&As



When Jim Hock, FCRH ’91, lost his father, John, back in 2000, he and his brothers laughed and cried at a memorial service as they listened in rapt attention to stories of the Los Angeles Rams teams that John played on as an offensive lineman back in the 1950s. Before the service had even ended, Jim’s brother began urging him to collect the stories for a book, which became Hollywood’s Team: Grit, Glamour, and the 1950s Los Angeles Rams (Rare Bird Books), published on December 27.

http://www.rarebirdbooks.com/hollywoods-team

Hock worked on the book while starting a family, founding a public-relations firm, and, from 2013 until last week, working for the Department of Commerce, first as a senior adviser and later as the chief of staff to former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.

John Hock moved his family to New Jersey when Jim was a young boy, but during Jim’s senior year at Fordham, he was inspired by a Jesuit Volunteer Corps open house to head west after graduation and begin working in a school for at-risk youth in East Los Angeles. During his years on the West Coast, Hock also worked as a legislative assistant for the City of Los Angeles and interned with his father’s old team, the Rams (which, incidentally, chose its name in honor of the great Fordham Rams teams of the 1930s).

Hock spoke with FORDHAM magazine last week, hours before his time in the Obama administration officially ended.

With all that you’ve had going on, how did you find the time to work on this book?

I basically worked on the book from about 2002 to 2013. I was lamenting that I didn’t have a lot of time, but I had a friend in the book business who said, “I have a great collaborator; let me introduce you.” I met Michael [Downs, the book’s co-author], and we just completely hit it off. I did most of the interviews, but he did some interviews as well, and we would share notes. It was like a 50-50 proposition, in terms of the writing. We could bounce things off each other. Working collaboratively is more fun. But I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the book. And so it kind of sat on the shelf a bit. But then that same friend in the publishing business said, “Look, the Rams are moving back to Los Angeles [from St. Louis, where they moved in 1995]; you need to publish this. This is a great story.”

How did you balance your dad’s story with the story of the team and the times?

There’s the story of my dad throughout this book; he’s the protagonist. But it’s a juxtaposition of the glitz of Hollywood with kind of the real people that make up any city and any community, through the hard work and the quiet work. And so that’s what I was trying to show—a way to honor him and his teammates, but also the people that we all know do the hard work behind the scenes to make things go. That was the genesis of it, and that was the focus of it. And so we tell lots of stories about players and times, but we were really trying to highlight the people.


John Hock of the Los Angeles Rams, 1957

What was the best part of growing up with a father who played NFL football?

I’m the youngest of seven, and the book is about my dad, but it’s about my mom, too. We heard stories growing up all the time about what it was like to play football in the 1950s. It was obviously a much simpler time. My mother was a third-grade teacher at the same time my dad was playing professional football, and they basically made a comparable salary, which today is just unthinkable. He was a regular guy who loved what he was doing, and loved the game. He was a very quiet guy, a humble guy as well.

The Rams were the first team to integrate, so I heard stories about what it was like for my dad to have African-American friends in the ’50s and go to places, including New York, and not be welcome in bars. It was just story after story like that, from his perspective of what it was like—obviously, he was outraged at that kind of stuff. Hearing those stories was fascinating. We were obviously exposed to famous people, but I was never really interested in that. My dad always said, “Don’t ask for autographs, they’re just like you and me.”


The Hock family in 1976 (from left): Anna, Lisa, Sue, Mary, Jim (in blue shirt and tie), Joe, John, Micki, and Jay.

You write about how the Rams were innovative in various ways. What were they doing that other teams weren’t?

The Rams were innovative in a lot of different ways. They were the first team to integrate, the first team to really kind of embrace the modern passing game. Their coach at the time, Sid Gillman, some of the things that he designed in terms of plays and the organization of his offense are still used in some form or fashion today. They were the first team to move; the first ones to have a TV contract, before a league-wide TV contract; the first team to really try to develop a union, a players union, again, before the league had it; the first team to hit a million fans in a season, regular season and pre-season, which is a big deal.

The San Diego Chargers just announced they’re moving back to Los Angeles. There’s been talk for a while of pro football’s place in Los Angeles. Do you think LA can handle two teams?

I do. There’s a natural following for the Rams. There’s been Facebook pages and other things even before they moved, that I’ve been following, maybe because I’m a dork. But hundreds of thousands of people were kind of wishing them back, and the Rams, when they announced their season tickets, sold out within a matter of hours. So there is a market there. It’s a big metropolitan area. It’s much broader geographically than New York, more spread out. You have 20-plus million people in the Southland, they call it, that they can draw from. It’ll be interesting to see. The Chargers don’t have a natural fan base there, because they only played there one year, in 1960, but they’ll find a following.

What will you miss most about working in the Obama administration?

I’ll miss the people the most. We had a tremendous team dedicated to a mission. Our mission at the department was helping businesses with additional tools they needed to succeed. At the end of the day, our goal was to help businesses so they could create jobs and opportunity, and we have quite a trajectory over the last eight years of going from the worst recession since the Great Depression to now 15 million-plus jobs created. You know, there’s more work to do to help people around the country that are still hurting, but that was the key.

What’s next for you?

I’m going to do some private consulting. My first priority is taking time off. So I’m taking a few weeks off to be with my kids and wife and family. My job was two phones constantly ringing 24 hours a day, and it was a tremendous honor, but that time is over.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Joe DeLessio, FCLC ’06.

http://news.fordham.edu/fordham-magazin ... rettyPhoto