My office is full of memorabilia from various media productions I’ve worked on over the years. One of the oldest is a large photograph I took when I was a 24-year-old photographer in L.A. It’s of the 1985 Los Angeles Rams. I thought of it this week because the long time owner of the football team, Georgia Fontiere, died last Friday at age 80.
She moved the Rams from L.A. to St. Louis in 1995 and in 2000 the Rams won the Super Bowl behind the arm of quarterback Kurt Warner and "The Greatest Show on Turf." Warner played his college ball right here in Cedar Falls at the University of Northern Iowa. (Congrats to UNI Coach Mark Farley for leading this years football team to the school's first ever undefeated regular season.)
Before Warner became an NFL and Super Bowl MVP he famously was a stock boy at the Hy-Vee grocery store located just two miles from our offices. (Speaking of Hy-Vee, check out the work my buddies at Spin-U-Tech did for the Hy-Vee website.)
The Ram’s photo is special because it was the pinnacle of my early career when I was director of photography at Yary Photo. Yary Photo was started and owned by Ron and Wayne Yary who played football at USC. Ron won the Outland Trophy (the nation’s top collegiate lineman) in 1967 where he blocked for the Heisman Trophy runner-up O.J. Simpson. The Trojans also won the NCAA national title that year. Ron was the #1 pick of the 1968 draft and went on to play in four Super Bowls for the Minnesota Vikings and was an eight time All Pro. In 2001 he was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A year after I took the Rams photo I was working as a 16mm cameraman/editor for Motivational Media in Burbank, California and did a film shoot at the home of the Rams star running back Eric Dickerson (#29). I took the team photo with me and had him sign it. Because Dickerson still (amazingly two decades later) holds the single NFL season rushing record the photo doesn’t feel dated.
Also, in the photograph is rookie Chuck Scott who I played football with at Lake Howell High School in Winter Park, Florida. Chuck went on to play at Vanderbilt University where he was a Sporting News All-American before becoming a second round draft pick for the Rams. My glory days claim to fame is when I was a senior in high school I was a first team all-conference wide receiver and Chuck was second team all-conference. Chuck works for Young Life in Atlanta and our paths cross every now and then. To this day, he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met.
Years ago when I was on a location shoot in Ohio I stopped in Canton to go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I realized my path had crossed with several Hall of Famers. There was Yary and Dickerson, along with John Madden & Marcus Allen who I photographed at a golf fundraiser in San Luis Obispo, Reggie White who I videotaped in Tampa for a Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree project, and Jim Kelly from the University of Miami where I was briefly a walk-on player before walking off after separating my shoulder and having it operated on.
One of the fun things about being a producer is my job often takes me to interesting places where interesting connections are made. Two years ago I did a shoot in Charlotte and interviewed Frank Reich who was Kelly's back-up when they both played for the Buffalo Bills and had also thrown a touchdown to Chuck Scott in a college all-star game. It is a small world.
It’s hard to believe one picture can conjure up so many connections, memories and stories. When you’re dealing with photos and images you’re dealing with powerful stuff. The old saying is that a picture is worth a 1,000 words. According to my computer this one was worth 694. But in those 694 words are many fond memories.
