Rams coach Dick Vermeil is all smiles in the final moments of the club's 49-37 victory over Minnesota in the NFC title game, on Jan. 16, 2000 at Trans World Dome.
Post-Dispatch photo
St. Louis Rams coach Dick Vermeil, left, hugs Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner on Jan. 31, 2000, after the team beat Tennessee 23-16 in Atlanta.
CANTON, Ohio — The Post-Dispatch headline on Jan. 21, 1997, summed things up perfectly: DICK VERMEIL?
Yes, the headline was all caps. And yes, there was a question mark because nobody could believe it. Not even team president John Shaw, who did the hiring.
“I don’t think any of the football people in the league ever thought he’d come out and do this,” Shaw said at the time.
Vermeil, you may recall, had left the Philadelphia Eagles in 1982 after resurrecting what had been a moribund franchise, shocking the football world. Coaching burnout was the reason, a phrase basically invented to describe Vermeil’s abrupt departure from coaching.
After 14 seasons out of coaching, Vermeil shocked the football world once again by returning in 1997 to coach the woebegone St. Louis Rams.
At the time, Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz referred to it as “Shaw’s ‘Back to the Future’ experiment.”
It was all that, and more.
“I tried not to look at the papers in those days,” Shaw told the Post-Dispatch here in Canton, where Vermeil will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday. “I know it wasn’t particularly well received. But I just felt he had the type of structure that the team needed. Coming off the years with Rich (Brooks), I just felt the team needed better structure.”
But the game had changed so much since Vermeil first left after the ’82 season, including the advent of free agency and the salary cap. What was Shaw thinking? And what prompted Vermeil to give coaching another try after being on the sidelines for so long?
In 13 of his 14 years out of coaching, he was asked by some team or another if he was interested in coaching again. Shaw came calling in 1991, and hired a recycled Chuck Knox after Vermeil said no thanks.
Shaw tried again after the 1994 season as the team was in the process of moving to St. Louis from Anaheim, Calif. Brooks was hired this time after Vermeil again said no.
Eagles reunion?
So what was different about ’97? For the answer, we must first go back to the ’95 hiring season and the Philadelphia Eagles.
“I met and seriously visited with the Philadelphia Eagles and (owner) Jeffrey Lurie about taking the job,” Vermeil said. “And in the meeting in New York, I was offered the job and I turned it down. They’re wonderful people. They were relatively inexperienced in their ownership and I had been out of it for 12 years. And I just didn’t feel confident I could do the kind of job they were gonna need with the lack of experience they had.
“The next week after that, they came back to me and we talked some more and then Jeffrey made the decision to go in a different direction.”
The Eagles hired then-San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Ray Rhodes instead. As for Vermeil, he came out of that experience somehow excited about coaching.
“It told me there’s still some spark in there,” Vermeil said.
St. Louis calls
Perhaps that was in the back of Vermeil’s mind when Shaw came after him — again — after firing Brooks at the end of the ’96 season.
“I was approached in St. Louis when I broadcast the University of Texas and I think it was Nebraska (Big 12) championship game,” Vermeil recalled.
It was, in fact, the first Big 12 Conference title game, and it was held at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis.
“I said no, I wasn’t interested. I’m just not gonna come back,” he said. “A personal friend was involved in talking with me that was working with John Shaw in personnel — John Becker. John (Becker) had talked to John Shaw about me.”
“Well, they went out and they tried to hire Bobby Ross, and he took the Detroit job. They tried to hire the offensive coordinator from Houston (Kevin Gilbride), and he went to San Diego.
“So John was sort of swimming. He called me (again) later. I think it was the Saturday before the Super Bowl. And he said, at least come in and visit with me. So I got on a plane on Saturday or Sunday morning, and flew in and met with John Shaw. Just he and I. We talked for a couple hours. He made sense to me. I knew their interest was sincere.
“So he calls me the next day. ‘What are you gonna do?’ I said, ‘I’m gonna take the job.’”
To this day, Shaw isn’t exactly sure why Vermeil said yes. For years, Vermeil basically had been on Shaw’s short list of coaching candidates, even after the years rolled by out of coaching. Shaw’s persistence finally paid off in 1997.
“At that point, I really thought we were taking a long shot,” Shaw said. “But I had no doubt about his ability to get it right based on the Philadelphia situation and UCLA (which he coached in 1974 and ’75). I don’t know. After I did some research, I was reasonably certain it was a ‘no.’ But I just felt, why not? Get him in, possibly get him to change his mind.
“The next day when he said yes, I was actually just floored. I didn’t actually think he was gonna do it.”
Worst to first
For a couple years, it looked as if the initial skepticism over the hiring was warranted. The Rams went 5-11 in ’97, or one fewer victory than the record Brooks posted in getting fired the previous season. In ’98, it was another step back, to 4-12, with a near-player revolt over Vermeil’s intense and lengthy practice regimen.
But then came the miracle that was 1999. The Greatest Show on Turf became a dazzling showcase of the modern NFL as a passing league. The Rams went from worst to first in winning Super Bowl XXXIV, against Tennessee. The pedigree that Vermeil had in coaching UCLA to a Rose Bowl upset over previously unbeaten Ohio State, and then leading the Eagles to the Super Bowl, had shown through once again.
So despite all that initial criticism. Vermeil got the last laugh. He’s got the Gold Jacket to prove it. And Saturday he’ll get the Hall of Fame bust.
But he’s never been the type to gloat. Not his style. He’s just too nice of a guy.
Or as Shaw put it: “You can’t be around Dick and not like him.”
Photos: The 1999 St. Louis Rams Super Bowl and Rams coach Dick Vermeil
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Dick Vermeil's career as Rams coach
Pro Football Hall of Fame
INDUCTION CEREMONIES
Saturday in Canton, Ohio
Time, TV: 11 a.m., ESPN, NFL Network
Planned order of inductions: LeRoy Butler, Sam Mills, Richard Seymour, Art McNally, Tony Boselli, Bryant Young, Cliff Branch, Dick Vermeil
Passionate and energetic as usual, the former St. Louis Rams head coach went way over his allotted time during his Hall of Fame induction speech.
Rams coach Dick Vermeil is all smiles in the final moments of the club's 49-37 victory over Minnesota in the NFC title game, on Jan. 16, 2000 at Trans World Dome.