In 1995, when it was announced that the Rams would move from Los Angeles to St. Louis, 8-year-old Kurt Krieger rushed to the store and bought a hat with the team’s logo. Krieger’s father had told him stories about going to Cardinals football games before that team’s exit broke the city’s heart, and now the son would finally have his own chance to experience America’s favorite sport.
The Kriegers have had season tickets ever since.They were there for the Greatest Show on Turf. They saw Mike Jones tackle Kevin Dyson inches from the end zone to seal the Rams’ win in Super Bowl XXXIV. And they suffered through the past 10 seasons without a playoff appearance, when the team won three games one year, then two the next, then just one the year after that, like some morbid countdown.
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Now, Krieger thinks, the Rams may be on the verge of a renaissance. He likes new quarterback Nick Foles and rookie running back Todd Gurley. But he sees Stan Kroenke’s push to move the team back to L.A. as a “black cloud hanging over everything.” He frets about whether this could be the Rams’ final season in St. Louis.
“What if this is just a lame duck team?” Krieger asks himself. “Am I still going to go to the games? I go back and forth. It’s tough.” He looks at the renderings for the proposed riverfront stadium with cautious optimism. He says that the development could be huge for downtown. But Kroenke is rich and powerful, and rich and powerful people tend to get what they want.
Wynnde Coe is old enough to remember the bitterness toward Bill Bidwill after he moved the Cardinals. A diehard Rams fan, she bears no love for Kroenke, but she follows players on Twitter and Instagram, feels connected to them. She volunteers at a church soup kitchen, and one night, Rams employees came to help. She plans to attend a few games this season, but she’s going to buy her tickets resale so her money doesn’t go directly into Kroenke’s pocket. “They are still going to be my team whether they move or not,” Coe says. “I just hope they don’t leave.”
Erin Smith is also “trying to stay really optimistic.” Like Krieger, her family has had season tickets since the team arrived. For her, football has become ritual. Fall Sundays mean tailgating with friends, greeting familiar faces in her section, soaking in the atmosphere when the game is close and the dome is rocking. “I haven’t gotten too much into the economics of it,” she says. “I selfishly hope they stick around, because I want to continue supporting the team I grew up with.”
As the editor of the Turf Show Times, Joe McAtee has a unique perspective on the psyche of Rams fans. He describes the general feeling among the site’s commenters as “frustrated.” It’s difficult to determine how much of that sentiment stems from the uncertainty about the team’s future and how much of it is because the team has stunk for so long. “You haven’t had a winning season for 12 years and now it feels like you’re leaving with unfinished business,” McAtee says. Krieger isn’t sure what would be worse: the Rams leaving after a losing season, all of fans’ hopes left unrealized, or the Rams winning a Super Bowl and still skipping town, Kroenke waving goodbye in the victory parade.
Fans have followed a losing team year after year after year because there’s always the promise of next year, when everything might be different. Now, next year may never come.
The Departed
1954: MLB’s St. Louis Browns become the Baltimore Orioles.
1968: The NBA’s Hawks leave for Atlanta.
1976: The ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis fold.
1988: The NFL’s Cardinals leave for Phoenix.
?: The NFL’s Rams leave for Los Angeles?
