1949.

I was a fourth-grader in Beaumont CA, about 85 miles east of LA. (Probably more like 55 now, the way Los Angeles has spread since then.)

I started playing football at recess and at home with the few kids who lived in our drive-by neighborhood where highways 60, 70, and 99 bottlenecked together to funnel traffic through San Gorgonio Pass. On one side of the highway there were maybe a dozen small homes, a Mexican restaurant, a couple of bars, and an auto court as they were called then.

About the time I got interested in playing football, television was a novelty and we eventually got one in 1952. I was able to watch some Rams games on TV before then and really dug the Rams because they were "our" Southern California team, but moreso because of those neato horns on their helmets. My heroes, once I outgrew The Lone Ranger, Red Ryder (and yes, I had a Red Ryder model Daisy BB gun,) Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, were Norm Van Brocklin, Bob Waterfield (my first schoolboy crush was on his wife,) Crazylegs Hirsch, Tom Fears, Tank Younger, Dick Bass, Red Phillips, Dick "Night Train" Lane, and USC tailback turned running back and kick returner, Jon Arnett.