Rams rookie transition program

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/06/25/lincoln-riley-oklahoma-dallas-cowboys-rams-rookies-2019-draft-grades

THE ROOKIE IMMERSION

Albert Breer

The NFL abolished the old rookie symposium after 2015, and this is third year of its replacement—the rookie transition program, which is run by each individual team. The idea was to be more inclusive—the old symposium only included draft picks—and allow teams to tailor the process to introduce players to their new homes.

So that’s really most of what was happening in the NFL last week, with the majority of coaches, scouts and football executives taking off for their pre-training camp vacations. You might have seen some of the rookie programs on social media. The Redskins and Ravens rookies went to Top Golf together. The Niners rookies did work at a Habitat for Humanity site. The Cowboys rookies went to Six Flags. The Titanstoured Nashville.

And the Rams went through a comprehensive few days after the vets broke for summer, part of a month-long process the team runs for its rookies. A lot of it goes back to when the team was in St. Louis and Jeff Fisher was coach. The foundation is a financial literacy program every rookie has to complete before signing his first contract and getting his first check, a piece that tends to make an immediate impact on guys.

“I already opened up another line of credit,” said fifth-round pick Micah Kiser the other day. “I’m already active on creditkarma.com, checking my money, what I’m spending my money on, actively paying my bills—that was the biggest takeaway for me. How can I take the little chunk of change I have now, and ultimately help that grow and make it something greater, not only in the long run, but also in the short term?”

There are also 15 league-mandated topics teams have to cover—league policy, social responsibility, mental health, etc. From there, Rams director of player engagement Jacques McClendon wanted to focus on making sure all these guys in their early 20s got a grasp on the advantages they’d have living and working in the nation’s entertainment capital and second-largest city. Here are some examples:

Dodgers game. The players got an all-access tour of Dodger Stadium and personalized Dodgers jerseys before a Saturday night game against the Giants on the 15th, then took in the action from the Dodgers’ suite as a guest of owner Peter Guber, who also owns a piece of the Warriors. The idea? The power of networking.

“I told the guys, you know how much people would pay to be right next to this guy?” McClendon said. “And five or six of them went and had conversations, trying to pick his brain, how he got to where he’s gotten, how he’s been so successful, Peter Guber. So it was just awesome for those guys to see. You have access that other people don’t have, so why would you not leverage it?”

NFL Network meetings. Officials from the league office and the league’s network met with the Rams and Chargers rookies on the 17th on the Culver City campus— McClendon wanted to emphasize there was a platform there for them—before the two teams went to Lucky Strike for a bowling competition.

“The league office came in to explain that, for one, when the media is with you, it’s great for you to talk to them,” McClendon said. “But on the other hand, the league is here to amplify their voice. So whatever they want to do, whatever their passions may be, the league office is there to support those ventures, and they can use them as a tool and a resource to do well.”

Dinner. On Wednesday the rookies wrapped up the program with a dinner at Rams legend Eric Dickerson’s house. The night before they ate at Wood Ranch Restaurants CEO Eric Anders’s house. Again, the idea was to show the players everything they have right down the street in Southern California.

“Here’s a guy who’s an entrepreneur, has 17 restaurants in the area with a couple more set to open up, so that was an opportunity to see how he’s been successful,” McClendon said. “So you saw five or six guys exchange info with him, and pick his brain on how he’s been so successful. And at Eric Dickerson’s house, talk to him about how he was so successful as a player, and made sure he was on top of his game at all times.”

Branding. On Tuesday, Jeremy Darlow, ex-head of football marketing for Adidas spoke at the team’s facility to the rookies about the importance and power of what they say and how they come off publicly.

“He came and said to the guys, ‘OK, how do you approach social media?’ ” McClendon said. “Social media can be a tool for you to get what’s next. If you’re telling a story over social media, if you’re tweeting the right way, Instagram story-ing the right way, you might get a sponsorship, you might get a job. Guys just tweet outlandish stuff and put themselves in harm’s way by not watching what they tweet.”

Beach workout. Another aspect that was uniquely LA, and aimed towards players taking ownership of their careers: Rams director of performance Ted Rath put them through a rigorous competition-driven workout, but also spoke to them about recovery, and the team drove that point home with a yoga session.

“I had no clue of how to take care of my body when I played,” McClendon said. “Our performance team, Ted Rath, Reggie Scott, all the people that work with them, have been able to teach these guys—your body is Lamborghini, it needs premium gas. So it’s teaching these guys the tricks of trade so their bodies will last.”

And there was a sobering session too, when Rams senior personnel executive Brian Xanders, the former Broncos GM, spoke to the rookies about the reality that a good chunk of them would be gone at the end of August, while giving them a road map for how to handle the worst-case scenario if it were to come. That, of course, is the idea of program as a whole, as McClendon sees it—making sure his players are ready for whatever might come

“One thing we do, we care about the man,” said McClendon, who lasted seven years on and off NFL rosters. “And if you care about the man, and you make him a more complete man, he’s a less distracted football player and he’s going to perform optimally. I feel like that’s what we do here. We truly care about these guys, and that makes my job easier, because that comes from the top, not just from me.”