Rams News

Work ethic has done the job for Wistrom
05/02 02:02 AM

By Elizabethe Holland
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

WEBB CITY, Mo. -- Kathy Wistrom knew her son worked hard. She had seen her second eldest dominate on the football field and churn out good grades in school too many times to question his work ethic.
But she had been virtually clueless as to just how seriously Grant took the game and his role in it, until she saw his determination laid out in black and white.
After Nebraska's 1997 season, Grant Wistrom and his friend and teammate Jason Peter released a book with Keith Zimmer entitled ``Wistrom & Peter: Heart & Soul.''
The book details Nebraska's championship season game by game, the pride and duty Wistrom and Peter felt at being co-captains, and the necessity of instilling teammates with passion, intensity and inspiration.
Could this, Kathy Wistrom thought, be the same guy who constantly makes her laugh with his goofy jokes? The same guy who delights in quality time with the couch while watching ``Jerry Springer''? The same guy who sought out the laziest chocolate lab in the litter so he could have a dog that sleeps as much as he does?
``I'm amazed at how dedicated he is,'' Kathy Wistrom said of her 21-year-old son, the Rams first-round draft pick. ``I read the book and I thought, `Gosh, he's really set his priorities and his goals.'
``I'm amazed at the focus he has on things. He always seems so laid-back and so happy-go-lucky, like `what will be will be.' And I don't think he's that way at all. I think he's very dedicated to what he wants out of life.''
In a suit at a Rams news conference, or in a T-shirt and shorts stretched out in his parents' cushy recliner, at first blush Wistrom doesn't look like the sort who could be threatening and powerful enough to be a starting NFL defensive end.
In addition to his easygoing, comfortable demeanor, he isn't the huskiest of football players. That's led some to question whether he is big enough for his new job. At 6 feet 5, Wistrom played last season at about 255 pounds. In preparation for pro football, he's bulked up to 273 pounds.
He's heard and answered skepticism about his size before.
``They're gonna question it until they see what I can do,'' he said. ``And if I go out there and I do well, it's not going to be an issue anymore. If I go out there and for some reason I don't play as well as I should or as well as the No. 6 pick should . . . it's gonna be a, `Look, we told you so' type of thing. So I just have to go out there and prove them wrong.''
As a child, Wistrom was among the scrawniest among his group of friends. He he wouldn't be discouraged, especially as he saw his older brother, Chance, work his way to a football scholarship at Central Missouri State.
As a high school freshman, Wistrom weighed 150 pounds. The next year, he reached 185, then 215 as a junior and 225 his senior year. Having anointed Chance his hero, he had decided early on he would follow his brother's path. But he outran his goals, ending up at football dreamland Nebraska.
He registered 28 sacks and 58 tackles for losses in four years. A biology major, Wistrom was a two-time All-American, an academic All-American and the 1997 winner of the Lombardi Award as college football's best lineman. A season earlier, the Lombardi went to fellow Ram Orlando Pace.

Great expectations
Wistrom's Lombardi sits in front of his parents' fireplace in their rural Webb City home. Off to one side is his retreat -- a big-screen television -- and on the other side and on the mantel are helmets and footballs from high school and college.
Above the fireplace is a framed pencil sketch of Chance, Grant and Tracey in their football uniforms (Tracey hopes to continue the Wistrom legacy at Nebraska, where he is a tight end).
In many ways, the football-laced environs of the Wistrom home are a testament to Ron and Kathy Wistrom's determination to raise their boys to set and meet expectations and to keep working, no matter what. When Ron, a vice president at a trucking firm in Joplin, was growing up in Tulsa, Okla., he was a small-scale troublemaker. Although his parents loved him, he recalled, they didn't take a marked interest in the things he did.
His own meanderings prompted this realization: Activities for the boys, his and Kathy's involvement with their sons, and great expectations for their sons on all levels would lay the foundation for their futures. School played a key role on the list.
``In the most constructive way I could, I gave them what my expectations or definitions for success were, and when they came close or met those expectations, I encouraged them,'' said Ron, who coached his sons in football when they were young.
``And when they didn't, I also needed to be just as clear as to where they fell short and what ought to be done.''
Of the three boys, Grant arguably was the one most in need of such instruction. He was the one most likely to straddle the line and take risks, accepting that there might be unattractive consequences.
``He would consider whether the pain was worth the gain,'' said Ron, ``and if the gain was there, he'd take the pain for what he did and go ahead and do it.''
One of his earliest wayward experiments came when Grant, named after General Ulysses S. Grant, was a toddler. While waiting in his father's truck at a gas station, he decided to turn the key in the ignition. The truck leaped ahead, ramming the rear of a hearse parked at another pump. Grant is fairly certain there were no bodies in the hearse.
When he was about 15, Wistrom was welding the floorboards in his Bronco. The welder broke and when he tried to fix it, he made it worse.
His welding plans foiled, he chose to clean car parts with thinner so the parts could be painted. The bowl of thinner, however, caught fire. He tried to blow out the flames, but as the bowl began melting, he threw it on the lawn.
``It was a very dry summer, so it caught the backyard on fire,'' Wistrom said.
Livid at his lack of success, he went inside, where he promptly got into an argument with his little brother.
``Instead of hitting him, I punched the wall,'' said. ``I just happened to hit a soft spot and I punched a hole in the wall. And that all happened within about an hour.''
Wistrom came clean to his father . . . except for the part about setting the backyard on fire. He thought he'd get away with a white lie, but his father saw through it and grounded him.
``We pretty well came to terms with what honesty is,'' Ron said.

Lessons learned
Those sort of lessons might have been in the back of Wistrom's mind when he found himself in legal trouble last December. Shortly after the Cornhuskers returned from the Big 12 Championship game in San Antonio, he and another man were cited for disturbing the peace at Lazzari's Pizzeria in downtown Lincoln, Neb.
The man bumped a woman with a pool cue and then continued to give the woman a hard time, Wistrom said.
``I had my back to it,'' he said, ``and as soon as I turned around -- like, `What's the problem?' -- the guy clocked me. I never threw a punch, I never did anything, and it got broken up.''
No charges were filed, but Wistrom -- familiar with the spotlight on Huskers gone wrong -- was and remains open about the matter. The news made the papers, and Wistrom, who was cut near one eye in the quarrel, was peppered with questions for days after the incident. He saw no point in avoiding the controversy.
His public personna means much to him. High on his list of personal goals is to be respected by his teammates and his community. He doesn't mind being positioned as a role model, his only concerns being that he lives up to others' expectations and that he have some level of privacy.
So far, the privacy issue looks to be the tougher to achieve -- not that that's always a bad thing. While in St. Louis on draft day, Wistrom and second-round pick Robert Holcombe walked along a busy street from their hotel to a restaurant. They were amazed and charmed at the number of people who recognized them, greeting them with honks and cheers of, ``Go Rams!''
Wistrom had a different reaction when a woman with five children approached him and his parents after a football game his junior year. The woman, stating that he was her favorite Cornhusker, wanted a photo taken with him. He complied. Then, however, she asked if she could plant a kiss on his stomach.
Stunned, he said it was up to his mother. He was certain she would say no, but Kathy Wistrom, just as stunned, didn't.
``We got in the car and he says, `Mom, tell 'em next time that it's against NCAA regulations!' '' recalled Kathy, a junior-high English teacher. ``But she did write me a very nice letter. And you read the letter, Grant. It was well-written.''

Wistrom's sequel
Webb City, a sleepy blue-collar town of about 8,000, is arguably as proud of its No. 6 draft pick as anyone in Lincoln -- but less ardent in how it shows its pride.
There are no signs blaring, ``Welcome to Webb City, Home of Grant Wistrom.'' Rather, the former mining town boasts a statue of a kneeling miner and, on a hill overlooking the city, a statue of a pair of giant, praying hands. Still, residents know Grant Wistrom grew up and played football in their town.
Ron and Kathy said their second son is all the talk at work. And although it's much easier to find Kansas City Chiefs paraphernalia in southwest Missouri, area stores curiously were picked clean of Rams merchandise shortly after draft day. Further, it's rumored that more Rams games will be broadcast on Joplin-area television than in previous years.
Grant seems to take it all in stride, meanwhile, perhaps unwittingly, doing as his parents taught him by setting his sights on a fresh batch of goals.
One day, he has promised himself, he will take the steps needed to get his college degree. He sees no sense in not finishing what he started.
But football is first on his list.
``First, I wanted to be the best high school player, then the best college player,'' he said. ``Now, I want to be the best NFL player I can be and, hopefully in two or three years, maybe make the Pro Bowl.
``But above all, I want to help the Rams win more. That's why they brought me in. . . . I'll go out there and do what I can do. Obviously, people are going to expect a lot of things early and often, being the No. 6 pick, and I hope I don't disappoint. I want to do my best and work my hardest.''
Having read his book, Grant's mother would expect no less.

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