Rams News

Rountree: `This is tops in the world'
07/22 09:38 PM

By Jim Thomas
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

MACOMB, Ill. -- In his field of (day)dreams, Glenn Rountree has a long and prosperous career with the St. Louis Rams. After football, he and his wife, Renee, settle down on 1,000 acres of rich Missouri soil and raise corn, 'beans and little Rountrees.
``That'll suit me just fine,'' says Rountree, a rookie offensive guard from Clemson.
Such thoughts probably filled Rountree's head as he rode the team bus Saturday from Earth City to Western Illinois University. Highway 67 is a winding, two-lane rural adventure through small towns named Jacksonville, Rushville, Beardstown and Industry, and through the heart of the Corn Belt.
While many of his teammates napped, Rountree watched attentively from a window seat as the countryside rolled by. A farm boy from Virginia, with an agronomy degree from Clemson, Rountree felt like he died and went to hog heaven when the Rams drafted him in the sixth round in April.
And not just because he'd have a chance to play in the NFL. He was going to the Midwest. If you're a farmer, it doesn't get any better.
For a guy like Rountree, who grew up wacking weeds in his father's peanut and soybean fields, who'd wake at 5 a.m. to get the hogs loaded for market, who is halfway through his master's degree in agriculture education, owning a farm in the Midwest would be like . . . well, like playing for the Green Bay Packers.
``This is tops in the world out here yield-wise,'' Rountree said. ``Corn plants grow probably two to three feet higher out here than they do in Virginia. They've got that black, thick soil down to seven feet. All we've got is like an inch and a half in Virginia, and then it's sand.''
So Rountree looked at the Illinois farm scenery on the ride to training camp as a tourist might gaze upon the Grand Canyon.
``I saw some young soybeans that had been drilled (planted) not too long ago,'' he said. ``And then I saw some nice mature fields that had big, bushy plants that looked like they were going to yield a lot of soybeans.
``I saw excellent corn fields. The leaves aren't curled up as they would be if there was drought. They looked to have decent ears. You could tell because they have such good soil, and good water-holding capacity out here, that they plant a lot more seeds of corn per acre than we do in Virginia.''
He saw those little signs on the edge of fields that advertise seed companies . . . Pioneer, Roundup Ready Beans. He saw test plots where seed companies had planted experimental seeds. It was exciting. Stimulating.
Had he been driving to Macomb by himself, Rountree would have pulled over on several occasions.
``Oh yeah, especially that one spot where I saw all those tests plots of corn -- different heights, different ear widths,'' Rountree said. ``I'd have stopped, checked them out. Seen how they compare to back home.''
Rountree got his first glimpse of Midwest farming in September 1996, when Clemson traveled to Columbia, Mo., to take on the Missouri Tigers. En route, he saw something he had never seen before.
``They were harvesting their soybeans,'' Rountree said. ``We don't harvest ours till probably November. But they've got to get their soybeans (harvested) in order to get the corn in. So they usually spread a defoliate on the soybeans to kill the leaf -- to kill the plant -- so they can pick it, instead of waiting for a frost like we do in Virginia. We wait for a frost to kill our plants, then we pick them.''
After Clemson returned home with a 38-24 loss, Rountree talked to his dad as much about those soybean fields as what happened on Faurot Field.
This training camp, Rountree is trying to avoid withering on the vine. The Rams won't spread defoliate on their roster until the Aug. 25 and Aug. 30 cutdown dates. Which gives Rountree about a month to make a big impression -- and make the roster. It won't be easy, because eight jobs are all but spoken for: starters Orlando Pace, Ryan Tucker, Mike Gruttadauria, Zach Wiegert, and Wayne Gandy, and top reserves John Flannery and Fred Miller. But the Rams lost a potential starting guard Wednesday when veteran Ed Simmons announced his retirement.
The Rams drafted Rountree more on his 1996 performance at Clemson, when he was a punishing run blocker, than on his '97 season, when he was slowed all year by an ankle injury that ultimately needed surgery.
``He played on one leg for the whole year, and we feel that was the reason he wasn't nearly the player as a senior that he was as a junior,'' Rams coach Dick Vermeil said. ``But he's a physical, tough guy that both Coach (Jim) Hanifan and I really liked on tape.
``Hopefully, we can get him back to the level we saw him as a junior. It's going to take him some time. All college offensive linemen, they don't look very good pass protecting at first.''
Rountree concedes he was awestruck at his first Rams minicamp in April. In Macomb, he struggled with his pass protection the first couple of days of camp. But he did much better in practice Tuesday -- ``made a bit of a move,'' as the coaches like to say.
``Eventually, I'd like to become my own self-employed farmer,'' Rountree said. ``But I know that's something you can't start right out with. To get the land, and the equipment -- geez -- you're talking upwards of a couple million dollars if you get 1,000 acres or more.''
So it would help the self-employed farmer if he avoided becoming an unemployed blocker.

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