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By Randy Gardner

I just cannot figure out the St. Louis Rams football team. They win and then they lose, they look good and then they look bad, there is no rhyme or reason. Right now the Rams are 3-3, two back of Arizona.

I will bet that if the Rams start winning here in the middle of the season and start being productive near the playoffs, all of the fans that are bandwagon fans here in St. Louis will jump back on and support the team and will want them more than ever to stay in St. Louis.

And I would be willing to bet that many of these people are the ones that were saying let the team go.

I always tell my kids to be careful what you wish for because it may come true. This could be the same circumstances where people don’t care and they wish that the team would just go. But when they’re gone, they are gone for good and St. Louis would be a sad place without a professional football team.

It is amazing right now to look around the NFL and see how many teams are struggling; teams that were at the top of their game over the past few years. It also shows the importance of one person on the team in terms of being a leader, reference Tony Romo to the Dallas Cowboys. They have fallen apart without him.

This is just the way sports teams are. We always talk about them being a cohesive unit but like spokes of a wheel it’s one spoke doesn’t work correctly it can throw the balance of the whole wheel off. This is the lesson that I try to teach my kids in terms of every person having an important part of being on the team.

What do you do when another team cheats?

That leads me to a whole another situation, this is teaching youngsters the right thing to do. In our current soccer league there is a team that brings whatever players they want to every game, basically New players every week.

It’s unfortunate that my players, the fans, the parents, and even the referee know that this team is doing this but nothing is being done about it. I try to instill in my kids honesty and integrity and then we stand on the field across from a team that we know is cheating.

So where do you draw the line as a coach. Do you walk off the field to prove a point or does that prove to your players that you’re not willing to stand up and play. It is a very tough decision as a coach and I am likely going to have to face this decision in a few weeks as we play this team again. Yes I am very competitive and want to win, but not at the face of cheating,  Where do I draw the line?

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