Los Angeles Rams Football Team

The way Roman Gabriel tells it, the same characteristics that made him a great football player -- bullheadedness, combativeness, stick-to-itiveness -- served him less favorably in his personal life. Three times divorced, the greatest quarterback in Los Angeles Rams history is estranged from his daughter and four sons and says he has not seen two of his three grandchildren in years. The other, he has never met.

When Jamie Martin was sports editor of the Signpost, the school newspaper at Weber State, he probably would have double- and triple-checked the facts if he'd ever come across a story as improbable as the one he's living.

A former Los Angeles Rams football player was arrested Thursday morning on suspicion of drugging and raping a female patron at his popular San Dimas sports bar, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Antonio "Tony" Zendejas, 48, faces one felony count each of rape by use of drugs, rape of an unconscious person, sodomy by anesthesia or controlled substance and sodomy of an unconscious victim, according to the felony complaint. He was arrested without incident at his Yorba Linda home, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.

He looks as though he could still play some safety, but Johnnie Johnson releases his aggressions on a tennis ball these days. He finds competition not in shutting down No. 80 in a red and white jersey, but in opening up young people's minds to new horizons. "The greatest satisfaction I enjoyed was playing football," Johnson said. "I didn't know if there was anything that could give me that same satisfaction. My work with young kids comes as close to that feeling as anything."

Today in Kansas City, about 220 miles down I-70 from where the Rams play their home games, Los Angeles tries to get back into the pro football business by participating in the NFL's version of "The Gong Show." Stage right: Mark Ridley-Thomas and the New Coliseum Crusaders, singing the praises of a new and improved Coliseum while hoping no one in the room pays much attention to the part about the same old neighborhood.

Bob Waterfield's life reads like a Hollywood script. Even his leading lady was a goddess of the silver screen. Waterfield was an all-American kid from Van Nuys who married his high school sweetheart, motion picture actress and sex symbol Jane Russell. He emerged from near obscurity to play quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams and, in 1951, lead them to their only NFL championship, a 24-17 victory over the Cleveland Browns at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Darryl Henley, who once starred for the Los Angeles Rams, was sentenced Monday to more than 41 years in prison. In consecutive hearings in U.S. District Court, Henley, 30, was ordered to prison for conspiring to run a nationwide cocaine trafficking ring and for then plotting to kill the judge who had presided over the case.

The Fearsome Foursome patrolled the defensive line for the Los Angeles Rams from 1963 to 1966 and became one of the most revered group of linemen ever assembled in the NFL. Three of the four, Merlin Olsen, Rosey Grier and Deacon Jones, will participate in a fund-raiser for the fourth, former teammate Lamar Lundy, at 11:30 a.m. Sunday at Cal State Fullerton. Lundy has prostate cancer.

Approximately 40 former Rams, two coaches and a load of former season-ticket holders were among the 3,000 at Cal State Fullerton Sunday afternoon to help an old teammate. The event was organized by former Rams Merlin Olsen, Deacon Jones and Rosey Grier to raise money for Lamar Lundy, who was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer last fall.

You are a parent and you know your child better than anyone else. So you know what everyone else is saying is just not true. More than that, you have dedicated your life to your children. And so you know, it's just not possible. But what if you are Dorothy and Tom Henley, mother and father of Darryl Henley, the convicted trafficker of drugs, charged now with involving your youngest son in a drug ring from jail and further accused of looking for a hit man to kill a witness and a federal judge?