Stams Moves Into Rams’ Sophomore Year : Pro football: Notre Dame fame of 1988 was followed by rookie season funk of 1989 for linebacker.

What happens when the cheering stops? Frank Stams knows. At Notre Dame in 1988, he became a weekly prime-time television close-up. Stams was hoisted on shoulders, queried about world affairs, praised and pampered. He’s still picking ticker tape out his suits.

Stams shook his right index finger in the air until it turned blue. Then again, he was No. 1, and a national championship has been known to change men’s lives. So why didn’t it change his?

Because after every 1988 in life, there comes a 1989. When Stams dropped his bags at Rams Park last season, he felt the same pang that struck him the day the bus pulled into South Bend, Ind. No more was Stams the high school big shot from St. Vincent-St. Mary’s Prep in Akron, Ohio.

“I approached it like I was going to be a freshman again,” he said of joining the Rams as a second-round pick. “My philosophy was basically to keep my ears and eyes open, to be seen and not heard.

“I came from small high school. I was big fish in a little pond going to Notre Dame, and there were All-Americans from all over the country. You were just another guy. That’s what I thought it was going to be like here. You’re just another guy. You’re the lowest guy on the totem pole. I was watching some of these guys play when I was in the sixth grade.”

Stams was still watching them six-games deep into his rookie season. He was used to adjusting, but this was getting a bit ridiculous.

He was recruited by Notre Dame as a fullback, where he played as a freshman and started all 11 games as a sophomore. The next year, Stams broke his leg in spring practice and red-shirted the 1986 season. When Lou Holtz took over as coach, Stams was moved to outside linebacker and then defensive end, where he made All-American as a senior.

The Rams drafted Stams with the 45th selection as an outside linebacker. But when starters Fred Strickland and Larry Kelm were injured in training camp, the team moved him inside as a backup, where he initially floundered.

On his climb up the football ladder, Stams had changed positions three times in four years.

“Not only are you switching positions, but you’re switching levels,” said Stams, explaining the difficulty.

The Rams dared not use Stams until six weeks into the season, when another injury to Strickland in Buffalo one Monday night forced him into action.

“I’ll never forget the first game,” Stams said “I was getting ear holed (head slapped) left and right. I didn’t know any of the blocking schemes. I followed the ball, and sometimes it was set up where you’re run right into the blocker. I’d get crushed. I’d go home at night and say, ‘What the hell is going on?’ Am I going to be able to do this?’ ”

Stams got better, eventually. But 1989 was essentially a wash. Less than a year after his glory days at Notre Dame, Stams started three mid-season games and quietly took a seat on the bench.

“For some guys, that might have been hard,” he said of the experience. “But it wasn’t hard for me, because I never really got caught up in all that hype, the media and all that. I was at Notre Dame when nobody was around. We were 6-5 and 5-6. I saw that for what it was.”

This summer, the Rams have decided to keep Stams at inside linebacker and let him battle for a starting job against Strickland, the team’s second-round choice of 1988. So far, the competition has been heated, although Coach John Robinson claims there will not necessarily be a loser.

“It’s not one of those things where there’s going to be a winner declared a week from Tuesday,” Robinson said. “It very well could play out where they split the season. Whether we actually do it remains to be seen. We want to be in a position where, in a case like Strickland-Stams, if . . . you say, ‘Boy that’s an even battle,’ and we’re getting ready to play Green Bay . . . we would like to play them both in the Green Bay game an equal amount of time.”

Surprisingly, Stams has not been upset with all the position changes.

“It hasn’t been difficult, and I’ll tell you why,” he said. “It’s kind of been an evolution. I wasn’t really a fullback. And I thought defensive end was good for me, but now I feel like I’m real comfortable inside.”

Stams said the move from fullback was the best thing that happened to him at Notre Dame.

“I had enough of fullback,” he said. “I was coming to the end of my college career, and I really hadn’t done anything at fullback. The kind of offense Holtz ran wasn’t really suited for a big, burly fullback. It was more of an option-type. I welcomed the change.

“They told me they were going to make the move and play me,” he continued. “That helped me. I had some big games on TV my last year, and that really took me from nowhere to right up there with a lot of the guys in the draft.”

Big games? Against USC, Stams recorded nine tackles, two sacks of quarterback Rodney Peete and a fumble recovery. He was voted most valuable player in Notre Dame’s victory over Miami and defensive MVP in the national title-clinching game against West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl.

Stams had just 27 tackles and one pass interception as a rookie last season, but he plans on making more headlines in years to come.

Ram Notes

The Rams left at noon Saturday for Berlin and their exhibition game next weekend with Kansas City. Their first practice there is set for a.m. Monday. Coach John Robinson said his idea of a successful trip would be a “mix of fun and work so that the players will have a sense of accomplishment as well as a good time.”

Robinson said that Jim Everett will play all of the first quarter against the Chiefs and some of the second. “The other two (quarterbacks, Mark Hermann and Chuck Long) will divide the rest of the time, but we haven’t decided just how yet.”

Everett says he will be trying to improve two aspects of his game during the exhibition season. “I want to raise my completion percentage and lower my number of interceptions,” he said. “It’s all really a matter of knowing my reads (of the defense) better. I’m not really worried about errant balls. I think the physical part is there. I just want to improve my ability to read the defenses.”