Ferragamo Burned Bright, Then Burned Out, but Bounced Back : Football: Greatness never came to the Rams' Super Bowl quarterback. Since retiring, though, he has made his mark.

By MIKE DiGIOVANNA

July 18, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ORANGE — Places you won’t find Vince Ferragamo’s name:

--In the pro football Hall of Fame.

--In a star on Hollywood Boulevard.

Places you will find Vince Ferragamo’s name:

--On a Tarbell-Realtors for sale sign.

--On a Special Olympics golf tournament banner.

He once seemed destined for greatness, this man with the strong body and rifle arm, matinee-idol looks and made-for-TV smile.

Vince Ferragamo whet the appetite of Ram fans in 1979 when he took over as quarterback late in the season and guided the team to its only Super Bowl appearance.

After setting several team passing records and leading the Rams into the 1980 playoffs, Ferragamo was tabbed an NFL star and the club’s most exciting quarterback in 30 years, since Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin.

Some thought he could be football’s next dominant quarterback, as much a model for the 1980s as Terry Bradshaw was for the 1970s.

But as fast as Ferragamo’s star rose, it fizzled just as quickly. After a bitter contract dispute, Ferragamo jumped to the Canadian Football League in 1981, suffered through a horrendous season at Montreal, and took a U-turn back to L.A. in ’82.

He had one more good season for the Rams, in 1983, but a hand injury forced him to miss most of 1984. He was traded to the Buffalo Bills in 1985--then the NFL equivalent of being sent to Siberia--and spent half of 1986 as the Green Bay Packers’ third-string quarterback before being released.

Somehow, greatness eluded Ferragamo in football, and he never made it big in television after dabbling in acting for a few months in 1986.

But goodness stuck with him. Ferragamo’s flexible hours as a Tarbell residential real estate agent have allowed him to devote many hours to charity work.

He recently completed his ninth Special Olympics golf tournament, an annual event that has netted more than $305,000 for Orange County Special Olympics, and he is active on the Southeast Council, a federally subsidized program that provides services for recovering alcoholics in Southeast Los Angeles County.

Ferragamo, 37 and the father of three daughters, has apparently made a smooth transition to life after football.

His hair has thinned some and shows a bit of gray, but at 6 feet 4 and 220 pounds, he’s only five pounds above his playing weight and in good shape.

“I’m definitely happy,” said Ferragamo, who lives in Orange Park Acres. “I’m doing a lot of different things, working with the community, giving back to people and fans. And real estate keeps me busy. I had kind of a rocky football career, but I wouldn’t have done a lot of things differently.”

Well, maybe one. If Ferragamo could re-write the script to his football career, he probably wouldn’t have bolted to Canada in 1981, even though it seemed like the right move at the time.

Fresh off a 31-19 loss to Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XIV, in which he completed 15 of 25 passes for 212 yards, Ferragamo entered the 1980 season in the final year of a four-year contract that paid him $52,000, lowest among NFL starting quarterbacks. A footnote: The second-lowest paid quarterback in 1980 was Joe Montana, who made $63,000.

The Rams made what appeared to be decent attempts to sign Ferragamo: The quarterback turned down a $250,000-a-year offer during the 1980 season and a $325,000-a-year offer after it.

But Ferragamo was still upset that his old contract wasn’t renegotiated before 1980, a season during which one national magazine called him “the quarterback of the 1980s with a salary of the 1960s.” He even staged a one-day walkout in protest early in the season.

“They signed me to be a back-up quarterback, I was thrown into things as a starter, but they still paid me like a backup,” Ferragamo said. “It’s like being a substitute teacher who all of a sudden gets promoted to full-time but is still making a substitute’s wages.

“There was such a gap between what I was making and what I should have been making. You’re not going to play forever, so you might as well get your market value.”

That’s what he thought the Montreal Alouettes were offering. Ferragamo, his pioneer instincts getting the best of him, signed a four-year, $2 million contract with the CFL team and made a run for the border. A season later, he couldn’t run home fast enough.

Ferragamo had a miserable year, leading the CFL in interceptions for a team that went 3-12. With his drop-back, stationary style of passing, Ferragamo wasn’t built for the Canadian game, which required mobile quarterbacks who could roll out, scramble and throw on the run.

Montreal owner Nelson Skalbania was scrambling, though. He couldn’t pay the bills, and the Alouettes folded after the ’81 season. Ferragamo didn’t have a guaranteed contract.

“It was good money, but there should have been clauses to protect me,” Ferragamo said. “I got paid for one year but should have made $2 million. Career-wise, it wasn’t the best move. When you jump ship, people think differently of you. I didn’t have the numbers I had here. I went from the Super Bowl back to the bottom.”

Not rock bottom, though. He landed rather nicely with the Rams, who gave him three one-year contracts valued at about $300,000 a year.

The strike-shortened, 1982 season was a washout for the Rams, who went 2-9, but Ferragamo had one memorable Sunday, passing for 509 yards--second-best in NFL history at the time--against the Chicago Bears Dec. 26. The Rams lost, 34-26.

One year later, Ferragamo capped a solid season (274 of 464 passes for 3,276 yards and 22 touchdowns) by leading the Rams to a 24-17 victory over Dallas in an NFC wild-card game.

The Rams rewarded Ferragamo with a four-year, $450,000-a-year contract, seemingly affirming his quarterback-of-the-future status, but the future didn’t last long.

Ferragamo tore a ligament on the index finger of his throwing hand during the 1984 exhibition season and threw eight interceptions in three games. He broke a bone in his right hand Sept. 16 and missed the rest of the season.

Ferragamo was traded to Buffalo for tight end Tony Hunter in July, 1985. In a strange twist of fate, Ferragamo became dispensable when the Rams signed CFL quarterback Dieter Brock.

“That was kind of ironic,” Ferragamo said. “I was like a streak hitter. When things were going well, things happened in a flurry. When they weren’t, it was a long, dry spell.”

Kind of like the real estate business. Little did Ferragamo know at the time, but football prepared him for his future career.

“This is an up-and-down business,” Ferragamo said. “Some people you make happy, some you don’t. It’s just like football--you have a good game, you have a bad game. But I’m comfortable with it.”