By Nick Wagoner
Senior Writer

MEQUON, Wis. –

-I’ll be back with some football notes after the afternoon practice later today but I wanted to wax a little bit about something that means a lot to me and to a lot of us up here. So, if you will hear me out, please keep reading. If not, feel free to check back later to get your football fix.

So, I find myself now in my fifth season covering the Rams and for the second time in those five years, the team has opted to go away from St. Louis for camp. The first time was the last time the team trained in Macomb back in 2004. That was my first year covering the team. Soon after I arrived in Macomb, I was introduced to a variety of players, coaches and staff. None had more swagger or more personality than Mr. Jack Snow.

I was running down on the shores of Lake Michigan on Saturday morning and couldn’t help but think back to that first camp. I don’t know if it’s the constant buzzing around of a variety of golf carts that first reminded me or a glance at the Concordia University press box that made me think about it, but damn, I miss Jack Snow.

There’s little doubt in my mind that Mr. Snow would have loved the setup here at Concordia University. The weather and Lake Michigan would have almost certainly felt like a little slice of California for the man who so loved the golden state. It’s easy to picture him riding around in his golf cart. Never has a man made a golf cart look so cool, with his shades on, saying hi to every passer by and politely signing autographs as though he were still a thousand-yard receiver.

Some of you might remember what I wrote in the wake of his passing a few years ago about his insistence that I call him Mr. Snow until I earned the right to call him Jack. I was never fortunate enough to earn that right as his passing came too soon. It came too soon for many, much more important, reasons but it was at that first training camp that I first got acquainted with Mr. Snow. He poked fun at me about my shower shoes and my habit for obsessive compulsively showering three times a day even in the awful conditions of the Western Illinois University community showers. He cracked jokes to any and everyone. He was everybody’s friend and if he wasn’t your friend, you couldn’t help but hope someday you’d get to be in that group.

If you ever attended a Rams training camp where Mr. Snow was, you would have instantly recognized him. For all intents and purposes, he was a movie star in small town Illinois. Of course, he made his share of appearances on television and movies but even without that his trademark dark shades, golf cart and laid back California attitude made certain he would stand out in a crowd.

Working a room was never a problem for Mr. Snow. When the Rams scrimmaged the Bears in Macomb that year, Mr. Snow took the reins as the public address announcer. Never will you hear a more entertaining take on a 3-yard completion from Russ Michna to Brian Sump than what Mr. Snow put forth that day. And never would you hear a more biased take on a scrimmage that wouldn’t count in any standings. But even the Bears fans in attendance got a kick out of Mr. Snow’s antics.

By the time that first training camp came to a close, Mr. Snow and I had moved past the “him making fun of me and me hopelessly taking it without a retort” stage. Watching football practice day after day, while certainly not one of the worst things in the world, can be tedious if you don’t know what you’re watching. When you watch it with Mr. Snow, you don’t want it to end. I learned how to watch football practice from him. I learned how to watch the nuances of the wide receivers, what makes a route a good route, what type of footwork goes into turning a cornerback around so many times that the receiver's  looks like Linda Blair’s head in The Exorcist. Basically, this snot-nosed kid fresh out of college continued his education on the fields of Macomb with Mr. Snow as his professor.

When I wrote my tribute to Mr. Snow in January of 2006, I did it with a heavy heart. The outpouring of Rams fans who wrote in to the website to share their favorite memory of him or a chance encounter was unbelievable. This is a snippet of what I wrote then…

“Many times in life, good people are taken away from us too soon. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to know Mr. Snow long enough to call him Jack. I guess in this case, Heaven just couldn’t wait.”

Five years later, I can’t help but wonder if I would have earned the privilege to call him Jack. So when I’m watching a young receiver flub a post route or I look up to the press box during the upcoming scrimmage wondering what Mr. Snow’s next quip would be, maybe I’ll do what I can to find out. Maybe I’ll just ask him.