VERMEIL RETURNED WHEN DESIRE DID.

Byline: Thomas George The New York Times

Dick Vermeil is back: back in pro football after a 14-year hiatus, back from coaching burnout, back with the Rams, back trying to fix something that is tired and broken.

The Rams, who were in Los Angeles when Vermeil was last with them, were a dreadful 6-10 last season and are 36-76 in this decade, tied with the Jets for the worst record in the National Football League in the 1990s.

Many people wonder if Vermeil, 60 years old, married to Carol for 41 years with three children and 10 grandchildren, could not have found a more pleasant way to spend his Sunday afternoons. Why the agony? Why the pain? Why try? Why, why, why?

All eyes will watch him. Curiously. What is this man up to? Can he handle it? Why does he want to? Why did the Rams pick him as head coach?

Why, why, why?

``There were moments over the last 14 years that I would leave the TV booth and have an empty feeling,'' said Vermeil, who has worked in television as a football analyst since 1982, his last season as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. ``When the game was over, sometimes you would feel so insignificant.''

There has been only one offseason - between the 1995 and 1996 seasons - when a pro team did not call him to seek his interest. No, no, no, he always said. Why, why, why, they always asked? The light, he said, simply was not back on. Now, inside him, it shines brightly. Enough of being on the outside. Enough of the TV booth. He is eager. He is passionate. He is emotional. He is ready to finish what Rich Brooks, the dismissed Rams coach, started.

``It used to be with me that the thrill of winning did not last long,'' Vermeil said. ``The agony of defeat I never got over. It was always all my fault. If the guy fumbled, I felt it was my fault; I shouldn't have called the play. I wore myself out; I learned from that. Now I have an obligation with responsibility to restore the dignity to this organization. It's not complicated; people want to make it complicated.''

He has power over personnel. He has it all here with the Rams, money (a five-year, $9 million-contract) and stature and a plate full of headaches. An underachieving team. A team with a losing mentality. A fat team. A group of players who require a jolt.

They need a guy who knows how to grab a wrench and bolt things back into place.

Well, that is Dick Vermeil. He will tell you that he grew up in Calistoga with a wrench in his hand and with a barn only 50 yards from his house that his father turned into a car repair shop. There was not a transmission that Dick Vermeil could not fix or an engine that he could not rebuild.

He was fascinated with auto racing. His dream was to one day drive in the Indy 500. His father's dream, however, was for Vermeil to stay home forever and lead the way in Vermeil and Sons.

``My mother, Alice, and father, Louis, never graduated from high school,'' Vermeil said softly in his Rams office at the team's sparkling new $14 million complex here as he gazed at a photo of his father walking toward the old barn, ready to repair another tired and broken car. ``I come from humble, hard-working people who instilled compassion in me for the hard-working man. My father never said it, but I knew that he wanted me to stay and lead the way in the garage.''

But off Vermeil went to Napa Junior College and then to San Jose State. His first coaching job was in 1960 at Hillsdale High in San Mateo, and then at Napa College and at UCLA. In 1969, he became the NFL's first special teams coach, working for George Allen and the Rams.

In 1976, he began seven seasons as the Philadelphia Eagles' head coach, leading the Eagles to Super Bowl XV, which they lost, 27-10, to the Oakland Raiders.

Then, after the 1982 season, he left coaching. It was too much. The toll, grief and exhaustion of the job had overwhelmed him. Until now.

``I had tried to hire Dick five years ago and again two years ago; each time he said he was not interested in coaching,'' said John Shaw, the Rams' president. ``His qualities in preparation, motivation and leadership were all qualities we need to energize our program. And these are qualities, even with today's `new' players, that Dick is exceptional at.''

Vermeil has assembled a coaching staff that includes Dick Coury (receivers, age 67), Bud Carson (defensive coordinator, 65), Jim Hanifan (offensive line, 63), Mike White (assistant head coach/tight ends, 61) and Frank Gansz (special teams, 58). Some of his peers around the league snicker. What is this, the Geritol group, they ask? Two younger members of Vermeil's staff are not laughing.

Kerry Goode, 32, is the Rams' strength and conditioning coach after spending the last four seasons as an assistant in that area with the Giants.

Steve Brown, 37, is a defensive assistant.

Goode said: ``These guys are legends in their profession. Things I am just getting ready to go through they have been through three times over. And Dick Vermeil will make it work, make us click. He is personable, emotional, very determined; he cares and he is a hard worker. He comes in at 5 a.m. sometimes and then I drive by here at 11 at night and he's still here. I worry about that. I hope he doesn't get back into that same old grind and mold of a workaholic.''

Fine. But it must be rubbing off on Goode. In his first six days here, he spent two nights sleeping at his Rams office on a cot. ``Had to get some things done that just wouldn't wait,'' Goode said, grinning.

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