Like Indochino's custom suits, every Rams staff member's championship journey is different. We'll be highlighting those stories in a three-part series with each installment focusing on a different member of the organization.
Up first is Vice President, Partnership Development Mike O'Keefe, who has been with the organization for more than two decades.
A longtime staff member of the Rams, Mike O'Keefe has been a part of both of the organization's Super Bowl victories.
He was in his second season with the team when they it Super Bowl XXXIV in 1999 while in St. Louis, working as a club seat sales executive. Then, 22 years later, he watched the Rams cap off their sixth season back in Los Angeles with a victory in Super Bowl LVI while in his current position as Vice President, Partnership Development.
"It's really a tale of two very different Super Bowls," O'Keefe said. "The '99 Super Bowl really came out of nowhere. I mean, there were so many amazing storylines that could've never even been imagined, from the rise in prominence of Kurt Warner to the electrifying style of offense that Mike Martz brought – The Greatest Show on Turf – it was very different. It was a Cinderella story, and no one expected or predicted us to ever win that Super Bowl, so it was truly kind of out of the blue. Super Bowl 34 just happened and no one could have predicted.
"I feel like Super Bowl 56, we were expected to win in a lot of ways, and so it was very different. Even from the very beginning, we were in the conversation and you had some in the media that were saying that we could we could win the game. And with additions like Von Miller and OBJ, we were expected to be playing in that game, so it didn't come out of nowhere."
Like those external views, O'Keefe's perception also changed with the Rams' second Super Bowl victory.
O'Keefe said he used to believe that the business side of football couldn't positively affect success on the field. For that side of the organization, their job was to stay out of the way and ensure they didn't negatively affect the team by causing a distraction to their preparation.
"This season proved me wrong," O'Keefe said, "because there were so many examples of just programming, content and community events that we did on the business side that I felt transcended the business side and directly impacted the players to really help them realize just how special this year was and this moment was for us."
One of the organizational goals the Rams established at the very beginning was to win L.A.'s Super Bowl. While that objective had different meanings across departments, O'Keefe said he felt like it was willed to life even by those off-the-field events.
"In the truest form and the truest sense of win the L.A. Super Bowl, we brought that to life," O'Keefe said. "So it truly was an organizational victory for everyone in the building when (Rams owner/chairman) Stan (Kroenke) hoisted that (Lombardi) Trophy at SoFi Stadium."
When the Rams relocated from St. Louis to Los Angeles in 2016, O'Keefe – and his family – moved with them.
O'Keefe said upon moving back to L.A., the franchise's goal was to build an entirely new organization from the ground up while maintaining its culture. That included some "lofty" goals on both the business and football sides, one of which was – and still is – for the Rams to become one of the most powerful brands in sports. Although winning one Super Bowl doesn't accomplish that by itself, it's an important and necessary step towards achieving that goal.
So, besides that, what also resonated as the most rewarding part of that journey to the franchise's first Super Bowl title in Los Angeles was being able to experience that victory with his wife and three daughters.
"To just go through that, and especially after relocating from St. Louis, which was a really big deal for us, every single bit of that flashed through my mind when time expired and confetti started flying," O'Keefe said. "It was a more powerful moment than I can even put into words."
Beyond those memories, the last piece to commemorating that milestone victory is O'Keefe's second Super Bowl ring, which he got fitted on the same finger on the same hand as his first – right hand and ring finger.
"I'll probably wear it this season for 2022 home games, just for show-and-tell with clients and fans, but I can never imagine wearing both rings at the same time," O'Keefe said. "I think only players can pull that off."
