L.A. high school had money for football gear stolen, so Rams helped

The Los Angeles Rams are already earning goodwill in their new city.

The Rams aren't new to Los Angeles, but they're back after leaving for St. Louis in 1995. And when a Los Angeles high school football team needed help after the money it raised for new gear was stolen, the Rams came to the rescue.

Cleveland High School, located in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Reseda, had $8,000 stolen out of the office of football coach Matt Gentle, according to the Orange County Register. That money was for new equipment for its football players. Samantha Koerner, the mother of one of the players, sent an email to the Rams without much hope of a positive outcome, the Orange County Register said. The Rams surprised her.

“Somebody suggested I send an email to the (Rams) C.O.O. I thought he wouldn’t read it. He certainly wasn’t going to respond,” Samantha Koerner told the Orange County Register. “Within five minutes, he emailed me back and said, ‘The Rams are on it. We’re going to do what we can to help.’”

Not only did the Rams bring clothing, gloves, cleats and helmets, star defensive end Robert Quinn showed up with the donation and hung out with the players for a while.

"That shows you what the Rams, the team, is about," Quinn told the Los Angeles Times in a video. "We love giving back to our community. This was the first of many."

Just about every outlet in the Los Angeles area seemed to cover Quinn's appearance and the donation, and that's smart. It would have been a great gesture for the Rams even if nobody in the media covered it, but it doesn't hurt to establish yourself in the community. It is a unique situation because Los Angeles isn't the typical city that was craving a new sports team. While Los Angeles is a huge market, there's a lot to do there and teams like the Lakers and Dodgers rule the sporting scene. The Rams will carve out a large audience too because about 10 million people live in Los Angeles County and appealing to even a reasonably small percentage would be a boon. But it will take a while to convince a majority of NFL fans in Los Angeles who root for other teams to become Rams fans overnight.

The Rams are trying. They are building a palatial stadium. They made a huge trade to get their quarterback of the future, Jared Goff, in the draft. Now they've reached out in a big way to a high school that needed help. Not a bad start.