Lake Quintin He got the news on the field after practice, so there was nowhere else he wanted to pass it on.
The Rams safety jogged into the locker room, grabbed his phone and waited until his teammates entered and left the field empty.
Then he quietly returned outside, took a deep breath, and made the call.
“Dad,” he said, trying to hide his excitement, “they elected me captain of the team.”
Carnell Lake He choked a little.
“You’re only in your third year!” he told his son, pride spreading through the connection. “‘I didn’t get elected captain until I was 10. Man, I’m proud of you.”
The emotional exchange in August, on the eve of the Rams’ season, was another bonding moment for father and son.
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Carnell, a star at Culver City High and UCLA, played safety and cornerback for 12 seasons in the NFL, 10 with the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1989 to 1998. He was an All-Pro, a five-time Pro Bowl selection and was named to a the NFL. Team from the entire 1990s.
Quentin, who also played at UCLA, is a leader and something of an iron man for a Rams team that rebounded from a 1-4 start to make the playoffs.
“Football,” Quentin said of his relationship with his father, “is our love language.”
Quentin’s lineage comes through in his approach, his maturity and his play, Rams coach Sean McVay saying. A love of the game, an understanding of nuances and “emotional intelligence,” as McVay put it, allow the 25-year-old to navigate situations and connect with other players.

“You definitely feel that pedigree based on the love he has and the relationship he has with his father,” McVay said.
Carnell played in 17 playoff games, including a Super Bowl XXX loss to the Dallas Cowboys in 1996.
On Monday night, Quentin will start his second postseason game when the Rams play the Minnesota Vikings in an NFC Wild Card game at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
Due to safety concerns related to the wildfires in Southern California, the NFL moved the game from Sofia Stadium.
“You have to remind the guys that when things like this happen, it’s bigger than the game of football,” Quentin said of his role as captain, “but at the same time we can use this game to give hope to Los Angeles.”
By design, Quentin’s journey to the NFL was made without his father’s encouragement.
Despite Quentin’s request that his father coach him in youth sports (“I wanted to learn all the tricks of the trade,” he said), Carnell refused.
“If you grow up enjoying it without feeling pressure,” Carnell said, “I think it’ll be more about him.”
Carnell never promoted football. He told his son that if he wanted to be an engineer, he should be an engineer. If he wanted to be a doctor, he should be a doctor.
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“He always said, ‘It’s your life and someday you’re going to have to make a decision about what you want to do,’ Quentin said. “Fortunately, he was such a good role model that that’s exactly what I wanted to do: be a football player and go to the NFL.”
Quentin played at Santa Ana Mater Dei before following in his father’s footsteps at UCLA. Carnell, who had coached for seven seasons with the Steelers, left his position so he could watch.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to miss that,’” Carnell said.
Carnell, however, continued to keep his distance.
“He never wanted to overdo it,” his son said.
But in 2018After watching a Bruins practice in which Quentin played coverage incorrectly, Carnell offered a little unsolicited advice.
“I was listening like, ‘Hey, Dad, you played a long time ago,’” Carnell said, laughing. “So I looked at him like he wasn’t listening to me.”
Not much has changed after USC receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown burned the Bruins for a long touchdown late in the season.

However, the following week, St. Brown’s brother Osiris scored on a similar play for Stanford.
“At that point I thought, ‘Yeah, I have to listen to him; he knows what he’s talking about,'” Quentin said, laughing. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
“From that point on, we started really diving into the film and how I can improve my game, and my game took off.”
The Rams selected Lake in the sixth round of the 2022 draft. He was sidelined for much of his rookie season due to a knee injury, but last season his versatility helped the Rams bounce back from a slow start. 3-6 to make the playoffs.
As the Rams prepared for this season, first-year defensive coordinator Chris Shula viewed Lake as a building block of a unit that made up for the loss of the retired star defensive lineman Aaron Donald. After linebacker Troy Reeder suffered a hamstring injury, Lake assumed signal-caller duties.
“We had a vision of being able to move him and play wherever we needed to fit the defense,” Shula said. “He is excellent in coverage. He is a physical player. He’s obviously very smart, so he’s a guy you can do a lot of different things with.”
The 6-foot-1, 196-pound Quentin said he has benefited from the experience of the Rams coaches, as well as his sessions with his father.
Carnell recalled one they shared during Quentin’s free time.

“We stayed up until 2 in the morning watching a movie and he showed me his notebook,” Carnell said. “I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ He is already in front of me. His penmanship and note-taking skills are impressive.
“Mine is like shaved chicken.”
Quintin disagrees. His father had “several notebooks for a team” when he was a player and now offers “complete Power Point presentations” to his son.
“My grades are good,” Quentin said, “but his grades go much further.”
Lake has applied the lessons. He entered the final week of the season as one of only four NFL players to play every defensive snap. The streak ended only because McVay rested or minimized snaps for the starters late in the season.
Lake’s success doesn’t surprise defensive backs coach Aubrey Pleasant.
“He’s such a stickler for details that sometimes I have to tell him to give himself a little grace, to allow himself to be a little kinder to himself,” Pleasant said. “That’s something you want as a coach. You want to be able to pull the reins, instead of feeling like you’re always pushing them to keep going.”
A role model for his peers on the field, Lake also strives to lead by example in other areas.
This season, on his days off, Lake was present at the dedication of a football field the Rams installed at the Nickerson Gardens housing complex in Watts. He was also among several Rams players who helped out on a construction site in North Hollywood that will eventually be a home for military veterans.


“It’s really being able to take a step back from football and say, I’m a human being first, how can I help other people,” he said after mixing and moving wheelbarrows full of cement.
Rams rookie safety Jaylen McCollough try to follow Lake’s example.
“You want to be a complete professional, and that’s on and off the field,” McCollough said. “And so whatever nugget you can take or just learn from Q, you just have to be a sponge.”
This is how Quentin approaches the lessons his father passes on to him.
In honor of Carnell, Quentin has always worn jersey number 37, the number his father wore.
“I thought about changing it when I got drafted,” Quentin said. “I thought, ‘Yeah, I’m on my own journey.’ But you know what, 37 is just me.”
Former Steelers coach Bill Cowher, a CBS studio analyst, apparently recognizes the similarities between father and son.
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After Quentin and the Rams defensive lineman Kobie Turner Taped a television segment this season, Cowher sent Lake a video message, telling him a story about a side conversation he had with Hall of Fame safety Troy Polamalu.
“Troy was going through a tough time, and Troy came back to the sideline and Coach Cowher said, ‘Troy, you’re okay. You’re good,’” Quentin said. “And Troy said, ‘I’m just trying to be like Carnell Lake.’
“I was like, ‘Wow. That’s crazy.’”
Now Quentin hopes to surpass his father.
He wants to not only play in a Super Bowl but also be captain of a team that wins a ring.
“I would come home and say, ‘Yeah, I got this,’” Quentin said, waving his ring finger. “That would be great.”
And another proud moment to share between father and son.
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.