The Freeway Fan is unfazed by the traffic, unmoved by the noise, undaunted in the quest.
The Freeway Fan leads cheers for a team that isn’t there, for fans that often cannot see him, for a town that doesn’t always understand.
The Freeway Fan survives with a strong voice, sturdy banners, and undying hope.
“I love the Rams, and I really feel we can take it all the way,” Poko Taufahema said. “This is my way of showing it.”
Millions are seeing it this week as Taufahema has slowly transformed the Rams’ House into the Rams’ Highway. In preparation for Sunday’s NFC championship game in Seattle against the Seahawks, with his inspirational messages and solitary cheers dancing high above anonymous masses of metal, the Freeway Fan has become a blue-and-yellow horned SigAlert.
“Just trying to support my team,” said Taufahema.
Which he is doing in extraordinary fashion.
For most of the last week, Taufahema has left his graveyard shift job as a security guard and driven to the walkway across the 101 freeway between the Balboa Boulevard and White Oak Avenue exits. It is an overpass generally known as the site of frequent protest banners, but Taufahema goes there on a different mission.
He painstakingly hangs up a variety of Rams banners on the overpass fences and then stands behind them on a concrete walkway waving a yellow Rams towel and leading freeway cheers from noon until sundown.
“The key to this,” he said, “is good shoes.”
As darkness falls, Taufahema packs up the props and returns to do it again the next day, and the next day, and the next day. If the Rams had his resilience and endurance, they would never lose.
“I figure, why not use that space to promote something that brings people together?” he said. “And right now, that’s the Rams.”
The overpass is perfectly located to inspire the Rams, whose headquarters are nearby and whose players drive under the walkway daily. It is also perfectly located for maximum visibility, as it spans one of the area’s most traffic-choked stretches.
Taufahema initially shared his plan 10 days ago with wife Jasmine after the Rams had won the wild-card playoff game against the Carolina Panthers. It was a crazy idea yet, considering she recently threw a Rams-themed surprise 30th birthday party for Poko, Jasmine understood his passion and helped construct the banners after visits to The Dollar Tree and Walgreens.
“I believe in my husband completely,” she said. “I’ve seen his dedication, his work ethic and the heart behind his dream, and I’ll always support him for having the courage to go after what he loves.”
Poko is a perfect example of the long-awaited surge in Rams fandom. When the team returned here in 2016, many locals had long since attached themselves to other teams. Some fans simply had no team and only cheered for their favorite player. Poko, a former high school and junior college defensive lineman whose career was cut short by a foot injury, was in the latter group. He was an Aaron Donald die-hard who never really thought about cheering for the team.
But the Rams, with their toughness on the field and their immersion in the community, slowly earned Poko’s heart. By the time they won the Super Bowl after the 2021 season, he was so enamored with the team, he attended the championship parade and climbed through a hole in the fence to get a close-up view of his favorite players.
“I even shook Leonard Floyd’s hand,” he said proudly. “It was so great, I love this team.”
He now owns several Rams jerseys and countless other Rams souvenirs, including a Rams necklace and foam fingers. He attends several Rams home games a year even though he doesn’t have season tickets.
“When it comes to the Rams, I find a way,” he said.
That’s become obvious.
On the first day of his current quest, it was just Poko and Jasmine and their three children, hanging out at the walkway after hanging signs that included a Rams mantra, “Earn the right.”
They had no idea anyone was watching. Yet the moment the signs were affixed to the chain link fence with zip ties, the Taufahemas realized everybody was watching.
Horns began blaring. Folks stuck their heads out of windows to shout encouragement. Even police officers joined the cheering on their loudspeakers.
“All at once, we started hearing horns and people,” said Poko. “They were reacting to the signs in a way I never imagined.”
Although the Rams have built such a following that SoFi Stadium is no longer consistently dominated by opposing fans as in past years, Rams fans are generally more quiet in public than say, Raiders fans, so Taufahema was thrilled to hear them show out.
“We have a reputation for not repping our team like in other places,” he said. “It was so great to see all that change.”
It wasn’t all great. Some people also made obscene gestures and shouted nastiness at them from their open car windows.
“It made me mad, but I couldn’t do anything,” Taufahema said. “This was all about the Rams.”
And the Rams noticed, spotting video of The Freeway Fan on social media and inviting the Taufahemas to the headquarters the next morning to give them other banners to display.
Poko and his family were alone again on the second day of the makeshift cheering section, but last Friday, everything changed.
Fans saw the videos and several of them joined the overpass party, including one who brought a flag for Poko to wave. On Saturday some of those fans alerted Poko of the team bus departure times for LAX, and so he was at the overpass again in the early afternoon, cheering the honking buses as they sped underneath.
Three days later, after their dramatic victory over the Chicago Bears, linebacker Byron Young tagged the overpass on his social media, and Poko was beyond belief.
“The players love it, and they love why I’m doing it, and it makes me so happy,” said Poko.
The Rams, who are celebrated for their community involvement, understand and embrace what Taufahema represents.
“So much of this past year has been about showing up for our city and bringing L.A. together,” said Kathryn Kai-ling Frederick, Rams chief marketing officer. “Watching folks across this region galvanize and support our team in so many different ways is inspiring and their dedication and efforts give us the fuel to go earn the right to play another week for L.A.”
This week the bannered Rams mantra changed to, “Not Done Yet” as the site grew more popular, and if the Rams aren’t done yet, neither are the Taufahemas. If the Rams head to the Super Bowl, Poko and Jasmine are headed back to the overpass.
“Poko has already been brainstorming his ideas,” said Jasmine. “He has faith they’ll take it all the way.”
But first things first. The Rams must survive a hostile crowd in Seattle, although through blaring horns and hurried shouts rising above the din of daily traffic, they’ll now know they have a big piece of their giant city behind them.
The Seahawks can have their 12th Man.
The Rams have The Freeway Fan.
The post Meet the Freeway Fan, the Rams’ traffic-preaching inspiration appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
