Through the years of Clayton High School’s existence, trickles of students have funneled out of CHS in the middle of school years for a myriad of possible reasons: some have moved to a new home in another county, plenty others have sought alternative forms of schooling as opposed to the classic daily approach of being in classrooms from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM, a handful more students have been expelled from CHS, altogether.

How frequently, though, has a student ceased attending Clayton High in the middle of a school year because his father is the General Manager of a professional football team which has just been granted approval by the NFL to pack its blue and gold painted moving trucks driven by a man with a mysteriously greying toupee and mustache, euphorically groping hundred dollar bills, while frantically typing the word “Hollywood,” into his iPhone Maps app before this “moving-truck driver” promptly tramples the gas pedal to tread as far from his home state as possible?

The CHS record books have been thoroughly examined.

The answer: not very frequently.

But for now former CHS freshman Logan Snead, this not so frequently encountered reason for a student’s permanent departure from Clayton High, where the Executive’s son would have starred for the Hounds over the next three years at Gay Field in Clayton football’s incandescent orange-on-orange uniforms, minus the entire Enos-Stanley-Kroenke-as-a-truck-driver-phantasmagoria, has become a reality.

After NFL owners voted 30-2 on Jan. 12 in favor of Stan Kroenke’s relocation plan moving the Rams from St. Louis to Inglewood, CA in a multi-billion dollar sports stadium and nirvana, the Snead family, who had become entrenched in the Clayton community since their arrival in 2012, had to act quickly to depart for their new lives in southern California.

“Life’s all about how you adjust to changing variables, and we had to adjust quickly,” Rams GM Les Snead told the CHS Globe.

Logan Snead’s first day at his new school in Los Angeles was Feb. 1st.

Any diehard Rams fan who has watched over the last four years Les Snead’s assemblage of young and talented pieces proven to be capable of defeating just about any NFL team on a given Sunday knows that beneath Les Snead’s ravishing blonde flow of hair, the man has a sharp football mind.

Snead’s smarts were re-affirmed through his words to the CHS Globe, in which the Rams GM impressively compared his gratitude for the eminence of the Clayton community to the appreciation a sports fan or professional player analyst such as himself feels when watching a transcendent quarterback at work.

“Anytime you get a chance to be around one those QBs or live in one of these communities it’s going to make a major impact for good in your family’s lives. Clayton is a tier one, top tier, franchise community,” Les Snead said.

Though the Snead family is excited to tackle the bright lights of Hollywood, Les still recognizes the positive impact the simple beauties of the Clayton community have had on his family.

“Many things to miss, the most being the schools. Clayton High and the rest of the schools are unique. Next are the people and their kids and being able to walk anywhere … I’ll even miss the high dive at Shaw Park,” Les Snead said.

Logan Snead, whose early part of his childhood took place in Atlanta, where his father had been a scout and then executive for the Falcons from 1997-2011, moved to St. Louis when his father first got the job as the Rams GM. Logan went through Wydown Middle School and spent slightly more than one semester at CHS. Now already settled in at his new school in Los Angeles, Logan reflected back on his time in Clayton and echoed his father’s positive sentiments about the Clayton community.

“Clayton was great,” Logan Snead said. “I loved it. I’m going to miss the people and the atmosphere the most. Everyone was so friendly, and the amount of freedom was great.”

Had Kroenke’s Inglewood plan not passed through NFL owners, prompting the Rams to stay in St. Louis at least one more year to “rock the dome,” the Snead family would have felt more than comfortable in a school district and community which adopted and embraced them.

Les Snead was praiseworthy of Clayton High School, hailing the school from the administration, downward, while recognizing CHS’ auspicious influence on Logan. “The first time I visited Clayton High, people like Ryan Luhning and Dan Gutchewsky were the type of people you wanted to develop your kid. There was no doubt,” Les Snead said. “I really respect what the teachers did for Logan … He’s a better young man and student because of their passion and heart for young men and women.”

Though the plate of Les Snead while he was in St. Louis already was overflowing with mounds of responsibility in building his own football team, family remained priority for Les who was dedicated to the success of his children within the Clayton community.

Snead appeared at Gay Field every autumn Friday night during the 2015 season, which ran concurrently to the Rams season, to support Logan and his blooming football career.

An only child raised by a single mother and deeply devoted to his own football career growing up, Les has experienced the power football coaches can exert on players to not only serve as mentors, but also as fatherly figures.

When Les Snead first met head coach Gene Gladstone in 2015 – Gladstone who would go onto to revitalize Clayton’s football program in his first season as Clayton’s coach – Snead was an instant believer.

“I was raised by football coaches so I know the impact football coaches can make on a kid. Gene shared with me his vision for the program and he was passionate about his vision. Probably three minutes into a twenty minute meeting I knew Gene was the type of man and coach that I wanted Logan raised by,” Logan Snead said. “I told many people that spring that Gene was special, that anyone would want him developing their kid, that he was going to ignite the Clayton Football program.”

Logan made Clayton’s varsity squad as a freshman, and played linebacker. He very well may have played an instrumental role in Clayton’s football future had the Rams stayed in St. Louis, as Logan was also one of the Hounds’ backup quarterbacks his freshman year, showing promise under center. And though Logan will never again don the infernal greyhound orange, armed with inspiration from the silver-ponytailed Coach  Gladstone, Logan will continue his football career next fall in the Golden State.

“Coach Gladstone taught me a lot. He believed in me. He helped me fit in. He also has an awesome ponytail. I’m thankful to have a coach like that in my life, that cared so much. All the other coaches included, [they were] always there when I needed them,” Logan Snead said.

The Clayton football team will be forced to rebound next season down one more man, and the community is already adjusting to the loss of a family who became enshrined in the Clayton collective.

And although that greedy, greying “truck driver” did get his way, although a Missouri man with seven billion dollars named after two of St. Louis’ most treasured athletes was not only so void of dignity as to not make an attempt to keep football in his home city, but also he was extra kind to leave a dallop of his avaristic spit on the way out, being sure to publicly smear the city he once promised he would do everything in his effort to support. saying in his relocation proposal: “Any NFL Club that signs on to this proposal in St. Louis will be well on the road to financial ruin, and the League will be harmed.”

Although Kroenke slithered away and absconded the city with his degrading and absurd comments about St. Louis – the Sneads, on the other end, exit St. Louis with grace.

The Snead family have truly impacted Clayton since their arrival four years ago, and their reciprocated gratitude for this community will resonate throughout Clayton like a thunderous splash from the Shaw Park high dive.

The Sneads head to the Golden State displaying lustrous class as they traverse the threshold leading out of the Gateway and extending onward-

to the west.