This isn't one of those stories about child being father to the man. Because as Jim Bulger sat at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis last Sunday watching son Marc lead the slumping Rams to victory over the previously-undefeated Raiders, not once did he conjure up his long-ago longshot aspirations of playing in the NFL.

If the dreams of the father had become the dreams realized by the son, there was no vicarious experience to complete the transfer, rather an industrial-sized bit of satisfaction at seeing a son's hard work rewarded.

	Marc Bulger had never played in an NFL regular-season game before last Sunday.

"Every parent wants his children to be able to do better than he did, because that's what being a parent is about, really," Jim Bulger said early this week from his Pittsburgh home. "From that standpoint, it was gratifying to watch Marc get what he wanted, to finish the evolution. But, no, I wasn't living out the dream vicariously through him. I was just another nervous father."

Then again, to some of us, not just any other nervous father.

No, he was Jim Bulger, Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School '68, former classmate of yours truly. And if that only flimsily qualifies Jim Bulger and his family as a story that might be of interest to only a select few readers, so be it. The way I see it, I've written enough about people I don't know well, I've earned the right to write this one.

Besides, how else are you going to gain this degree of insight into Marc Bulger, who on Sunday will attempt to complete the Rams' first win streak of what has been a dismal 2002 season for the franchise?

Good kid, Marc, who like his father (and Dan Marino) played quarterback at Central Catholic, then went on to establish most of the passing records at West Virginia University. Good kid, in large part, because of good stock. By any standard, Jim and Patty Bulger are as good at the parenting game as they were on the football field and the basketball court, respectively, in younger days. Solid folks. Straightforward. Caring and sacrificing.

That their son is, at least temporarily, a starting quarterback in the NFL is an exciting proposition. They are hoping one of the airlines out of Pittsburgh has an "e-fare" sale this weekend so that they can see Marc's second start, against the Seahawks.

"You'd hate to miss it," said Jim Bulger. "You hate to miss any of that kind of stuff."

There has been plenty of "that kind of stuff" to which Jim and Patty Bulger have raced over the years. Oldest daughter Katie, who played at Oakland Catholic just down the street from Central, is a standout basketball player at West Virginia. A onetime Big East rookie of the year, she's embarking on her junior season, her third year as a starter. Youngest daughter Meggie, currently a senior at Oakland Catholic, was recruited by every major hoops program in the country before she decided to join Katie at WVU next year.

No telling how many times the family has made the 90-minute drive to Morgantown, W.Va., to see Katie play. And no telling how many times, in coming years, Jim and Patty will put the car into automatic pilot and land there again to watch Meggie play. If it comes down to driving to Marc's games, well, break out the maps and change for tolls.

Funny thing, but no one figured Marc would be playing football at this point, because he really wasn't that interested early on. A quarterback during his days at Notre Dame -- you might recall his big pass completion at the end of the first half in the 1971 Cotton Bowl, when the Irish stopped a University of Texas 33-game winning streak -- Jim Bulger always figured Marc's love for basketball would keep him off the gridiron.

	“	Every parent wants his children to be able to do better than he did, because that's what being a parent is about, really. From that standpoint, it was gratifying to watch Marc get what he wanted, to finish the evolution. But, no, I wasn't living out the dream vicariously through him. I was just another nervous father. ”
		— Jim Bulger, father of Marc Bulger

After all, Patty Bulger (maiden name Patty Fralic, a cousin to former NFL Pro Bowl offensive guard Bill Fralic) was a pretty good basketball player in high school when she wasn't battling knee injuries. But in his senior year at Central Catholic, Marc suddenly demonstrated interest in football. And he did well enough over a short time to merit consideration from recruiters.

"Honest, I never really pushed him (toward football)," Jim Bulger said. "But once he started playing, I thought he could be pretty good, because he had such good court vision when he played basketball. And then once he started to play, I think a little piece of me thought, like, 'All right. Yeah, he's doing pretty good.' I guess, at that point, I started relating his experience a little bit to mine, sure. I felt maybe he had a chance to do some things I didn't. He sure had it all over me when it came to accuracy, I knew that."

Tall and blessed with a howitzer arm, Jim Bulger's primary shortcoming was a streak of terminal scattershot-ness, and that kept him mostly on the Notre Dame bench. Certainly he had the size, arm strength and pocket presence to play at a high level. If he didn't gain football acclaim at Notre Dame, he gained a degree, ironically graduating with current Rams team president Jay Zygmunt, a fact he didn't realize until a few weeks ago.

Now an executive with Vision Financial, an equipment leasing firm, Jim stays in shape by running and lifting weights and with the occasional round of golf. In fact, he parlayed a planned trip to Notre Dame for last week's game against the University of Pittsburgh, into a few rounds with his family. And then, when Marc phoned Wednesday to report he had taken all the snaps with the first team and that he might start against the Raiders, the junket gained another leg.

After the Notre Dame game, Jim raced to St. Louis, because he was not about to miss Marc's first regular-season exposure. So there he sat Sunday, living a dream with his son, not through him.

"The whole thing about living vicariously through Marc, it's crazy, because it's not like I had a realistic chance to play at (the NFL) level," Jim said. "It never got that far with me for a lot of reasons. I think the reason I enjoy what is happening to Marc is because I can see him starting to enjoy the game for all the reasons that I loved the game. In that sense, there's a real bond, and that is something that thrills me.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.