Mr. big's shot: Mike Tice is oversized, colorful and fun, a lot like the loudmouth on the next barstool. But on the sideline, he's still fairly nondescript. It's about time his New York personality starts to rub off on the Vikings

Hey, you. Yeah, you. I want to talk to you for a minute. It's about Mike Tice, OK? You probably think you're some football genius so you know this Tice guy. Really tall and coaches the Vikings and got in trouble with the league for selling his Super Bowl tickets--what's the big stink anyway?--and trades away his best player, that numbskull Randy Moss.

So you know the easy stuff. Big friggin' deal. If you have any brains, you oughta be pulling for him. I mean, it's like taking the guy sitting at the bar, the one with all the loud opinions because he knows everything about everything, and giving him a whistle and a head coaching job. He's one of us, you know what I mean--even if he's like a foot taller? Hand him a beer and a cigar and put a Knicks game on and he's the best company.

Did you see him walking around in the offseason with a cast on his foot? Know what happened? You're not so smart after all. Well, here's the scoop. He's playing in an end-of-camp touch football game with Vikings interns and ballboys last summer and tears up his ankle but doesn't have surgery until winter. Could just as well have happened to you or me on a Sunday afternoon on the playground. But here's my point: Could you see Parcells or Belichick playing a game with the interns at camp? No freakin' way. Tice's wife, who likes to bust him to keep him humble, which is like asking Larry King to be modest, tells him to grow up. As if that's going to happen.

He has been gone, what, 24 years from Central Islip, N.Y., right in the middle of Long Island, and you'd never know it. Talks like he still lives there, you know what I mean? He hasn't forgotten his roots; he's damn proud of them. Tell me what other NFL coach would describe himself like this: "I am a big, tall, deep-voiced, loud, arrogant New Yorker who thinks he is right all the time. That rubs some people the wrong way. I don't mean anything by it. But I am opinionated."

Toss in gutsy, too. This being a family publication, I can't be more anatomically specific, but you get my drift. I mean, he has no contract after this season, which gives him the security of a mosquito at a Raid demonstration. Even close friends concede the Vikings need to go deep into the playoffs for him to be retained. He knows that, too, yet he gets rid of Moss. What's more, he does it even though he is about to gain a new owner, which doesn't make for the swiftest first impression, even if the new big man, Zygi Wilf, is an East Coast guy.

But what the heck. You might as well give it your best shot surrounded by guys who buy into your rules and play hard all the time, not just when it suits them, and respect authority and understand loyalty. I mean, Moss never got it. Tice believes in this loyalty thing big-time--go ask anyone in Central Islip about loyalty--and he starts right off as coach by declaring the "Randy Ratio," which really is a love offering to Moss, only the jerk never understands. He rewards Tice by various displays of stupidity, whether it's a run-in with a meter maid or mock mooning Packers fans or leaving the final regular-season game last January before it's finished and, dumbest of all, responding to a question about Tice's future by saying, "I don't know if coach Tice is the coach for this team, and I don't know if he isn't."

Talk about sticking a knife into someone who actually likes you and stands up for you and even to this very minute won't bad-mouth you because that's the honorable thing to do. If Moss had his way, Tice and Daunte Culpepper would be ex-Vikings and his own loud mouth and mercurial personality would be in Minnesota, where his teammates still would be disgusted with both his churlish behavior and his special set of rules.

Instead, Moss is gone, and this now is Tice's team, you know what I mean? Only five starters, all on offense, remain from when he replaced Denny Green in January 2002, but it's more than that. When Tice was named coach, he said he wanted the squad to take on his personality. But with a wimpy defense and an offense too intent on keeping Moss happy, the Vikings never have played with a tough, physical, New York attitude. He says that's changing this year.

It's a team that finally has his back. Got a problem with that?

The little man walks across the field, greeting players and coaches. He stops next to the very tall guy with a pencil behind his ear. Mike Tice spots him, bends down and embraces Billy Klinke. They talk and laugh. All's well. Billy's here.

Klinke is a dwarf who grew up across the street from Tice in Central Islip. He was the best man at Tice's wedding. His sister is married to Tice's brother John, a former NFL tight end who now is the Vikings' tight ends coach. Billy was a jockey, which is why Tice once owned a bunch of second-level racehorses. Billy rode the horses; they didn't get rich but they had some laughs. Tice also once owned two delis in the Seattle area--called them Fill Yer Belly Dell Billy, who retired after too many injuries, spends every training camp with the Vikings.