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Do you know me? Fans don't recognize him. Peers don't give him enough love. Shaun Alexander is the NFL's most underappreciated, underrated and underexposed superstar

Sporting News, The, Dec 23, 2005 by Dennis Dillon

Scene 1: Qwest Field

This man has played a starring role at this venue for the past five years. Now, he's about to become a talent of a different kind. Sitting on the edge of a table as powder is brushed on his forehead and face, he looks dapper in a navy suit, light-blue tie, black dress shoes and trench coat. But one thing is troubling him: His socks don't match his suit.

Mimi Pettibone, the makeup stylist, puts down her brush and picks up her purse. Voila. She pulls out a pair of dark socks, an extra pair she brought in case her feet got cold, and hands them to him. Now his wardrobe is complete.

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This is Seattle, not Hollywood, and the plaza level concourse of the football stadium has been transformed into a film set complete with lights, cameras, microphones and a green screen. Director Mark Teitelman (aka T-Man) heads up a crew that includes aN assistant director, cameramen sound technicians, a gaffer and a grip. There are extras, including about 25 Seattlites and 10 airmen (six men, four women) from McCord Air Force Base in Tacoma.

The headliner is the man with the newly acquired dark socks. Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander has been selected as the lead-in to Monday Night Football. Over the next two hours--during which he will do numerous takes and be filmed from various angles and ranges--he will follow a script in which he drops clues about who he is for the intro to the Seattle-Philadelphia game. Sort of a takeoff on the old American Express "Do You Know Me?" commercials.

Alexander should need no introduction. Since becoming the Seahawks' feature back in 2001, he has 7,120 rushing yards and 83 touchdowns. This season, he has rushed for a league-leading 1,496 yards and 23 touchdowns and helped lead Seattle to the NFC West championship and a conference-leading 11-2 record. He never has missed a game because of injury, He's the only player in NFL history to score at least 15 touchdowns in five consecutive seasons, and he's on pace to break Priest Holmes' record for touchdowns in a season (27).

Yet Alexander continues to fly below most fans' radar. Even his peers don't always give him love.

The SPORTING NEWS recently polled the league's linebackers, asking them to name the toughest running back to tackle. LaDainian Tomlinson received 27 of the 63 votes cast. Fred Taylor was next with seven, followed by Jerome Bettis and Jamal Lewis (four each) and Priest Holmes (three). Thirteen other backs got votes, including Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala, who last played in 2004 for Jacksonville. Number of votes for Alexander: zero.

"I'm not surprised," Alexander says as he hitches a ride to the ABC shoot in the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car. "I think that's almost a blessing in disguise for me and for our team. People get relaxed against us, and we don't mind that. At the end of the game, we're going to have good stats, we're going to have played well, and they'll say, 'Wow, how'd they do that? Well, they're probably lucky.' OK, you all keep thinking we're lucky." Then Alexander giggles.

There are two obvious reasons Alexander and the Seahawks don't get their due recognition: 1) Seattle is tucked away in the Pacific Northwest; "People kind of think we're stuck out in Siberia," says Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren. 2) Before last season, the Seahawks had been to the playoffs only six times and had won their division just twice since entering the league in 1976.

Even in Seattle, Alexander hasn't always been recognized. During his rookie season (2000), he went to a Sonics game. A fan came up to him and mistook him for Tiki Barber, the Giants' running back.

Such slights don't happen when Alexander makes one of his regular trips back to Alabama. Although he is from Florence, Ky., he has been adopted as a native son in Alabama since he set the Crimson Tide's career rushing record (3,565 yards). Seahawks running backs coach Stump Mitchell, whose son is a freshman on Alabama's football team, accompanied Alexander to Tuscaloosa for Bama's homecoming game during the Seahawks' open week in late October. He was amazed by the mobs of people who approached Alexander wherever they went. "I could easily be a bodyguard for Shaun in Seattle," says Mitchell. "But there's no way I would risk my life being a bodyguard for him in Alabama."

On game days, Alexander's escorts are his linemen: tackles Walter Jones and Sean Locklear, guards Steve Hutchinson and Chris Gray and center Robbie Tobeck. Alexander gains a majority of his yards running to his left, behind Jones and Hutchinson, who have seven Pro Bowl selections between them.

Alexander, 28, primarily is an inside runner, but he is fast enough to turn outside if that's where the hole is or if the defense overcommits. His best attributes are his vision to read blocks and his ability to cut back and find the soft spots in a defense. "Shaun is deceptive," says Cowboys nose tackle La'Roi Glover. "He doesn't look like he's moving very fast, but he very rarely gets caught."

Do you know me? Fans don't recognize him. Peers don't give him enough love. Shaun Alexander is the NFL's most underappreciated, underrated and underexposed superstar

Sporting News, The, Dec 23, 2005 by Dennis Dillon

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