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

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.

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."

At the end of his MNF intro, Alexander looks at the camera and says, "Still don't know me? Well, after tonight"--through cinematic magic, he morphs from his blue suit into his football uniform--"you will."

Scene II: Lake Washington High School

On a spring day in Seattle, Alexander is running on the football field at a local school under the guidance of Joe Gentry, his longtime speed, agility and quickness coach. The two have worked together since Gentry help Alexander prepare for the NFL Combine in 2000. Gentry, who lives in Colorado Springs, meets Alexander several times during the offseason--usually in Seattle or Florence--for training exercises and drills.

On this day, Gentry notices something revealing about Alexander: When he runs, he holds his breath. That explains the dizzy sensations Alexander felt after some of his long runs in 2004. "Honestly, I thought I was going to pass out sometimes," he says.

Gentry encourages Alexander to relax his facial muscles and expel air when he runs. "When you're holding your breath, you stop everything," says Alexander. "It's just a matter of time before you don't pick up your legs as high, don't pump your arms as hard."

To some observers, it might look like Alexander is running harder this season, but really be is running more efficiently and exploding through his longer runs. He leads the league in runs of 10 yards or more with 44. One of them was an 88-yard touchdown against Arizona during which he made two cuts, then accelerated past two defensive backs. He couldn't have done that last season.

"This year has probably been the best I've felt in my whole life," he says.

Scene III: Christian Faith Center, south Seattle

It's just after 7 p.m., and the sanctuary is jumpin'. Nine singers, each with a microphone, belt out a succession of Christian songs. Three guitarists, a pianist, a keyboard player, a saxophonist and a drummer accompany them. There must be at least 200 worshipers, and most of them are on their feet, swaying to the music, clapping their hands, raising their arras to the ceiling.

This is a nondenominational, Bible-based church open to people of all ages and races. It is where Alexander and his wife, Valerie, worship. Tonight, they sit in a back row on the left side.

After the songs, a few prayers and a collection, Wendy Treat, wife of pastor Casey Treat, takes the stage and addresses the crowd. She laments how commercialization is taking the word Christmas out of the holiday season and robbing it of its true meaning--a celebration of the birth of Christ. She reads from the gospel of John, Chapter 14: "Let not your heart be troubled."

Treat asks those in the audience with heavy hearts to stand. She then invites others to reach out to these people, pray with them and help reduce their pain. Valerie stands and lays her hand on a woman near her. Shaun lays his hand on Valerie's shoulder.

After the service, Alexander retreats to an office in the back of the building, where he spends the next hour autographing pictures and answering mail from fans who have written to his Shaun Alexander Family Foundation. He accompanies each signature with the addendum of "Ps 37:4." One of his teammates at Alabama thought it meant: P.S., No. 37, 4 touchdowns. Actually, it refers to Shaun's favorite scripture--one he selected when he was in college--from Psalms 37:4: "Delight yourself in the Lord and He'll give you the desires of your heart."

Alexander is no religious zealot. During the service, he read from his Blackberry as well as his Bible. And sometimes, he admits, he's just too tired to go to church, so he and Valerie read from the Bible at home. But he appears to be a good-hearted Christian and family man who likes to spend his days off playing with his two daughters, Heaven, 2, and Trinity, four months. You'll never see him do a Monday Night Football intro like the controversial one Terrell Owens did with Nicollette Sheridan last year. "I'd have never dishonored my wife like that," he says.

Scene IV: Qwest Field

With 4:44 left in the fourth quarter November 27, the Seahawks face fourth-and-short at the Giants' 4. A field goal will give them a 17-13 lead. As Holmgren and quarterback Matt Hasselbeck confer during a timeout, Alexander comes over to them. "Give me the ball," he says. "I can get this."

Last January 2, with 4 1/2 minutes left in the regular-season finale against Atlanta, Seattle had a similar situation: second-and-goal at the 1. Then, Holmgren called a quarterback sneak and Hasselbeck scored. Although the Seahawks won the game and clinched the division title, they never got the ball back and Alexander ended up losing the NFL rushing title by one yard to the Jets' Curtis Martin.

It prompted an uncharacteristic reaction from Alexander, who, when pressed about the development by reporters, responded by saying Holmgren had "stabbed him in the back." Those words commanded a bigger headline than the Seahawks' winning the division in the next day's papers. Alexander apologized for his comment the next day, and he and Holmgren both say the incident left no scars.

This time, Holmgren decides to trust Alexander's self-assurance. Hasselbeck hands off to Alexander, who runs left behind Jones. Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce meets Alexander in the hole and hits him head-on. It looks like the play will be stuffed. But Alexander spins and goes back inside. As Pierce, safety Gibril Wilson and outside linebacker Carlos Emmons make contact and fall down, Alexander dives over Hutchinson for a touchdown. The Seahawks win, 24-21, in overtime.

The Seahawks and Alexander will be linked in a much bigger decision after this season. Alexander, who played under a one-year, $6.32 million contract as the team's franchise player this season, will be a free agent. The Seahawks can't assign the franchise tag to him again--that was precluded in this year's contract--so they will have to sign him to a long-term deal to retain him.

"I really don't think Seattle is going to let me test free agency," says Alexander. "You don't ever take your team and disassemble pieces when you're about to hit the big run. I think they're going to make a whopper deal when the season is over."

If the Seahawks elect not to re-sign him, Alexander will find other suitors out in the market. And he won't need an intro.

This is ...

SHAUN ALEXANDER

Favorite food: "There's nothing like mom's Spaghetti--some noodles, Prego, a little hamburger, some special seasoning. Now, my wife cooks it."

His body on Monday morning: "Honestly, I am a blessed person. I'm more tired than beat up." A masseuse comes to his house and gives him a massage, then he visits a chiropractor.

Road trip he despises: The first game of Alexander's rookie season was in Miami, where the Dolphins shut out the Seahawks, 23-0. "They kicked the crap out of us. They were dancing, it was hot, and they beat us by about a hundred points. Then we had a 6-hour flight back to Seattle because it was against the wind currents."

A must-do in Seattle: Others might suggest visiting the Space Needle, Pike Place Market or Mount Rainier. "But for me, we're going dining," says Alexander, who recommends the bananas foster at El Gaucho.

Best vacation spot: Last summer, Alexander and his wife, Valerie, went to Fisher Island, a private resort off Miami Beach. "They had some great restaurants and some awesome beaches."

Nicknames: In high school, it was "Alexander the Great." At the University of Alabama, he was called "Icon." His Seahawks teammates started calling him "Ghost" one day at training camp when he ran toward one gap, then "disappeared" into another one.

When he retires from football: "I'll probably be a businessman, buying and selling companies." He'd like to find partners and "build an awesome hotel. I don't know where it's going to be, but it's going to have some cool things. The swimming pool will be funky, the rooms will be monstrous ... and I want it to have a landing pad so people can fly a helicopter there if they want to."

Rating the backs: LaDominance

Shaun Alexander has more rushing yards and touchdowns than LaDainian Tomlinson, but he loses the battle when the skills of the two running backs are broken down. One NFL pro scout who has studied both players this season gives Tomlinson the edge in six of 10 categories graded on a 1-10 scale. Overall, the Chargers' back grades out more than 10 points higher.

"Taking every key area, Tomlinson is better," says the scout. "Not that Alexander is bad, but Tomlinson is more of a rare guy. He's as close to Walter Payton as anybody I've seen."

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