A Cut Above

Most football players fit into a box. They're big, fast and strong (duh); they submit to authority without resistance; and if asked to define introspection, they would say it's what happens when the defense picks off a pass. Those who don't fit into the box rarely succeed at a major program. Then there is Arizona State senior linebacker Pat Tillman, who not only doesn't fit into the box but also would have to consult a travel agent to find it.

As a senior safety-tailback-kick returner at Leland High in San Jose, Tillman so detested leaving the field that once, after his coach pulled the starters at halftime of a first-round playoff romp, he took the field for the second-half kickoff and ran it back for a touchdown. The coach, Terry Hardtke, confiscated Tillman's helmet and shoulder pads and put them under a bench lest Tillman get the urge to score again. One month later, on his recruiting visit to Arizona State, one of three Division I-A schools willing to risk a scholarship on a 5'11", 195-pounder classified by many college coaches as a too-slow, too-small tweener, Tillman was asked by Sun Devils coach Bruce Snyder what he thought of the recruiting process. "It stinks," Tillman shot back. "Nobody tells the truth."

Taken aback, Snyder filed the comment away. He remembered it the following August when he sat Tillman down to discuss—as he does with all freshmen—the concept of redshirting. "I'm not redshirting," Tillman said. "I've got things to do with my life. You can do whatever you want with me, but in four years, I'm gone." Snyder thought, This kid is different.

As different as Tempe is hot in July. At Arizona State, Tillman not only avoided redshirting but also progressed from special teams madman (freshman) to situational sub (sophomore) to defensive standout (junior). He had the second-most tackles and the most interceptions, pass deflections and fumble recoveries on a team that reached the Rose Bowl and fell four points short of a probable national title. "Some games I was hard-pressed to make a tackle because Pat was everywhere," says Scott Von der Ahe, who played alongside Tillman in '96 and is now a linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts.

Along the way Tillman grew his dirty-blond hair from a Marine buzz to a heavy-metal mane (since trimmed) and made the Sun Devils coaches his personal debate partners. For instance, last season defensive coordinator Phil Snow put in a dime package that took Tillman out of the game in certain passing situations. Whenever Snow called the scheme, Tillman would stand next to the coach and say, "Touchdown this play."

This season Tillman has become simply the best player in the country who doesn't have his own (fill in the blank: Heisman, Outland, Lombardi, Butkus) campaign, living proof that there is room at the highest level of the game for a guy without much size or blazing speed but with a brain and cojones. "He epitomizes what college football is all about," says Southern Cal offensive coordinator Hue Jackson, who was an assistant at Arizona State during Tillman's first two seasons.

The soul of a defense that lost six starters from last year, Tillman led the Sun Devils to the cusp of the top 10 before last Friday's 28-16 upset loss to Arizona knocked them out of a share of the Pac-10 title and a near-certain berth in the Fiesta Bowl. Last week he was named the league's defensive player of the year, a remarkable achievement for a guy who bulked up to all of 202 pounds and made many of his plays against the run. He won the honor over established studs such as Jason Chorak of Washington and Joe Salave'a of Arizona, and it seemed a sweet crowning touch to a terrific career. But don't tell him about it.

On Nov. 24, the day he won the Pac-10 honor, Tillman hunched over a bowl of spaghetti and sausage at a Tempe bistro. He is a walking, talking contradiction: a little guy who plays linebacker, a dedicated student who looks like a slacker, a serious 21-year-old who converses fluently in surf-speak. The public nature of awards gives him the creeps. "Dude, I'm proud of the things I've done, my schoolwork—because I'm not smart; I just worked hard—and this award," said Tillman, a marketing major who will graduate in 3½ years with a GPA of 3.82. "But it doesn't do me any good to be proud. It's better to just force myself to be naive about things, because otherwise I'll start being happy with myself, and then I'll stand still, and then I'm old news." He shrugged. Introspection indeed.

"He's driving on the same highway as everybody else," says Barbara Beard, the athletic director at Leland High, "but he's on the other side of the road."

He always has been. When he was five, he climbed onto the porch roof of his family's two-story house during a windstorm, wrapped himself around a slender tree trunk and swayed in the wind for fun, until his mother, Mary, coaxed him back onto the roof. He then developed a propensity for jumping from high places (bridges, cliffs) into water. He went rock climbing and invented a bizarre hobby: wandering through the woods by leaping from treetop to treetop, like Tarzan without a vine. "He has always liked testing himself," says his father, Pat Sr., a lawyer and former college wrestler who used to grapple in the living room with Pat Jr. and his younger brothers, Kevin (a scholarship baseball player at Arizona State) and Richard (a junior quarterback at Leland High).