BALTIMORE -- When he was 17, Terrell Suggs decided to shave his head. He did not have a barber do it; money was tight, so he used a cheap old razor and subsequently developed a significant rash on the top of his head. The whole ordeal was rather embarrassing -- here was the biggest, baddest football player in Chandler, Ariz., sidelined because of a bad haircut. For four days, despite his passionate pleas to practice, Suggs was not allowed to wear a helmet and was forced to watch. Some of the kids laughed at him.

Although it was good-natured, it wasn't exactly the first time one of Donald and LaVerne Suggs' boys had been stared at or made fun of. Their massive bodies cast such a shadow over the other kids at school that Donald had to take birth certificates to each first day of football practice to prove that yeah, the young lads were 8, not 13. It got old sometimes, and back then, there were two ways for a kid to handle being different: ignore it or fight.

Suggs, who at 6-foot-5 ended up being the runt of the family, went a different way. He laughed right back.

Terrell Suggs is having the season of his life, and he says he isn't really doing anything different. Maybe things seem easier because Suggs believes this is one of those charmed seasons in Baltimore, a season in which everything comes together and everyone has a blast. Last Thursday was no exception. It was a bye week, mind you, so perhaps that's why the cackles got so loud in the Ravens' locker room.

Safety Bernard Pollard, a chatty journeyman who recently won an award for being so accessible with the media, was doing an interview without his pants on, and his teammates exploded in laughter because, well, Pollard likes to walk around the locker room without his pants on so much that his prize from the local media was a pair of boxers. The day had an easiness to it, almost like the last day of training camp, when a team bonds after weeks of practices and rookie skits. Veterans boasted about their alma maters; defensive guys laughed it up with the offense. And Suggs reveled in the harmony.

The outside linebacker is quick to point out that he is not the leader of this Ravens team, much less the defense. That title belongs to Ray Lewis, a 16-year veteran who is known in this locker room as The General. But it is clear that the Ravens, who host the Houston Texans on Sunday in an AFC divisional playoff game, have built their chemistry around the team's unique personalities, and who could possibly fit the "unique" label better than Suggs?

If he played in a different town, alongside someone other than Lewis, perhaps he'd be one of the NFL's brightest celebrities. He is funny and outspoken and is having a season so dominant that, when the Ravens left the field on New Year's night with a 24-16 victory against the Cincinnati Bengals and the AFC North championship, coach John Harbaugh found the linebacker, pointed at him and said, "defensive player of the year."

It's not just the 14 sacks, the seven forced fumbles -- a Baltimore record -- or the game-saving turnover Suggs produced in the final minutes of that Bengals game that make this season so special. It's that the Ravens, who lost Lewis for part of the season to turf toe, have fed off Suggs' energy, humor and attitude.

It is Suggs who keeps the team loose in tense times. He once wore a T-shirt under his practice jersey that said, "You Bet Your Sweet A-- I Hate The Steelers!" He claims to be able to smoothly sing Celine Dion songs. His trash-talking is far-reaching. He once called Tom Brady "God's nephew," and said this of Steelers' rival Ben Roethlisberger: "His soul may belong to God, but his [butt] belongs to me."

"I'm a big kid, and I love to have a good time," Suggs said. "I don't think anyone should take themselves too seriously. If you can't laugh at yourself, then who can you laugh at?"

Terrell Suggs' 14 sacks helped make the Ravens' defense one of the most feared in the NFL. AP Photo/Stephen Morton

There was a time, years ago, when coaches wondered whether Suggs was ever going to take his life seriously. He was 6-3½ and 230 pounds of untapped talent. He never considered football as a way to make money. He couldn't keep up with his classes, couldn't even climb up the depth chart at Chandler High School.

But a new high school named Hamilton had just opened in town, and its coach, John Wrenn, had plans for Suggs. He'd get him to college -- only two people in Suggs' family, a cousin and an uncle, had ever gone to college -- but most of all, he'd get the young man focused.

"I wasn't going to waver," Wrenn said of Suggs, who transferred to Hamilton for his senior year. "I told him, 'I'm here to make sure you get an education. And if you really want to work hard, you could be player of the year in Arizona.' As a junior, he didn't want to do it. But senior year, he came to me and said, 'I'm willing to do the things you need to do to be great.'"

Wrenn named Suggs his starting running back, and, in their first game, a big win against a powerhouse team, the opposing coach told a Hamilton coach afterward, "I didn't know you were going to show up with Earl Campbell." But Suggs' senior year was far from easy. He had to go to Saturday school to make up some English credits. Some mornings, Wrenn had to knock on Suggs' bedroom window to wake him up for the Saturday class. Some nights, Suggs went from football practice to a job at a video store, slamming down a No. 6 combo from Jack in the Box on the way for sustenance.

"He'd work 'til 10 at night at the video store," said Deke Schutes, Hamilton's offensive coordinator. "Then he'd go to class all day. At practice, if he took a handoff, he'd run 60 yards and then sprint right back to the huddle and get excited and pumped up and try to get the other guys excited.

"I never saw him in a bad mood. He became the kid everybody wanted to be around."