A freak strolls down Eighth Street and pivots sharply onto Ocean

Drive, and on the crowded balcony of Wet Willie's, conversations

abruptly cease. Notwithstanding all the eye candy on display in

the heart of jam-packed South Beach on a warm June night, this

buxom woman is too striking to overlook.

A moment passes before Jevon Kearse makes his presence felt on

the balcony. Kearse, the Tennessee Titans' second-year defensive

end and the most intimidating pass rusher to have entered the NFL

in more than a decade, leans over the railing, flashes his

diamond-studded Rolex at the physical specimen below and intones

in his deep baritone, "Yo, we got it goin' on up in here." The

freak looks up at the Freak--as Kearse is known to football

fans--bats her long eyelashes and smiles. A tight black dress

covers a bare minimum of her dark-chocolate skin. The sexy young

reveler redirects her stiletto-heeled pumps toward Wet Willie's

and joins the party.

Freaks and frozen wrists and homeys and drama: It's all there in

Miami Beach for Kearse, a 23-year-old with an 86-inch wingspan

who is soaring to superstardom. When people say Kearse has the

world at his fingertips, you're tempted to take them literally.

With apologies to Jerry Rice and Cris Carter, the Freak has,

among other physical attributes, the most striking set of hands

in football. When his cell phone rings for the 27th time in three

hours and he lifts it to his left ear, he appears to be handling

a bite-sized candy bar. Then he uses his other mitt to reach for

his blended drink--a sinister concoction called Call-a-Cab that

purportedly includes four shots of grain alcohol--and gives the

illusion of a man sipping from a mouthwash cap.

Clad in a black tank top with a matching 'do-rag, khaki cargo

shorts and black sandals, the Freak is dressed to thrill, and

even his three homeboys from Fort Myers, Fla., aren't sure what

excitement lies ahead. "We're gettin' crunk!" Kearse exclaims,

and there are fist-touches all around. Crunk is Freakspeak

for...well, for what? "You know, crunk--like you crank up a

car," says Kearse's pal Otis (Monk) Marchman.

When the boys get crunk, the faint of heart had best run for

cover. Hanging with the 6'4", 260-pound marvel is not for the

meek. "Jevon is like a comic-book character," says Joe Lewis,

another of his childhood friends. "He doesn't know his own

strength, and he's always doing crazy stuff--running through the

house like a wild man, leaping down the stairs, grabbing people

from behind and lifting them off their feet. Hell, tonight he

might grab you." Lewis pauses as you contemplate the Fay Wray

moment that may await you, then continues: "Let's just say he has

a bit more energy than the average dude."

Kearse is about as average as the X-Men. He's not merely fast for

a big man; he's exceptionally fast for any man. Ask halfbacks

Napoleon Kaufman of the Oakland Raiders and Priest Holmes of the

Baltimore Ravens, both of whom were chased down by Kearse last

December. Or talk to Ravens wideout Qadry (the Missile) Ismail,

grounded by the fast-closing Kearse--who went over the top of

pursuing cornerback Samari Rolle--on one of the most awe-inspiring

plays of the 1999 season. At last year's NFL scouting combine

Kearse ran the 40-yard dash in 4.43 seconds and tied Deion

Sanders, his fellow North Fort Myers High alum, for the fastest

opening 10-yard burst in league history. Throw in Kearse's

uncanny agility, deceptive strength and 40-inch vertical leap,

and it's no wonder he's called the Freak. "I've been in the

league 20 years," says Titans coach Jeff Fisher, a Chicago Bears

safety from 1981 through '84, "and I've not seen an athlete like

Jevon."

Adds St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner, last year's NFL and

Super Bowl MVP, "When you look at someone with that size and all

that ability, it's scary to think about the future of the game.

What if there are more guys like him? I don't even want to think

about it."

The Freak is a menace not only to quarterbacks and offensive

linemen but also to some of the league's premier defenders. At

the Pro Bowl last February, Kearse, the AFC's starter at left

defensive end, was scolded by several veteran defensive linemen,

one of whom said, "Man, you need to stop chasing players down,

because our coaches are expecting us to do the same."

Yet for all the remarkable things Kearse did as a rookie, some of

the moves he made away from the bright lights were equally

amazing. In June 1999, two months after the Titans had selected

him with the 16th pick in the draft, the former Florida

linebacker participated in a minicamp pursuit drill that was the

brainchild of Tennessee defensive line coach Jim Washburn: Four

linemen were required to slam into a blocking sled, then race 30

yards downfield through an obstacle course made up of tackling

dummies and toward a set of cones on the sideline. "Three cones

were about five yards apart, and whoever didn't get one was the

loser," Fisher recalls. "Guys were tackling and tripping each

other, doing anything to get a cone, and Jevon kept getting his

easily. Before we ran it the last time, someone yelled, 'Hey,

Jevon, let's see you get two cones.' Without breaking stride he

got all three."

The Freak's mystique grew when he reported to training camp with

a creative alternative to the mandatory test of a player's

vertical leap. Upon entering the room where the test was being

conducted, Kearse glanced at the ceiling, an estimated 12 feet

high, and asked defensive backs coach Jerry Gray, "If I touch it,

can I leave?"

"Don't worry about it," Gray replied. "You're not going to reach

the ceiling." With no running start, Kearse sprung upward, pushed

a ceiling tile out of its frame and walked out of the room.

"He went even higher on Christmas Day," defensive coordinator

Gregg Williams says incredulously. "It was the day before we

played Jacksonville, our biggest game of the season, and Jeff

let us do our walk-through in the ballroom of the Loew's

Vanderbilt so we could spend some time with our families that

morning. Jevon walked in wearing sweats and old, sloppy shoes,

and the whole time he was staring at this chandelier. At the end

of the walk-through Jevon waited until everyone else had filed

out, then he jumped and slapped the chandelier, which I later

measured as 12 1/2 feet off the ground."

If Kearse seems reluctant to let go of his puerile impulses,

perhaps it's because he never really got to be a kid. In Fort

Myers, a city of 46,800 near the Gulf of Mexico, it is not

regarded as entirely coincidental that his family name is

pronounced curse. In February 1976, seven months before Jevon was

born, his father, Joseph, was shot and killed in a pool-hall

dispute. "People say Jevon's dad was a bad, bad man," says Cisco

Navas, the friend of Jevon's who became his surrogate brother

during their high school years. "Word was he used to rob people

with his bare hands."

Adds Lewis, "Yeah, he'd just turn 'em upside down and take their

change if he had to. The cops wouldn't f--- with him."

Over the next four years Joseph's father and two other family

members were killed. As if that weren't enough, a cousin died in

a prison hospital while doing time for attempted murder, and

another cousin (convicted of first-degree murder) and Jevon's

older brother, J.J. (convicted of armed robbery), remain

incarcerated. "I've experienced so many losses," Kearse says,

"but all the adversity made me into a stronger person."

Jevon and J.J. grew up in the Sabal Palm housing project with

their mother, Lessie Mae Green, and their five siblings. J.J. ran

with a rough crowd, while Jevon, a shy kid who stuttered, was

more straitlaced--though he did have his share of tussles. In the

eighth grade Jevon got into a fight with Cisco in the Lee Middle

School cafeteria after accusing Cisco of stealing his milk. The

two were strangers, but they conned school officials into

believing that they were good friends who had been putting on an

act. Their ruse was prophetic. Cisco, who lived with his mother,

Yolanda McDowell, on a seven-acre spread in North Fort Myers,

began inviting Jevon to sleep over, and by the time the two were

football teammates at North Fort Myers High, Jevon had become

Cisco's regular roommate.

Kearse, who says the desire for a calmer environment compelled

him to move in with Navas, became a National Honor Society

student. "Jevon always had determination," Navas says. "Every day

when we got home from school, the first thing he did was hit the

books. Then we'd go out back and fish for snook." Kearse played

safety and tight end on the football team, on which Navas (a

fullback), Marchman (the quarterback) and Lewis (a receiver) also

played key roles. The self-anointed Four Horsemen remain close.

"We like to call our hometown Fort Misery, and believe me, the

name fits," Marchman says. "But back then we had a team. Sixteen

thousand people came to watch us play; they had to add bleachers

to fit them all in."

Kearse chose Florida over Notre Dame and dozens of other schools,

and though on the field he made a smooth transition from safety

to linebacker, off the field he had his share of inglorious

moments. Shortly after he arrived in Gainesville, in 1995, he was

washing his car at a gas station when police responded to a

complaint that his radio was too loud. "The cops were joking with

me, saying, 'As soon as you finish your car, can you wash ours?'"

Kearse recalls. "All of a sudden they went for their guns and

pinned me against the car."

The man the police were looking for was J.J., who months earlier

had identified himself as Jevon after being arrested for driving

a stolen vehicle in Sarasota County and had then skipped out on a

court date. Jevon spent a night in jail before things were

straightened out. He has since forgiven J.J., who is serving time

at DeSoto (Fla.) Correctional Institution until at least June

2002. "I've learned what not to do from watching him," Jevon

says. "Now he's watching me live the life he should be living."

In October '96 Kearse's half-brother Jermaine (Rocky) Green was

killed in a drive-by shooting outside Sabal Palm. "I'm still not

over it," says Kearse, who has a tattoo on his left shoulder

bearing Rocky's name and the letters R.I.P. "I think about him

all the time, especially when I'm on the field and I need that

extra push. I'll tell myself, O.K., on this next play, my

brother's with me."

As Kearse developed into a star for the Gators, who won the

national championship the first season he played, he says he

began accepting money from agent Tank Black, in violation of NCAA

rules. "I probably wouldn't do it again," Kearse says, "but then

again, I got my mom a car, and I didn't have to send home money

from my Pell Grant to take care of her. Tank was paying the bills

and keeping money in my pocket." Kearse declared for the NFL

draft after his junior season and signed with Black. He fired the

agent in May '99, one month after being drafted by the Titans, in

the wake of a criminal investigation into Black's activities.

(Black, who has denied paying Kearse in college, has since been

indicted on numerous counts of money laundering and conspiracy

and has been suspended by the NFL Players Association.)

Like Minnesota Vikings wideout Randy Moss in '98, Kearse slipped

further than expected in the draft, took it personally and made

the rest of the league pay for the slight. He was perceived by

critics as a tweener--too light to play defensive end, too big

to play linebacker--whose performance at Florida had not lived

up to his promise. He played, he concedes, "with a chip on my

shoulder because of all the teams that passed on me." Even his

sky-high numbers (an AFC-leading 14 1/2 sacks, tied for the most

by a rookie; a league-high 10 forced fumbles; and six

recoveries) don't adequately reflect his impact on games. A

better indication might be the number of Titans defensive plays

that Tennessee's offensive unit insists on watching. "Coaches

would try to talk to those guys when they came off the field,"

says Josh Evans, a Titans defensive tackle who is serving a

one-year suspension for violating the league's policy on

substance abuse, "but they wouldn't pay attention. They were

afraid to get a glass of water because they might miss the Freak

Show."

The Freak finished second to the Tampa Bay Bucs' Warren Sapp in

the voting for the NFL's defensive player of the year. Kearse

also generated more buzz in opposing locker rooms than had any

front-seven defender since former New York Giants Hall of Famer

Lawrence Taylor. These were some of Kearse's most eye-popping

efforts.

--During a 24-21 win over the Rams on Halloween, Kearse had right

tackle Fred Miller spooked. Miller not only allowed Kearse a

sack, a forced fumble and five tackles, but he also was whistled

for six false starts and a holding penalty. "That was the coach's

fault for not giving him more help," Kearse says. "Fred started

the game with a pretty stance, but once I got in his head, I

could tell by the way he lined up whether it was a run or a pass.

I'd just look at him across the line, smile and shake my head

like, I'm getting ready to eat your ass up again."

Even Warner, who was the main course in Kearse's feast that day,

refused to rip his right tackle. "I felt sorry for Fred," Warner

says. "I was thinking, We've got to do something to bail him out.

Jevon was coming off the ball so fast, it was just unfair. The

guy is relentless." Miller, who fared better against Kearse in

the teams' Super Bowl rematch, saved his best move for after the

season: He signed a free-agent contract with the Titans.

--Midway through the second quarter of the Titans' 41-14 loss at

Baltimore on Dec. 5, Priest Holmes took a handoff at the Ravens'

22-yard line and burst free along the left sideline. Kearse, who

had been tied up by a blocker on the opposite side of the line,

finally shed his man at the 25, turned and angled over in pursuit

of Holmes. Kearse overran him at the Tennessee 27, and two other

defenders took advantage of the halfback's hesitation and dragged

him down inside the 10. Says Evans, "I was so in awe of what

Jevon did that I just stopped and watched. When we went back and

watched the film, Coach Washburn chewed into me and said, 'Why

the hell did you just stand there?' I said, 'Coach, I'm sorry,

but that dude had my head so messed up. All I wanted to do was

see what he'd do next.'"

What Kearse did next was even more astounding. On the first play

of the second half, from the Ravens' 23-yard line, Tony Banks

connected with Qadry Ismail on a six-yard out. Kearse, after

avoiding a chop block in the backfield, jumped in an unsuccessful

attempt to deflect the pass and landed on the 20 as Ismail, a

former Syracuse track star, broke free down the right sideline 10

yards upfield. Kearse turned and cut toward Ismail, closing the

gap to five yards as he drew parallel with the receiver, who was

outrunning Samari Rolle as he crossed the Ravens' 40. Kearse

continued to make up ground, finally thrusting his right arm over

Rolle's right shoulder and dragging both men down inside the

Tennessee 25.

"Upon further review," Ismail says jokingly, "Jevon rushed the

passer, stopped, sat down, took a drink of Gatorade on the

sidelines, spoke to our coach for a bit about why we didn't draft

him, and then proceeded to run me down."

--Four days after the Baltimore game, the Freak wreaked havoc in

a 21-14 win over the Raiders. On the first play from scrimmage,

Kearse sacked Rich Gannon. Later in the first quarter Napoleon

Kaufman, considered one of the NFL's fastest backs, took an

inside handoff and broke into the clear. Kearse chased him,

overran him 12 yards downfield and executed a graceful pivot to

resume pursuit. Fifteen yards later Kearse again caught up with

Kaufman, got juked once more, made another quick turn and

dragged the runner down.

--In a 47-36 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the

regular-season finale, Kearse pulled off what Williams calls

"the quadruple crown": sacking Mike Tomczak, stripping the ball,

recovering it after it had bounced along the turf and returning

it 14 yards for a touchdown. Kearse blew past right tackle Shar

Pourdanesh, who had tweaked the Freak with nasty pregame

comments and aggressive on-field tactics. "That low-down, dirty

motherf----- punched me in my side and stuck his finger in

[safety] Blaine Bishop's eye," Evans says of Pourdanesh. "That's

when the killer came out in Jevon. Once he learns to bring out

that animal inside him every game, no one will stop him."

Though Kearse wore down mentally and physically as the season

dragged on--in an attempt to keep his weight up, the Titans hired

a chef to prepare his dinners, but he still weighed only 245

pounds for the Super Bowl--he had his share of big moments in the

Titans' remarkable playoff run, including a sack for a safety in

the opening-round victory over the Buffalo Bills and a pivotal

fumble recovery in the AFC Championship Game in Jacksonville.

As Kearse grows up before our eyes, it's frightening to think

what lies ahead. He is still a kid at heart--the devilish rookie

who cracked up his fellow defensive linemen at the lunch table

last fall by drawing an oversized apple, then affixing arms and

legs and turning it into a portrait of 280-pound Mike Jones. He

revels in the suggestive power of his double-entendre nickname,

which he got from a Florida teammate blown away by his physical

attributes. "Trust me, he loves it," Evans says. "We'll walk

through malls, and you'll hear people whispering, 'There's the

Freak'--like they're scared to talk to him. Then there are the

women who are curious how he got that name. A lot of freaks out

there want to know, 'Is he freakier than me?'"

Last year Kearse's big plays at Adelphia Coliseum were greeted by

the blaring of Chic's Le Freak over the loudspeaker. For this

season, Kearse says, "I'd like to come up with a sack dance,

something to represent my freakiness but that's not too obscene

for the kids."

The Titans plan to give him every opportunity to flesh it out.

Kearse, who picked up at least one sack in each of his last eight

regular-season games (two shy of the league record held by former

Denver Broncos linebacker Simon Fletcher) will be a man on the

move in 2000. Last season he lined up almost exclusively at left

end and was featured in only three of the team's defensive

alignments. From now on he'll move around more than a roadie at a

Phish concert. Williams says he has devised several "scheme

busters" that feature Kearse in unorthodox spots, and he won't

hesitate to drop the Freak into coverage against a physical tight

end near the goal line. "You can rest assured that every one of

our opponents will make a point of knowing where Jevon is,"

Williams says. "[He's having] the type of impact we've all been

seeking since LT."

Fisher doesn't buy into the Taylor comparisons--yet. "Jevon

realizes he's not even close to that level," says Fisher. "If we

had gone 8-8 last year, would people be [making those

comparisons]? I don't think so."

Then again, Kearse had a little something to do with the Titans'

rise from middle-of-the-pack team to AFC champion, one whose

takeaway-giveaway ratio improved from dead even in 1998 to plus

18 last season. "Jevon has only scratched the surface," Fisher

says. "Now he is studying the tackles in our division, and he's

worked hard on his technique." Eventually, Fisher envisions

deploying Kearse mainly at right end, where, the coach says, "we

feel he has a chance to be a step quicker."

Kearse needs that extra step the way Bill Gates needs a Powerball

jackpot, but he has no intention of standing still. Not known as

a workout enthusiast in college, Kearse, after angering Titans

coaches this spring by failing to show up for the first week of

the team's off-season conditioning program, has since impressed

them with his dedication. "I feel like I've helped create a new

standard of hustle for defensive linemen," says Kearse. "Now I

want to do twice as much as I've been doing. Six or seven years

from now someone bigger, stronger and faster will come along, and

they'll call him the new, improved Freak. Until then I need to

raise the bar as high as I can."

Boredom has set in at the Casa de Freak, Kearse's Spanish-style

manor in Golden Beach, 25 miles north of Miami and a long, long

way from Fort Misery. Kearse has been gone for two hours, and

without him around there's a palpable void. Joe Lewis and his

younger cousin Johnny (J) Hall are out on the rear deck, which

overlooks a canal that connects with the Intercoastal Waterway.

There are WaveRunners and Jet Skis they'd like to ride, but no

one can get the darn things to start. Navas shoots pool, and then

a couple of women arrive and join the fellas upstairs for a

desultory game of cards. Finally, a bass line that can be heard a

block away penetrates the house's stucco walls, and a few seconds

later the Freak rolls up in his black SUV and restores energy to

the scene.

There'll be a barbecue, maybe a dip in one of the pools (indoor

and outdoor), then a midnight run to a club in Coconut Grove. But

now, as the last vestiges of sunlight shimmer on the canal,

Kearse wants to delve deep into his past. On Sept. 3, the day the

Titans open their season against the Bills in Buffalo, he will

turn 24--the same age his father was when he was gunned down. "You

know, that's a part of my past I don't really ask about," he says

quietly. "It would probably stir up a lot of extra stress. I've

never even discussed him with my mom, but I heard things around

town: 'Your dad would walk into a pool hall, and everybody would

just lay down their money and walk out.'

"Growing up I never surrounded myself with bad people, but folks

knew I had uncles who did killing and an older brother who wasn't

scared to do what was necessary. I'm not proud of that, but let's

just say there weren't any punks in my family. There were a lot

of big dudes who didn't take any s---, and sometimes, when they

wanted something, they took it. People heard the name, and they

knew what it meant. Now I'm trying to turn the Kearse name into

something positive."

Lewis walks outside and offers Kearse a bite of his hamburger.

The Freak rips off a small piece of beef and affixes it to a

fishhook, which he casts into the canal. Kearse has yet to catch

anything from this backyard perch, but the act is comforting. It

reminds him of the lazy afternoons he and his siblings spent

fishing with their maternal grandmother, Lucille Scott, back in

Fort Myers. "She'd sit there in her long chair with a cane pole

in her hand and tobacco in her cheek, and I'm telling you, she

was the queen," Kearse says. "Every so often she'd catch a mullet

and say, 'Y'all take this fish for me and put another worm on

there.' All she did was pull 'em out of the water, and I'd do the

rest."

That kid has grown up, and for a few seconds he seems mournful

about the life he has left behind. Then, eureka! Kearse jerks his

fishing rod up and furiously reels in his catch: a footlong

catfish that flops to and fro as Kearse enters the house and

makes a beeline for the kitchen, where the rest of the crew has

assembled. The homeys cackle with surprise, their female guests

squeal, and the Freak beams with childlike pride. "Look at that,

Playboy," he howls at Navas. "Now I'm gonna kill this sucker and

grill him for dinner."

Everyone laughs, but Kearse's words are strictly for show. Amid

the commotion, he walks back outside, pulls the hook from his

victim's mouth and gently tosses the fish back into the canal.

COLOR PHOTO: BILL FRAKES Freak of Nature The Titans' Jevon kearse (below) runs circles around offensive linemen--and terrorizes quarterbacks [T of C]

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL FRAKES

COLOR PHOTO: DAVID E. KLUTHO HEADY PLAY The Jaguars' Jay Fiedler was among the quarterbacks bagged by Kearse in '99, when he tied the rookie record for sacks, with 14 1/2.

COLOR PHOTO: DAMIAN STROHMEYER LURKING The 260-pound Kearse, with his bursts of speed and ability to change directions on a dime, is never far from the ball.

COLOR PHOTO: BILL FRAKES FRIENDS FOR LIFE Kearse, with (from left) Lewis, Navas and his cousin Thorris Kearse, hasn't forgotten his roots.

COLOR PHOTO: TOM DIPACE HIGH JUMPER Kearse, who had a safety in his playoff debut against the Bills, rose to greater heights in celebrating that miracle win.

COLOR PHOTO: BILL FRAKES

"I've been in the league 20 years," says the Titans' Fisher,

"and I've not seen an athlete like Jevon."

"Once he learns to bring out that animal inside him every game,"

Evans says of his teammate, "no one will be able to stop him."

"All the adversity has made me into a stronger person."

"What if there are more guys like him?" says Warner.

"Jevon has only scratched the surface," says Fisher.