Swinging For The Fences

Go ahead and stare. everybody else does. Do you think you are the first? Friend, you are only the latest.

Daunte Culpepper , quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings , has just entered the cafeteria at the team's training facility in suburban Minneapolis . You stand to make your greeting and study him with the wariness of one who trusts nothing but his own eyesight. Culpepper , dressed all in black but for a diamond sparkle in each ear, strides over with a hand outstretched. You would be wise to show good manners in the presence of such a person, but your mouth has formed a perfect circle, as if frozen in the act of uttering the inevitable: "This guy plays quarterback? Come on!"

This is how it happens. Culpepper walks in, and everyone else disappears as he thrusts them into the shade. Too taken aback for words, some have whistled. Others (they can't help themselves) mumble something that sounds like "That big summitch is a...what?"

Listen, now, to the voices of the awed and thunderstruck who saw him before you did. "Saw him on TV, the first time," says Dennis Green , Minnesota 's coach. "Saw him when he was a senior at Central Florida , playing Purdue . I loved everything about him. I loved his poise. I loved the fact that he's a classic drop-back passer, even though he can run. I loved how competitive he was and how he's got that spark, how he makes things happen. As I watched that game, it came to me that Daunte represents the new generation. Quarterbacks keep getting bigger and more athletic, and he is leading the way."

"I happened to be in New York when we drafted him," says the Reverend Keith Johnson , the Vikings ' team chaplain. "He walked out on the stage, and he had on a light-colored suit, white almost. He had a shine on him, like a light. It drew me so much that I had to follow him. I followed him around the room, just keeping my distance, and the whole time he was shining. I tell people Daunte's got a glow. The light is definitely on him."

"I'm in the locker room, and this guy walks in," says Bubby Brister , Culpepper 's backup, who joined the Vikings in the spring for his 14th NFL season. "I didn't know Daunte, and I didn't recognize him. But I look at this big ol' guy, and I think, Holy smoke, if that's Daunte Culpepper ...he's huge!

"I've been around awhile, and I can tell you: He's the biggest, strongest, fastest quarterback that ever was."

No one would mind terribly if you blinked and started muttering in disbelief. The man is something to behold, all right, but unlike you, he has not left his manners at home. " Daunte Culpepper ," he says to you, still humble enough to take nothing for granted, including the notion that he doesn't require an introduction.

Culpepper might be the largest starting quarterback in pro football history, but his size has become little more than a curious aside now that the Vikings , at 10-2, are tied with the Raiders for the record in the NFL and their second-year quarterback is the most surprising story in the league. (In Dallas on Thanksgiving, Culpepper was 15 of 22 for 205 yards and two touchdowns in the Vikings ' 27-15 victory over the Cowboys.)

Perhaps the salient fact about Culpepper 's rise to prominence is that only a year ago critics were saying he was a bust. In 1999 he didn't throw a pass in a regular-season game. In the three preseason games in which he appeared he looked baffled as he fumbled an exchange from center, made bad throws and suffered seven sacks that set the Vikings back 53 yards. Except for the six snaps he took in a blowout win against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 8, Culpepper spent the year as a scout-squad player, third on the depth chart behind veterans Randall Cunningham and Jeff George . The label "long-term project," which to the discerning NFL observer might as well mean "wasted pick," was attached to his name. Green praised Culpepper 's development, even while saying that he was two or three years from being ready.