Big Johnson

Larry Johnson is the first athlete signed to the new label. His modeling debut is a full-page ad in the October issue of Men's Fitness. More national ads will follow. Johnson will be getting a lot more attention. "As soon as they are with Team Roc, they are a part of Rocawear," explains Anthony Doran, Team Roc's director of promotions and marketing. "We'd like to put Larry in music videos and in campaign ads."

Rocawear sells better than Sean John or Phat Fashions at the Harold Pener clothing store at the Landing shopping mall. Cashier Nicole Stewart sees the wisdom of bringing in Johnson.

"You've got a young, black athlete, and who better to put on your label?" she says. "With the body and the look ... did I say he was fine?"

Johnson wants an image apart from the man in a bright-red Chiefs jersey. But that will be a challenge — and not simply because he may be dogged by legal questions following the alleged altercation at The Drink. Everything about Johnson's day job is designed to unify him with his teammates.

The National Football League may produce stars, but there's also an unspoken rule that the team comes first, the player second. The code punishes those who speak up or out of turn. The Denver Broncos' offensive linemen have been known to fine one another when their names show up in the paper. Players who speak out get criticized by their fellow players and by the media. Keyshawn Johnson, now a Dallas wide receiver, was dubbed "Me-Shawn" for his brash talk and self-promoting book when he joined the league. Eagles receiver Terrell Owens got similar treatment over the summer for his public feud with the team and quarterback Donovan McNabb.

At Johnson's alma mater, Penn State, the football team doesn't put its players' names on the backs of their jerseys.

"Athletes, once they get into a team atmosphere ... they feel like there are certain boundaries they can't cross," says Radue Watson, an executive with Team Roc before leaving to start his own clothing line. Watson saw firsthand how Jay-Z was able to market his name and image beyond his rhymes. "Rappers are individuals, and they still have that hustler's mentality, that go-getter mentality," he says.

Watson wanted to find an athlete in the same vein, and he had followed Johnson's career since seeing him play at Penn State. As a football fan, Watson understood that Johnson's statistics were unbelievable for a guy who hardly saw the ball before his senior year.

Johnson grew up in suburban Baltimore, where his father coached high school football. He wasn't naturally the best athlete among his friends, Johnson tells the Pitch. But every night after practice, he watched film with his father. "I think I was born to do this," he says of the game. "I didn't want to do anything but football. I love it so much."

When Johnson was 16, his father took a job as an assistant coach at Penn State, working for the legendary Joe Paterno. Johnson would play high school ball in the shadow of the stadium where the Nittany Lions suited up in plain blue and white. After graduation, Johnson joined them. He took a Penn State scholarship, he says now, not because of his father but because he thought he had insight into the Penn State backfield.

He'd heard horror stories about talented runners taking scholarships and then discovering that they were just one of three or four outstanding backs. Johnson thought he had a sure thing in Penn State and imagined he'd be the leading back by his sophomore year. Besides, the running backs' coach was the father of one of his best friends. "It was impossible for me to get screwed," he says.

He got screwed.

"That year, he recruited Omar Easy, Eric McCoo and Eddie Drummond," Johnson says of Paterno's assistant. "He had to take care of these guys."

Johnson didn't suffer in silence. As a sophomore, he made news by criticizing Paterno, his dad's boss. He called the team's offense predictable and griped that the coaching staff was too old and set in its ways. Whether that insolence played a part or not, Johnson wouldn't start until 2002, his senior year. He made the most of it, running for 2,087 yards — a single-season record for the Big Ten Conference.

He hoped the Pittsburgh Steelers would draft him. Instead he fell to the Chiefs.

But Johnson didn't come to town with a chip on his shoulder.

He told reporters he was looking forward to coming to Kansas City and learning the pro game behind Holmes. He bought the house in south Leawood. And he got a dog, a Lhaso apso he named Chief.

But Chief was hardly housebroken before the reality hit.

Vermeil was not going to play his first-round draft pick.

Johnson says he couldn't get an audience with the coach, whom he calls too old-school for befriending veteran players while ignoring the younger ones. Johnson didn't even suit up for half the games. He wasn't happy, and he said so.