Loss Leader

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. —  Michael Strahan, the New York Giant defensive end on pace to shatter the NFL sack record, spent his childhood spinning his wheels.

Those were on a feather-light racing bicycle, and Strahan, raised on a military base in Germany, spent his weekends whizzing around a local indoor track. He had some talent, this gargantuan Greg LeMond, but his body betrayed him. He grew and grew.

His dusty bike now is in the attic of his parents’ home in Houston.

“I can’t get rid of that bike,” said his mother, Louise. “He can’t get on it because his legs are too long. It’s been 15 years since he’s been out on it, but he says, ‘Mama, don’t you sell my bike.”’

Strahan doesn’t let go easily, as quarterbacks will attest. He has 15 sacks in 10 games, leaving him seven shy of the league-record 22 set by Mark Gastineau in 1984. Strahan had no sacks the first two games, and none Monday at Minnesota, so he got his 15 during a remarkable seven-game flurry.

No need to remind Raider quarterback Rich Gannon, who aims to avoid Strahan’s grasp today at Giant Stadium.

“I think he’s the best,” Gannon said. “He reminds me a great deal of Reggie White. I see what he does to some tackles in the league, and I don’t want to say it’s embarrassing, but it’s pretty impressive. To take a guy who is 340 pounds, and with one arm throw him on the ground is not something you see every day in films.”

The roadblock between Gannon and Strahan today will be enormous right tackle Lincoln Kennedy, who has remained Oakland’s most reliable lineman, despite nagging shoulder problems. He and Strahan were rookies at the same time, nine years ago, and they have a great deal of mutual respect.

“He’s big, he’s good at what he does, and he went to the Pro Bowl last year, which means he’s only getting better,” Strahan said. “I have my work cut out for me and I just hope [Raider Coach Jon] Gruden is nice enough to just let Lincoln and me play over there together alone. Let us have fun.”

For most teams, neutralizing Strahan has been a group affair. The tight end helps here, the fullback helps there. One-on-one blocks? Get real.

When Strahan was shut out by the Vikings, contributing one assisted tackle, he complained that officials were looking the other way while he was being mugged.

“I think this was the same officiating crew we had for our game in Washington,” Strahan said, although actually it was another crew. “If it is, they don’t like me and I don’t like them. On some of those plays, I was literally tackled and they called nothing. One time, a tackle grabbed me by both feet and pulled my shoe off. I’m going to go to the local police and file assault charges.”

It’s easy to understand why Strahan is popular with reporters. He fills notebooks with unvarnished quotes and has a different way of looking at things. Sometimes, that gets him in trouble.

Two years ago, in the middle of a disappointing, injury-plagued season, he criticized Coach Jim Fassel’s play calling at the same time Fassel was in Los Angeles attending his mother’s funeral.

“I heard about it and had to tell Jim about it before we got on the plane to come back,” General Manager Ernie Accorsi said. “I told him, ‘You just have to know what happened back there [in New York].’ Thank God we had a five-hour plane ride. Jim’s got a temper--that hair is a lot redder than it is blond--and things weren’t going well.”

Everyone was feeling the heat. The Giants were headed for a 7-9 finish; Accorsi had cut popular defensive end Chad Bratzke to save money, then awarded Strahan a robust contract. Strahan then registered only 51/2 sacks, down from 14 in 1997 and 15 in ’98.

“He and I were both getting [a hard time],” Accorsi said. “He got it for taking the money, and I got it for giving it to him.”

The once-gabby Strahan got surly with reporters, saying he was tired of being criticized by those who last wore a football uniform as grade-schoolers on Halloween.

He made the Pro Bowl for a third consecutive season in ‘99, but on reputation alone. He was left out last season, even though he had 91/2 sacks--two against Philadelphia in the playoffs--and the Giants reached the Super Bowl. Kennedy said missing last season’s Pro Bowl only helped to sharpen Strahan’s focus.

“He felt he was playing as hard as any defensive end out there but didn’t get the recognition,” Kennedy said. “This year, he challenged himself to raise his game to another level.”

Strahan learned tenacity early, football late. His father, Gene, was a major in the Army, and the family was stationed in Mannheim, West Germany, for 19 years. Michael, the youngest of six children, spent more time riding his bike, fishing and playing basketball and baseball than he did on the football field.

“He played flag football until he was 11 or 12, but after a while he lost interest,” his mother said. “He was used to hitting. It was confusing to get out there and run and pull a flag.”

Regardless, he and his father did plenty to keep fit. They went on long runs through the woods at 5:30 each morning. They lifted weights. They boxed.

“I was always sensitive to conditioning,” said Gene, who served with the elite 82nd Airborne for 14 years. “That kind of grew into him. All the [four sons] would do it, but after they got to certain ages they’d pull away. Mike just hung in with it.”

Michael’s athletic prowess was impossible to ignore. Thinking his son had a chance for a free education, Gene sent Michael to Houston to live with family and play football for his final two years of high school. The boy was homesick--he once went home for Christmas break, then had to be coaxed into returning to Houston--but he made the most of his opportunity. He earned a scholarship to Texas Southern, where he won a host of awards.

The Giants selected him as a junior in the second round of the 1993 draft, and, except for the first five games of his rookie season, which he sat out with a foot injury, he has never been out of the starting lineup.

“He can beat you with power,” Accorsi said. “He’s a very smart, finesse player too. The thing you don’t want to do is irritate him, because then he gets really physical and is dominating as hell. There’s a lion in there you don’t want to unleash.”

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Sack Time

Michael Strahan of the New York Giants is on track for 24 sacks, which would break the NFL record. Here are the top six season totals in league history:

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Player Team Year Sacks Mark Gastineau New York Jets 1984 22.0 Reggie White Philadelphia 1987 21.0 Chris Doleman Minnesota 1989 21.0 Lawrence Taylor New York Giants 1986 20.5 Derrick Thomas Kansas City 1990 20.0 Tim Harris Green Bay 1989 19.5

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