Friday, July 14 The Engine By Curry Kirkpatrick ESPN The Magazine

Inasmuch as Marshall Faulk is not only a symbol for, but a native of Desire, the squalid New Orleans slum that lent its name to one of the most famous works in American theater; given that he scored seven touchdowns in just his second college game and could have won the Heisman Trophy at least twice; and granted that in his last two pro seasons -- on two different teams under two vastly different circumstances (going from pitiful loser to proud Super celebrator) -- he has led the NFL in total yards from scrimmage, doesn't it figure that we might have actually, uh, noticed him?

	Marshall Faulk's rushing and receiving prowess has carried the St. Louis Rams into the Super Bowl.

Instead, throughout most of his intriguing six-year pro career, Faulk has been fated to linger in that peculiar ozone between irony and anonymity, a name lost beneath the Davises and Smiths and Sanderses except to those fantasy freaks for whom stats are the stuff of dreams.

Until now.

As the suddenly spectacular spirits from St. Louis perform a season finale that even Hollywood wouldn't touch, with the Methuselean Dick Vermeil having recovered from a near-terminal case of burnout, the feel-good fuzzy Kurt Warner having emerged from Unitasville and all the other Rams honking their astounding stories from their suddenly invincible horns, the scatback street kid from Desire -- who's been variously a Rookie of the Year, damaged goods and a traded malcontent -- turns out to be the most important spoke in the wheel.

Unnoticed? Not by Tony Dungy. Faulk didn't do much against the Bucs in the NFC title game (44 yards rushing, 5 receiving), but you can bet that Tampa Bay's focus on stopping him was what almost allowed the Bucs to steal the game.

Says Rams DT DíMarco Farr: "Somebody like this who can catch and carry -- he's uncoverable. Until you see Marshall every day, you don't actually realize the versatility, the range, both running and receiving. Nobody in the NFL plays quite like this guy."

"The thing that surprised us most about Marshall is his leadership," says Rams player personnel director Charley Armey, who's not merely spouting political prattle, even though he's the older brother of House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas). "He captured everyone's imagination, and the players gravitated toward him immediately. When we put him at tailback, he's as good as any runner in the league. When we split and detach him, he's as good as any receiver. When you need a blitz back-up guy, he does that. The offensive line believes in him. Kurt believes in him, He's our safety valve. He's our catalyst."

Faulk himself, now 26, is always circumspect. He suffers fools and the media -- to him, of course, one and the same -- ungladly; it took the whole season before he would cooperate with a St. Louis Post-Dispatch profiler. Nonetheless, he is well aware of his value. Once asked to compare himself to Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders, he said, "I believe I'm better than both of them because, for my team, I'm asked to do more than they are. I'm not just a running back who gets handed the ball 25 times a game and comes out on third down."

Indeed, long after O.J. Simpson said of him, "You don't exaggerate when you say a guy like this comes along once in a lifetime," the 5'10", 211-pound Faulk parlayed his speed, power and elusiveness to rush for 1,319 yards and catch 86 passes for 908 more yards, a sweet 2,227 combo, and a huge 43.5 percent of his team's total. That was in 1998, for what were then the Indianapolis Dolts, when the quarterback was raw, wet-behind-the-earholes Peyton Manning.

"We're scrimmaging against them in preseason, and Marshall's back there telling Peyton who's going to blitz, where his reads are, what's going on in protections, space, the works," says Rams cornerback Todd Lyght. "All this from split formation! I'm like, 'Whoa, this guy is too smart.' " Manning concedes, "I don't know where I would have been without Marshall."

This season, after Indy gave him away for two draft choices (St. Louis hasn't benefited this gloriously since Lou Brock came over from the Cubs and Chuck Berry came back from oblivion), Faulk smashed Sanders' combo record, taking it to 2,429 yards.

In the process he became only the second man in NFL history (after the 49ers' Roger Craig) to exceed 1,000 yards in both rushing and receiving in the same season. And the Rams, of course, are on the brink of winning everything worth winning.

"Fans don't read a lot into that combo stat, which is not hyped," says Rams running backs coach Wilbert Montgomery. "But to a football team, that is huge, unbelievable, monumental. What does Marshall Faulk have to do to be a household-known guy?"

"League MVP is for value to the team. Offensive Player of the Year is for productivity," says Faulk, who won the latter award, marshaling up some timely political correctness of his own after Warner won the former. "Could we have won as many games without me? Maybe. Without Kurt?

"I don't know."

Pick your poison. Or in this case, your magic potion. According to the AP voters, Warner is the league's MVP. According to the Rams players, Faulk is the team's MVP.

"Hidden superstar" is how Lyght, an NFL rookie when Faulk started making headlines, now describes his teammate. But Faulk's high school coach in New Orleans once referred to him in other terms: "Your basic Ninth Ward thug."

The youngest of six brothers, two of whom have spent time in prison, Faulk realizes his life could have gone either way. "I saw things they did, and I saw the things not to do," he told a New York Times reporter. "I saw how to stay out of trouble. All the bad things I was curious about as a kid, I already knew where they would get me."

It wasn't a smooth ride. Expelled from school three times, he held jobs as a popcorn vendor and a janitor. When his father died, Faulk refused to leave the car to go into the funeral. But soon after leaving his unhappy childhood a few blocks from the French Quarter, he began tearing up the record books.

Big-time college recruiters projected Faulk only as a defensive back. So he crossed the continent to San Diego State, which let him run the ball to near-Heisman finishes of ninth, second (anybody spotted Gino Torretta lately?) and fourth. Remember Faulk's brilliant Bowl performances? Probably not. His only postseason appearance was in the 1991 Freedom Bowl, where he ran for 157 yards and a TD in a 28-17 loss to Tulsa.

"In college he was hardly on television, so all you knew about him was these unbelievable numbers," says Lyght. (Unbelievable indeed: Faulk once ran for 386 yards in a game and won back-to-back NCAA rushing titles.) "I'd think it can't be him, it must be the opposition. Even after his rookie year up here, I thought this guy can't be that good. Then, when we played against him in 1995 and he smoked us for, like, 180 yards, I knew. It has nothing to do with who he's playing against. It's all Marshall. His talent, his smarts, his intensity. Outside people just can't imagine what a guy like this brings to a team. When I heard we had traded for him, it gave our offense instant credibility. I knew we'd have a winning record."

Winning record? The losingest franchise of the decade (until the Bengals nosed them out in '99)? Hadn't Faulk actually belly-whopped from the fat into the frying pan? "I saw a new beginning, a start-over, a clean slate, all that," he says of landing in St. Louis. "I saw the Rams as a bunch of guys who'd been like myself, with potential and commitment and hunger. They were good teammates. They weren't after that individual thing. Of course, I also saw an opportunity for me, personally."

"Marshall's never received the national recognition he deserves," says Vermeil, who seems to have been seesawing between stressed out and laid back since the days of Red Grange. "Nobody of his status does until he's been in big games. Remember, when Indianapolis made their run to the AFC championship game in 1995, Marshall was injured. A great player becomes a greater player when his whole team experiences success. That's what's happening to Marshall now."

Proud, private, a loner in a world that almost demands togetherness, Faulk has always swaddled himself in enigma. "It's that superstar aura," says a man who's close to him. "Marshall's got a little of the DiMaggio thing in him, a little Koufax."

Now, on the final leg of his journey to acceptance, Faulk knows exactly who he is -- and where: "To be recognized, to stand out, you've got to make it to where we are now. You can't just make it to the playoffs. You've got to win in the playoffs."

Now that he's done that, Faulk knows how it sets him apart. "I never wanted to be a different kind of player. It just turned out that way," he says. "But sometimes it's neat that I'm not just a running back, not just a receiver."

And he also knows how this season with the Rams has changed things: "When I go out to play, you have to notice me. You will notice me. I cannot go unnoticed."