A SIDEWAYS GLANCE : HE'S A SOUL MAN WHO'S LOST IN AMERICA.

Byline: Tom Hoffarth

In a leased Nissan Pathfinder, Steve Rushin took 36 CDs, a set of golf clubs and a dozen foul cigars that could be converted to road flares and turned left out of Bloomington, Minn., one day.

The Sports Illustrated writer had decided he needed to a) try to forget the fact he was about to turn 30, and b) rediscover what this country's obsession with sports was all about so he could write a travelogue.

The result, called ``Road Swing: One Fan's Journey into the Soul of American Sports'' ($22.95, Doubleday, 245 pages), might have curbed his premature midlife crisis, but it left a few inconclusive dead ends with the latter issue.

Rushin's nationwide detour takes him through 23,658 miles of interstates and dirt roads; he hits all but four of the contiguous United States. He skips Florida because it was being ravaged by hurricanes, and West Virginia, Utah and North Dakota ``on the grounds that they were West Virginia, Utah and North Dakota, respectively.''

Along the way he stops, examines and rambles a bit about how and why he ended up at these strange-but-true places.

Like Jim Thorpe, Pa., where the great Native American Indian athlete's remains ended up because the city said it would name itself after him.

Or Matfield Green, Kan., where the 1931 plane crash that took the life of Knute Rockne is marked by a stone plaque behind a rest-stop Hardee's.

Or even Southern California, where Rushin takes in a Dodgers game, has a late-night snack with Jerry Reuss and discusses the pronunciation of his name (rhymes with ``flushin' '') with Ducks winger Steve Rucchin (rhymes with ``smoochin' '') - and then hears a Channel 4 sportscaster (has to be Carlos Del Valle) butcher the latter as ``Roo-shun.''

Each stop seems to be for a certain purpose on Rushin's scattered itinerary. It just seems like since he's been to many of these places before, there's not much magic about them. Not even Anaheim. Too often, he gets caught up in rehashing a piece he once did for SI - which, incidentally, also got some mileage out of the book by excerpting it in a recent issue.

By chapters, it's a fun read. In total, the conclusion that road-sage Rushin draws from all this - that the phrase ``American culture'' wasn't an oxymoron - seems anticlimatic. Were we expecting a gonzo payoff? Maybe so.

Here's an idea: Ten years from now, Rushin can do it all again when he nears the age of 40. Because by then, he'll pull out of Bloomington, Minn., and have plenty of material about how the last decade has been with a pro wrestler serving as governor in the Land of 10,000 Flakes.

That's got to say something about the soul of America, and not just American sports.

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PHOTO no caption (Cover of the book ``Road Swing'' by Steve Rushin)