CYBER SPORTSPEAK: IT'S A DOTCOM WORLD, AFTER ALL.

Byline: Karen Crouse

The final seconds fade into history and the man of the hour is mobbed. A disembodied voice rises above the din: ``Steve McNair, you've just passed for more than 200 yards and rushed for 200 more to beat the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl 34. What are you going to do now?''

McNair, breaking into a grin as bright as the flashbulbs going off all around him: ``I'm going to www.McFlair.com!''

It could happen, if not Sunday, then someday soon.

Who needs Disney World when there's the World Wide Web? The Internet is Tomorrowland, it's Main Street USA, it's Cyberspace Mountain.

Sports fans, we have seen the future and it is Jervon Kearse speaking sporadically and carrying the Web domain, www.SuperFreak.com.

The writing is on Shannon Sharpe's Web site, and Andre Reed's. They are two of the 200-plus athletes who are spinning their own Web following in concert with Los Angeles-based AthleteDirect.

Sharpe, Denver's verbose receiver, recently revealed in his Web-site journal that he's henceforth going to let his fingers do all his talking. The mouth that scores says he no longer plans to give interviews to reporters, which is sort of like Dennis Rodman swearing off partying or Ricky Martin immobilizing his hips.

Reed, a fellow receiver, made waves that surfers of the Net were the first to catch, divulging in a recent entry in his Web-site journal at www.AthleteDirect.com that he ``wasn't that enthusiastic about going to work'' this season in Buffalo and would like to be traded or released.

He subsequently had a 45-minute gripe session with Bills owner Ralph Wilson. We know this only because Reed wrote about it in his most recent journal entry. He doesn't talk to the media much anymore ``because it's a waste of time for me. So I guess people will find out everything from me on my (Web) site.''

If Sharpe and Reed whistle while they write, it's undoubtedly an Aretha Franklin tune tweaked for the 21st century pro athlete: ``C-O-N-T-R-O-L, find out what will work real well.''

In any case, this juking of the media worries us and not just because we're the ones left grabbing at air. Truth often is the opponent that gets trampled when athletes have publicists and agents running interference for them. Take whistle-blowing reporters out of play and the temptation for athletes and their carefully assembled teams to chop-block any facts that get in the way becomes great indeed.

It seems almost as if technology is hurtling us into a bygone era, when our favorite sports figures could spin away from accountability, bounce off responsibility, duck morality and run untouched through fame's corridors.

That begs a question, not for fans to post on their favorite athletes's Web-site message boards but to ponder themselves: Is it the icon they really care to know or the image?

AthleteDirect is very clear on what it is not. ``We are not an objective news organization,'' said AthleteDirect general manager Jason Schirn.

Rather, the company exists to offer athletes another avenue of communication and commerce. AthleteDirect produces the Web pages for the athletes, who receive a share of the advertising and merchandising revenue their pages generate.

The athletes are centerfolds, exposing themselves without reservation because they know the picture the public gets will be a softer, air- brushed version of themselves.

The first journal entry of a collegian projected to go high in a recent NFL draft was slimmed down after he wrote about gaining a lot of weight on the postseason banquet circuit. The AthleteDirect employee who was editing the copy explained to the player that it was a cute story, but how attractive would it be to the NFL scouts reading it? The player quickly Ok'd the, uh, cosmetic changes.

Suffice it to say if Atlanta Braves reliever John Rocker had typed his comments about gays and foreigners and New Yorkers in a Web-site journal instead of telling them to a ``Sports Illustrated'' reporter, we probably would be no wiser to his wantonness.

That's the beauty of the Internet for athletes who, unlike the professionals in the epoch BC (before cable T.V.), no longer need exposure for exposure's sake.

''I think athletes are increasingly gravitating toward outlets that place them in the least amount of jeopardy and offer them the maximum exposure,'' said NBC broadcaster Bob Costas, who remains a voice of calm in an increasingly cacophonous profession. ``Athletes today have so many ways to reach the public and gain publicity and get exposure for their next endorsement deal, they don't look at talking to the traditional media as an obligation the way athletes did a generation ago.''

The traditional media keeps multiplying. It's so large now, every move an athlete makes is magnified. With so many people chasing after them, it's no surprise athletes are running to the World Wide Web for cover.

AthleteDirect isn't just a shelter, ``Essentially what they're going to see is shrines of themselves,'' Schirn said. ``What athlete isn't intrigued by seeing a shrine to himself?''

Their infatuation is palpable. AthleteDirect has had a year to rival Kurt Warner's, signing up 150 of its 250 clients during the past 12 months.

Speaking of Warner, he isn't among AthleteDirect's clients. As of Thursday, none of the participants in Super Bowl XXXIV were. But Schirn, a one-time center on the Grant High of Van Nuys basketball team, intimated that could change within the next couple of days.

So stay wired.

Former UCLA standout Troy Aikman was the first football player to start a Web site. He did so in 1996, at the suggestion of his agent, Leigh Steinberg. Shortly thereafter, Dodgers first baseman Eric Karros became the first baseball player to metaphorically plant his flag in cyberspace.

``I did it just because of the newness of the thing,'' Karros said. ``I never envisioned it becoming as big as it's become.''

Goodness knows Karros doesn't need to spin his public image; it's already as sugary as cotton candy. He maintains his Web site because he enjoys connecting with the fans.

Karros is from the same school (literally and figuratively) as ex-Bruin Reggie Miller. The loquacious Indiana Pacers guard was the only athlete of a half dozen we tried who promptly replied to an E-mail we sent to his message board at www.AthleteDirect.com.

``Web sites are more for the fans who don't get a chance to see us all the time,'' Miller said, explaining his World Wide Web view.

Karros, reached the other day by telephone, said, ``It's a fun way to interact with the fans on a personal level. I like talking to the fans.''

Every year, it seems, the trade winds blow Karros' way. He has been sent packing from the Dodgers so many times he ought to have an endorsement deal with Samsonite by now. We wondered, would Karros ever use his Web site to lash out at management the way Buffalo's Reed did?

``If there was an issue that came up, would I put it up on my Web site before I went anywhere else with it? Yes. Probably,'' Karros said. ``It doesn't mean I would do that. But at least that way you could put your point of view out there in your own words.''

On Wednesday, Lakers swingman Kobe Bryant used his AthleteDirect Web site to unveil his first music video. Can the Rams' Bob 'n' Weave Dance be far behind?