KICKING OFF JACKSONVILLE'S NOTORIETY : NFL'S JAGUARS HAVE SMALL CITY THINKING BIG.

Byline: Kevin Sack The New York Times

Three Saturdays ago, after becoming the first NFL team to win a playoff game in only its second year, the Jacksonville Jaguars made the rookie mistake of zipping away from the Jacksonville airport without ever acknowledging the 5,000 fans who had jammed the terminal to await their arrival.

Stung by angry comments from the fans, team and city officials did some serious planning for the Jaguars' next playoff game. When the team flew home after upsetting the Denver Broncos, the plane banked over an illuminated Jacksonville Municipal Stadium so that players could see the 40,000 fans who had gathered at 1:30 a.m. for a raucous celebration.

They are starting to get the hang of winning around here.

And not just here. There may be no greater testament to the economic, cultural and political ascension of the modern South than the elevation of its second-tier cities - Charlotte, N.C.; Jacksonville, and Orlando, Fla. - into the major leagues.

With the advance of the Jaguars and their 2-year-old counterparts, the Carolina Panthers, to today's conference championship games, football is being embraced and promoted by those upstart towns as a metaphor for civic momentum.

In the eyes of the rest of the country, professional sports uncomplemented by other cultural assets may not single-handedly move a city into the first tier. People in Jacksonville and its sister cities understand that. But they also firmly believe that pro teams, especially underdog teams that continually defy expectations, can captivate a nation and make people remember your name.

``There are 13 Jacksonvilles in America, and now when you say you're from Jacksonville you don't have to say Florida,'' said Laurence J. DuBow, a Jacksonville businessman and part owner of the Jaguars.

Jacksonville's leaders believe that the recognition and respect that follow a winning sports franchise can help lure new employers and create the sense of community needed to attack problems like racial tension and underachieving schools.

``What we hope is that the sense of goodwill that comes with this will help us address some of our lingering problems,'' said Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney.

This sprawling northeast Florida city, known for its port on the broad and meandering St. John's River, its military bases, and its insurance and banking industries, has rapidly grown over the last two decades. The metropolitan area's population is now about 1 million.

But Jacksonville's mentality has always seemed far smaller than its size, and it has never been able to compete for national attention with cities like Atlanta, Houston, Miami, New Orleans, Orlando and Tampa, Fla.

For years, Jacksonville was known to those passing through to south Florida as a city whose air was fouled by the sulfur dioxide emissions of its pulp and paper mills and whose interstates were clogged by quarter-gobbling toll booths. It consistently finished second or third in the competition for companies relocating to the South and in the hunt for professional football teams, whose owners used Jacksonville's recruitment efforts to win better deals from other cities.

When the city made national news, it was because snipers were firing at motorists from interstate overpasses or because its chief judge was being sanctioned for making racially insensitive remarks.

Now football - winning football - has given Jacksonville the means to shake off what its leaders characterize as a civic inferiority complex.

``The Jaguars make people feel good about themselves who haven't felt good about themselves in a long time,'' said James Crooks, a local historian who teaches at the University of North Florida.

This visually striking city had already started to clean up its air and water, had leveled its toll booths and had become one of the country's 10 fastest-growing job markets, thanks to the arrival of prestigious businesses like the Mayo Clinic and Merrill Lynch. But the most potent transfusion of pride came Nov. 30, 1993, when the NFL announced its surprise decision to place an expansion team in Jacksonville.

Some critics complained that the city gave the team a sweetheart deal by spending more than $100 million on stadium improvements. But the team quickly sold out the 73,000-seat stadium, and the city's golf courses and thoroughfares now empty whenever the Jaguars appear on television. More people greeted the returning Jaguars in Jan. 5's wee hours than watched many actual football games in Atlanta and Houston this year.

``Self-esteem is a funny thing,'' said Thomas Petway, a prominent businessman, civic leader and minority owner of the Jaguars. ``In this instance, I think Jacksonville needed something to call its own, something to rally around.''

To a degree probably possible only in the South, locals view the essence of the Jaguars' success as a matter of overdue respect.

When a Denver sportswriter, Woody Paige, made the mistake of disrespecting both the Jaguars and their hometown in a game-day column, he incited not only the team but also much of northeastern Florida. Jacksonville residents clogged his e-mail with angry rebuttals and painted their car windows with impolite suggestions for Paige.

How closely linked is the city's image with the Jaguars? Suffice it to say that the newly elected chairman of the Chamber of Commerce is Daniel Connell Jr., the senior vice president of marketing for the team. Since the team's arrival, the chamber has been promoting Jacksonville as ``the expansion city.''

Needless to say, the city has gone Jaguar crazy in the past two weeks. After the Broncos game, Dana Romano, the manager of Authentic Pro Gear, sold nearly 2,000 commemorative T-shirts at $18.99 in just two days and had to ask customers to take a number, ``like a bakery.'' Karen Sinclair, a 47-year-old teacher, felt right at home at a sports bar Monday night wearing a Jaguar-spot blouse, Jaguar-spot earrings, a gold Jaguar choker and a Jaguar pin.

Even those who are normally disinterested in football have become converts. During Jan. 4's game, Helene Baker, a local artist, found herself watching the Jaguars on a muted television in her studio while listening to a radio broadcast of her favorite opera, ``Tosca.''

``The next thing I know,'' she said, ``I'm beginning to turn the opera down slowly and turning the TV louder. I finally decided I knew what was going to happen at the end of the opera but I didn't know what was going to happen to the Jaguars, and I turned the radio off.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Jacksonville, Fla., fans see the football squad off at the airport Friday. The second-year Jaguars will play New England for the AFC crown today.

Associated Press

(2) John Shilby stands on the streets of Jacksonville, Fla., on Friday to drum up support for the Jaguars.

The New York Times