MCNOWN DIVES HEADFIRST INTO HYPE.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Cade McNown hit the beach with his UCLA teammates Thursday. Somewhere in the Malibu surf, McNown shed his old skin like a wet suit and braced himself for the numbing days ahead.

For the next three months those will be man-made waves breaking at McNown's feet, whipped into a froth by the winds of hype. Starting with today's media gathering and Saturday's opening of training camp, reporters will roll in and out like the tide, asking the Bruins' senior quarterback about the Heisman Trophy that could be his.

The current will be unpredictable. And there's always a danger the constant pounding will wear on McNown or that he'll get dragged down by the powerful undertow of public opinion. The hope is that he can hang on and enjoy the ride.

After all, unless you're Archie Griffin, the Heisman race is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. If you're Gino Torretta, it's the last football high you experience. And as another former winner, O.J. Simpson, can attest, there are far greater trials in life. 'Tis less taxing to tackle the endless question, ``Can you win the Heisman?'' than ``Did you kill your ex-wife and her friend?''

Before he won the award in 1968, Simpson, the former USC running back, finished second in the balloting in 1967 behind UCLA quarterback Gary Beban, the only Bruin to win college football's highest individual honor. Over the past 10 years, nobody in the Pacific-10 has come closer than USC quarterback Rodney Peete's second-place finish in 1988.

It's not a talent thing so much as it is a time thing. Outside of insomniacs and sports addicts, West Coast football - with its glut of night games - doesn't have a huge following east of the Rockies. The last game the Bruins played in the Eastern time zone was against Michigan at Ann Arbor in September of 1996. McNown, then a sophomore, threw three interceptions in a 38-9 loss.

Since then, McNown has gained renown for outplaying Tennessee's Peyton Manning in a game last year at the Rose Bowl. He finished the 1997 season as the nation's leader in pass efficiency. So what did he find when he flipped through a few preseason college football publications recently?

``I read one article where it said I don't have a strong arm or something,'' McNown said, ``and another that said I lack the will to win. The most ridiculous? There was one that said I've been really inconsistent and it used as an example the Michigan game `debacle.' ''

It's enough to make McNown frown. His conclusion? Some would-be Heisman voters have long and selective memories.

To get people up to speed on McNown's skills, UCLA sports information director Marc Dellins sent a three-minute highlight reel from last season to a select group of writers from the East and South regions.

Beyond that, the hype is pretty much in McNown's hands. Dellins promises there will be no overkill to this Heisman campaign. Voters won't be receiving weekly buttons or bumper stickers or coffee mugs that say ``Vote McNow for Cade.''

A season-opening home game Sept. 12 against Texas and Heisman front-runner Ricky Williams should be enough to fan the flames for these next few weeks.

``It'll come and that's fine,'' McNown said of the Heisman talk. ``I'll be very oblivious to a lot of the stuff that's being written. As soon as you start thinking about the Heisman, you're going to start sacrificing the team for your ego. All I'm going to be trying to do every week is keep the team in the game.''

McNown's lack of pretension is so refreshing, he was voted a team captain. That's a responsibility rarely bestowed upon a team's resident superstar.

``Sometimes the (stars) are really full of themselves,'' McNown conceded. ``I find myself helping a lot of the receivers with their routes and stuff.''

McNown, 21, can do more than that - and frankly, he must if the Bruins are to live up to their No. 7 preseason national ranking. By opening himself up to the media blitz, he can deflect pressure from the youngsters trying to take up where departed running back Skip Hicks and receiver Jim McElroy left off.

The way McNown, a four-year starter, ought to look at it is any reporter pestering him is one who's not off hounding one of his less experienced teammates. As he acknowledged during Pac-10 media day, ``It's not like I've all-of-a-sudden been thrust into (the limelight).''

If it makes it any easier, McNown should turn the Heisman question into a riddle. How many different ways can he say a lot of nothing?

There are enough comedic possibilities to put any of the final-season ``Seinfeld'' episodes to shame. McNown has got his timing down on the field, now all he's got to do is hone his postgame delivery. What we'd give to have someone ask McNown, who finished eighth in last year's Heisman balloting, about his prospects and hear him say something like, ``Can I win the Heisman? I sure hope so. I could use a 25-pound paperweight for my stack of press clippings.''

But first things first. McNown should go out and splurge on a scrapbook that's thicker than any playbook. Because one day he might look back on this as the best year of his life.

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Photo

PHOTO (Color) Cade McNown is trying to become UCLA's second Heisman Trophy winner.

Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press