A RIDE ON THE FARRIS WHEEL

The chips were stale, the soda was flat and all the air had been sucked from the room when Debbie Farris, mother of four, was asked how it felt Saturday watching her son wait for the phone to ring on NFL draft day.

“I equate this with labor and delivery,” she said standing near the kitchen table at 4:45 p.m., ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. blathering on television in the background about some other mother’s son.

At 5:15, the Chicago Bears selected an offensive tackle in the third round, with the 66th overall pick.

Once again, his name was not Farris.

“God,” Debbie said, “this gets worse and worse.”

For Kris Farris, once a projected first-round pick, watching his slide down the draft ramp had a cumulative effect.

“I figured if I waited this long, it would hurt this bad,” he said at one point.

The hurt disappeared at 5:30.

This wasn’t a tease like the 1:25 call, when the phone rang with Jacksonville on the first-round clock, when Kris picked up and said, somewhat oddly, “Yeah, you can cut it into fours.”

It was Togos, calling about a sandwich order.

Or the call at 5, when Kris sprang from his chair at the top of round three.

“Hello Cleveland!” Farris said.

It wasn’t Cleveland, it was Kim, Farris’ older sister.

“She didn’t want me either,” Kris cracked.

At 5:30, the bleeding stopped.

Kris, mobile phone in hand, accepted the news on the stairwell at his family’s Mission Viejo home.

“I’m a Steeler!” he screamed.

Pittsburgh delivered, with the 74th pick in the third round.

Thank goodness. Elizabeth Foster, Kris’ girlfriend, had no nails left to chew. Debbie Farris began crying. Marty, Kris’ dad, figured it was about time. Karly and Kelly, Kris’ twin younger sisters, rushed to a nearby sporting goods store with a credit card to buy the first of many Pittsburgh Steeler souvenirs.

It wasn’t only the end of a long day.

It was the end of a long process.

We wondered what it would be like to follow a draft pick around, pester him every couple of weeks, ask him why he left school early, how he picked an agent, what the NFL Combine was like.

UCLA’s Kris Farris volunteered to take us by the hand on his once-in-a-lifetime journey, experience the process as he experienced it.

He knew he was not a first-round cinch, that this was risk. But he happily invited us along.

Plenty transpired from the time we picked up with Farris in February. It was two-and-a-half months of butterflies, broken dreams, Creatine, scouts, interviews, mind games, dashes through cones, ups, downs and doubts.

There was the aroma of money not yet counted or earned, a jackpot (or not) to be determined by minions with pencils and stopwatches.

Some said Farris blew it by leaving UCLA after his junior season. Some can say now “I told you so” after Farris’ fall to round three.

But Farris says he was ready to turn this page in his life. He will prove the naysayers wrong, he says, just as he did in high school and college. “I want to destroy now,” he said. “Somehow, I always thought this would be the best thing for me. I was so fixated on the first round, this will motivate me so much. A lot of teams are going to pay for this.”

This was how it ended for Farris on Saturday.

Here’s how he got there:

Feb. 5: Feeling a Draft

“I’m scared of draft day,” Farris confesses.

Scared?

Farris is 6 feet 8, 320 pounds, an Outland Trophy winner, a scholar athlete and film auteur. He pulled into Styx restaurant in Laguna Niguel in the new utility vehicle purchased with a $35,000 loan he secured against future earnings.

Farris hunches over lunch, a giant man eating giant prawns.

At 22, he has the new millennium by the horns: bright future in football and film, caring parents and three sisters--not one over 6 feet tall--and dynamite DNA.

“A genetic mutation that worked out for the best,” Farris says of himself.

Today, life is good: “I haven’t seen one draft report that doesn’t have me in the teens.”

His stomach spins on rinse cycle because there is no take-home draft test for “genetic mutants,” because most NFL incoming are not Todd Marinovich, bred for the experience by a calculating father.

Most draft picks are scared.

Farris’ dad, Marty, is in the packaging business--merchandise, not humans.

Debbie, his mother, is a secretary at Saddleback Hospital.

Not in their wildest dreams did mom and pop Farris fathom bearing a behemoth the Pittsburgh Steelers might one day be interested in.

Marty and Debbie hauled four kids west from St. Paul, Minn., to Mission Viejo in 1984. In 10 years, Kris and his father attended one Ram game.

“We’ve never been a sports family,” Kris says.

Montana to Rice?

Try Siskel to Ebert.

Marty used to break down film of “Ben Hur,” his favorite movie, plopping the cassette into the VCR when he and Kris worked around the house.

Kris wanted to be Steve Spielberg, not Steve Young, but sometimes plans change as fast as shoe sizes.

“He was always a head above everyone else, from first grade on,” Marty says of his son.

Kris was already sasquatch size when he entered Santa Margarita High. Had Spielberg cast such a shadow, who knows, maybe he puts “ET” on the back burner.

Debbie says when Kris got his first uniform, “he didn’t know how to put the pads in.”

But Kris absorbed football by osmosis, the way he imbibed every factoid relating to Alcatraz after a family vacation to San Francisco.

“He could go there and be a national park ranger without any books,” Marty says.

Farris checked out books on football at the library.

He was a quick study.

We Know What He Did Last Summer Agents started calling. Morning, noon, night.

“Ridiculous,” Farris says.

Farris began his junior year at UCLA expecting to become a senior. He couldn’t understand all the fuss over an honorable-mention Pacific 10 tackle.

Well, agents know fuss when they see it.

It got so bad Farris announced he was cutting off contact until December, with a notable exception.

“When Leigh Steinberg’s office calls, you listen,” he says. “I wanted to cover my butt, just in case I did have a stupendous year.”

Farris carefully narrowed the list of prospective representatives and red-herringed the ones he didn’t want via his parents, who dispatched them accordingly.

Bribes?

“Yeah, a couple of times,” Farris says, “and it scares you.”

Late in the season, Farris became a finalist for the Outland Trophy, given to the nation’s top offensive lineman.

“I got a call 45 minutes later from a guy offering me a suit,” Farris says.

Farris didn’t take it.

“I already had a suit, but if I didn’t, I’d want a suit for that thing, I really would.”

Marvin Demoff, another heavyweight, made a ninth-inning pitch to become Farris’ agent in December, adhering to Farris’ request not to bother him during the season.

Too late.

“It backfired on him,” Farris says. “He went by the book. He was polite.”

Farris did have that stupendous season, despite a wobbly December performance against Miami defensive end Derrick Ham, a game scouts would hold against him.

Farris all but decided to turn pro when he won the Outland, pending his final exam in the Rose Bowl against Tom Burke, Wisconsin’s outstanding defensive end.

“Literally, the worst week of my life,” Farris says of the pressure.

UCLA lost, but Farris played well, capping a season in which he did not give up a sack. The second the Rose Bowl clock went to zeros, Farris was an ex-Bruin.

After the game, he showered, dressed and decided on an agent: Steinberg.

The contract was signed at Farris’ house the night of the Rose Bowl. Steinberg told Farris to go into hiding until the news conference, not wanting the story to leak before Farris informed UCLA Coach Bob Toledo.

Steinberg, in fact, whisked Farris off to the San Francisco-Green Bay wild-card game Jan. 3.

Farris broke the news to Toledo the next day.

“He never said it was a mistake, but I don’t think he thought it was the right decision,” Farris says.

Farris could have used a week’s vacation, but serious training resumed Jan. 4.

A plan was put in place. Steinberg told Farris to shave and get a haircut.

“He said, ‘You’re going to look like you did the night you won the Outland,’ ” Farris says.

Farris, with his 3.5 GPA and film career aspirations, dropped out of school.

As a junior unable to play in postseason all-star games, Farris figured he was already playing catch-up against the competition.

“I look at it as just part of the deal,” he says of leaving early.

It is understood he will return to UCLA to get his degree.

“He knows and he will,” his father says.

Hey, Ma, I Wanna Come Home

Something was amiss when Farris dropped his bags at home last January in Mission Viejo, the long-lost son returning home to train for the February NFL combine in bird-chirping solitude.

Mom’s home cooking? Check. Chores posted on the refrigerator? Check.

Big-shot UCLA star’s old bedroom?

Ah, slight change.

“My room’s now a bonus room,” Farris says. “It’s where the sewing machine is. Where I used to have posters up, there are photo montages, pictures of lighthouses and waves. The color theme is peach.

“My stuff is up in the attic. I understand.”

Mom was helpful. Each day, she scanned the Internet for NFL draft information and left printouts on Kris’ bed.

Steinberg set up Farris on a rigid workout program, assigning him a track coach, Frank Baskerville, and a martial arts master, Chuck Williams, to help with hand-eye technique.

Farris started taking Creatine, the controversial muscle enhancer. It was his idea.

“It works too well to be good for you,” Farris says, “so I’m pretty sure there’s going to be something wrong with it. It works so well it’s unbelievable.”

Farris says he’ll cycle off the stuff after the combine.

“I never take it during the season,” he says. “It dehydrates you too much, you cramp up easily.”

What about the health risk?

“You mean is it worth it in 50 years? I don’t know.”

Late January: Pressing the Flesh

Steinberg gives Farris a test drive around the league by taking his new client to the Super Bowl.

“The whole point is to give him exposure,” Steinberg says.

As a consultant to “Jerry Maguire” and “On Any Sunday,” Oliver Stone’s upcoming movie about football, Steinberg is attuned to Farris’ interest in film.

Farris landed in Miami at 9 p.m. the Thursday before Super Bowl Sunday.

“By 11:30, I’m hugging Rodman!” he says.

The next night, at Commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s annual party, Steinberg hooked Farris up with players, actors, general managers, politicians.

“Remember me on draft day,” Farris remembers saying to Kansas City General Manager Carl Peterson, whose team had the 14th pick.

Arizona quarterback Jake Plummer, working the room on his behalf for a blindside tackle, sidled up to Farris. “Better not go any lower than eight,” Plummer said.

Farris: “I’m like, c’mon.”

Saturday morning, Farris met Ted Kennedy at a fund-raiser. Later, at Steinberg’s annual Super Bowl party, Kennedy approached him.

“I know he’s a politician, but he comes up and says ‘Kris, how you doing?’ ”

Why Does Joel Buchsbaum Hate Me?

Steinberg’s First Commandment for rookie clients: Thou shalt not read NFL draft reports!

“But it’s like trying to tell a player not to read the paper after a game,” Steinberg bemoans. “I think it’s a level of torture, masochism and unnecessary. The truth of the matter is, I’ll tell him who’s interested.”

Farris breaks the commandment, oh, every day.

“I can’t avoid it,” he says. “Every time I go on the Internet, it’s like click, click, click, NFL draft search.”

Besides, the January reviews are mostly glowing.

Kiper, the cement-haired ESPN pundit, ranks Farris No. 16 on his list of top 50 prospects.

Pat Kirwan, CNN/SI’s online draft expert, has Farris the No. 2 tackle behind Wisconsin’s Aaron Gibson.

The Great Blue North Draft Report is high on a UCLA tackle named Kirk Farris.

Alas, there is wet blanket Joel Buchsbaum, the Brooklyn-based analyst who has been pumping out prospectives for Pro Football Weekly since the 1970s.

“Joel Buchsbaum hates me,” Farris says. “He absolutely thinks I’m the worst player. He despises me! He wrote an article three months ago that I put up in my locker, because it trashed me.”

Farris takes the snub in stride.

“If he owned a team that needed a tackle I’d be upset, but he doesn’t.”

Farris’ mother is not amused by Mr. Buchsbaum.

“Obviously,” Debbie says, “he’s an idiot.”

Feb. 17: On to Indy

Tomorrow, Farris departs to Indianapolis for the annual NFL combine, the most important pre-draft event a rookie faces.

The combine is known as the “poke and prod,” a weekend in which coaches, scouts, trainers and doctors from 31 teams give players the once-over: twice.

“I’m a little anxious,” Farris says by phone. “I think that’s normal.”

Farris knows the combine can make or break him.

“I feel that what happens the next couple of days will obviously affect the rest of my life,” he says. “That thought cannot possibly not enter your mind.”

Farris can’t sleep.

He awakes at 4 a.m. and signs on to the Internet, craving last-minute NFL news.

Marty drives Kris to John Wayne Airport for his 6:50 a.m. departure.

Players will lodge at the Holiday Inn, a block from the RCA Dome. Upon arrival, Farris signs a form to release personal records, then is handed his room key and the weekend’s itinerary.

He receives a bag of workout clothes, bright red shorts and shirt, his combine number, 51, and a security badge.

Farris’ roommate is Baylor lineman Derrick Fletcher. Frankly, the name doesn’t ring a bell.

Players are housed on the second level. First-floor rooms are occupied by NFL teams. To exit the compound, players must pass rooms manned by scouts who, like carnival barkers, lure draftees into their dens with trinkets and T-shirts. Farris would succumb to one request only because the team offered a carry bag for his stash.

First, though, it’s off to the hospital for a physical--EKG, blood test, urine sample, X-rays.

Later, walking back to his room, Farris gets ambushed: Washington, Carolina, Green Bay and the New York Giants all want to see him: Now.

“What am I supposed to do?” Farris says. “How am I supposed to choose?”

Farris decides to make an appointment with Kansas City, a team that needs a tackle.

The players’ 11 p.m. curfew passes as the Giants drop a 450-question psychological test in Farris’ lap.

“I didn’t take a breath for three days,” Farris said later.

Mind games?

“I’d be eating so healthy for two months, and all they had was bacon and fried potatoes for breakfast,” he says. “It’s like they try to screw you.”

Feb. 19: Rise and Shine

Good morning, combiners. This is your 4 a.m. wake-up call.

Actually, first light is not a bad time to ask for a urine sample.

After taking his drug test, Farris, stripped of his shoes, shirts and socks, is paraded to the department of weights and measures. Men with No. 2 pencils make note of his wingspan and hand size.

The physical exams take place in the RCA Dome, on 10 long tables in partitioned rooms. A doctor presents the player: “Kris Farris, No. 51, UCLA.”

One doctor tells Farris his right knee feels loose and sends him back to the hospital for an MRI.

“This is news to me!” Farris says.

Farris returns to the dome at 2:30 p.m., where he is overdue for his bench press test.

Lack of strength is a knock on Farris, but he is confident after pumping out 24 repetitions of 225 pounds two days before the combine.

Things go smoothly until a trainer, spotting Farris in warmups, accidentally drops a weight on his hand!

‘I’ve got blood gushing down,” Farris recalls.

Wounded and flustered, Farris manages only 20 reps, then is whisked into another room, where scouts from five teams are seated around a table.

A Raider man tells Farris a man his size should have done at least 30 bench press reps.

Farris blows a fuse: “I’m never going to do 30,” he says. “My body is not made to bench press, my arms are too long. I’ll never be a star in the weight room. But I’ll be a star on the field.”

The scout raises a brow and makes a note of the soliloquy.

At 4 p.m., Farris takes the Wonderlic Personnel Test, a 50-question intelligence quiz that must be completed in 12 minutes.

Farris hasn’t slept for two days, his hand is still bleeding, but he’s ready to ace this puppy.

“What’s a good score?” Farris asks.

Twenty is good, he’s told, 30 is excellent.

A train travels 20 feet in 1/5 seconds. At this same speed, how many feet will it travel in three seconds?

After the Wonderlic, Farris finishes up the Giants’ 450-question test from the night before.

Later, the Redskins kidnap him.

“They were fascinated with me,” Farris says. “I’m not just saying that. They kept me in for extra tests. The guy says, ‘Are you an engineering major?’ I said no, ‘English.’ He says ‘You should have been engineering.’ ”

Farris interviews until midnight, then stumbles back to his room.

Fletcher is watching “a bad Steven Segal movie.”

Farris inserts the ear plugs he swiped from his MRI.

Sleep comes fast.

Feb 20: Dash for Cash

With Jimmy Johnson, Al Davis, Mike Ditka and Terry Donahue looking on at the RCA Dome, Farris runs a 5.03 40-yard dash. Speed is not Farris’ problem.

He is then herded off with other linemen for a session with coaches from the Bills, Chiefs, Redskins and Dolphins.

Hey, how about this, an actual football-related drill.

“So what if you can bench press 30 times,” Farris says. “Can you follow directions? Can you play football?”

Farris thinks he has made headway.

He finishes his work midafternoon, says goodbye to Fletcher and checks out of Hotel Hell.

Back in Orange County on March 1, Farris is fidgety. He thinks the combine went well, but who knows?

“So many crazy things can happen,” Farris says. “People don’t understand that. My parents, because I’m in Mel Kiper’s draft guide, they automatically assumed there’s no way I’m going to drop out of the first round. You just never know.

“You just never know.”

Slip Sliding

Postcard from the edge:

March stinks.

“The most difficult month of my life so far,” Farris says.

Farris works out for Philadelphia, Cleveland and Cincinnati. He thought he impressed the scouts at UCLA workout day March 15, increasing his bench press to 23 reps. Every scout he has met face to face tells Farris he has moved up on their draft boards.

So how come his NFL stock is dropping like a rock?

One bit of good news coming out of the combine: Farris scored a dazzling 32 on his Wonderlic.

Or was that good news?

George Young, the former New York Giant general manager, once made a telling statement about high Wonderlic scores.

“Sometimes smarter players don’t need football so much because they do other things,” Young said.

That’s the rap on Farris. Too smart, too weak, too distracted.

“What Farris is is a finesse player,” one NFL insider said.

Russell Lande, a former Ram scout who now publishes a draft report, “GMjr,” does not have Farris ranked among his top 10 offensive tackles.

“He’s not a real strong, physical player,” Lande says. “He doesn’t handle guys that get into him.”

Lande says Farris’ performance against Miami remains a black mark, although he insists Farris will play 15 years in the NFL.

Funny, the football player-film buff angle made such great copy at UCLA, but now it’s killing Farris.

Yes, Farris fell ill when “Saving Private Ryan” did not win the Oscar for best picture. Yes, he ducked out for four hours in Indianapolis to see “Ben Hur,” on the downtown big screen. But what does love for film have to do with stopping Bruce Smith’s swim move?

Did Farris not drop out of UCLA for the NFL?

He heard the Giants are worried he might bolt the NFL early for Hollywood.

“That’s because the psychologist who gave me the test started BS-ing with me about movies!” Farris scoffs. “We’re talking a long time and he goes, ‘Wait, you’re not supposed to like movies.’ ”

April and Farris

Twelve Days Until NFL Christmas: Farris is digging into his rib eye steak at a Westwood cafe. The family is in panic mode. Relatives are e-mailing, wondering what Kris did to mess up his draft status. Short answer: nothing.

Debbie Farris, in private moments, consoles her son.

“I understand how it all works,” Kris says of draft politics. “But other people don’t understand and that makes it hard.”

Kris tries to reel in reality. His eyes well up as he speaks of becoming the first player from his high school to be drafted: first round, second round, any round.

Kris has ditched his clean-cut look in favor of a shaved head and facial hair. “I’m going to start playing the game,” he says. “It’s stupid, but I’ve assumed the role of football player.”

What do these guys want?

“They want me to drool,” he says. “They want me to eat raw meat and say that my family needs me to live. That my family will starve. That’s what they want. And they’re not going to get it.”

Farris now concedes the Internet may be the bane of mankind. Way too much information.

Click: Pro Football Weekly. The dreaded Buchsbaum has Farris rated 83rd in his list of top 221 prospects.

Buchsbaum’s No. 82?

Derrick Fletcher, Farris’ combine roommate.

Click: The “1999 NFL Draft” Web site posting of April 1 reports Farris’ “horrendous showing” at the combine.”

Click: Kiper Jr., once holding reins on the Farris bandwagon, has demoted him to No. 61 in his 1999 draft update of the top 150 players. Kiper has Farris going in the third round to the St. Louis Rams.

“He just totally sold me out,” Farris says of Kiper. “He talks to me on the phone, thinks I’m the Second Coming. All of a sudden, I’m like 60 on his list?”

One mock draft has Farris as a late first-round pick, but the news out of Steinberg’s Newport Beach office is not encouraging.

“Right now, I can’t find a team to take him in the first round,” Steinberg acknowledges April 7. “And that’s a problem.”

Farris seems to be holding up fine.

“I told my parents, ‘I’m going in the second round--deal with it,’ ” Farris says.

A few weeks ago, he sent family members an e-mail instructing them how to act if ESPN cameras turned on them during draft day.

“I don’t want you guys looking each other in the eye or crossing your fingers,” he wrote. “I want you guys there, but if you can’t deal with it, I can’t deal with it. It’s hard enough. I’m going to sit there stone-faced. I don’t want your eyes rolling up in the first round, if Aaron Gibson gets picked ahead of me, and saying, ‘He didn’t win the Outland.’

“They understood.”

April 13: Maybe ESPN isn’t going to be a problem.

“There are people who think he’ll go in the third round,” Steinberg says. The game plan now is to protect Farris. No party hats or balloons. Farris will watch the draft at his parents’ home.

“We don’t want to set him up for the ‘Lonely Odyssey of Kris Farris,’ ” Steinberg says.

Farris was right about this: You never know how these things are going to go.

You just never know.

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Ranking Farris

A look at various pre-draft rankings of UCLA offensive tackle Kris Farris.