UNIVERSITY PARK -- OK, follow along closely here. We've got a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of space in which to cover it.

This is about Anthony Adams, Penn State's multi-faceted, Technicolor nose tackle who speaks Japanese, answers to Spice, is a self-admitted mama's boy, the team prankster and clothes horse.

He's all that, all right.

He's not a bad nose tackle either, although he tends to get lost in the shadow of fellow linemate Jimmy Kennedy, who was a preseason All-American.

"That's just how it is when you play nose tackle,'' said Adams. "It's one of the dirtiest, grimiest jobs. You're always getting double- and triple-teamed. We get overlooked.

"But if people are looking at Jimmy, they have no choice but to look at me, too. Some plays he gets double-teamed, some plays I get double-teamed. I'm just glad I line up next to him.''

And because Kennedy has been nominated for the Outland Award, wide receiver Bryant Johnson has been nominated for the Fred Biletnikoff Award and running back Larry Johnson has been nominated for the Doak Walker Award, there are plenty of targets for Adams' barbs.

"Every time I see Bryant I say, 'Hey, Biletnikoff. Man, you're changing ever since that watch list came out.' Or, if I see Larry I'll say 'Hey, Doak, what's happening,'" Adams said. "I might do that for two or three days. Sometimes I'll pretend I'm mad at them. But they're all pretty much used to me now.''

No one is spared Adams' needles. If you're walking and talking within his space, you're a target.

Even Joe Paterno.

It is the coach's habit to call the team together at the close of each practice session and give them his assessment of that day's performance.

And it's Adams' habit to give his coach a light pat on the butt at the end of the gathering. Most of the time Paterno simply ignores it.

"But one day he said, 'Adams, never mind the pat on the rear end. We've got to be tougher.' He has his moods, but I know when to joke with him and when not to,'' Adams said.

Adams comes by his sense of humor naturally.

"My mother is just as silly as I am,'' he said. "If you know her, you know me. I've always been that way. I was an only child and when my cousins came over to our house I would always try to make them laugh. I'm just a silly kind of guy. I'll do that stuff anywhere -- on the field, off the field, it doesn't matter.''

But usually it's his teammates who bear the brunt of Adams' wit.

"He's crazy,'' said teammate Deryck Toles. "He's a comedian. He's the funniest cat on campus. He's always acting up, always loose. I've never seen him tight and nervous about anything. We'll be in the middle of a game and he'll be dancing and clowning around. He's like an Energizer Bunny; he just keeps going.''

Against the University of Central Florida, linebacker Lamar Stewart made a solo tackle which caught Adams' eye.

"I just ran up to him at full speed and hit him,'' Adams laughed. "I think it was the hardest he was hit the whole game. He flew back so far. But I don't want to get people scared to make plays.''

Growing up, Adams wasn't interested in making plays. What he wanted to do was make baskets. Football wasn't on his radar screen. But his mother, Connie Davis, knew she had to find an outlet for her son's energy surplus before she went into deficit spending replacing the joy sticks on his Nintendo game.

"I'd hear all this noise upstairs and I knew he was by himself,'' she recalled. "I would go up there to see what was wrong and he'd be all mad, saying 'They cheated.' I asked him who cheated and he'd say the computer did. And he'd be throwing that joy stick around. I could have bought a new Nintendo game for the amount of money I spent buying new joy sticks. He was so competitive.

"He was exerting too much energy here in the house so I had to find something for him to do.''

Football, she thought. Basketball, he thought.

"He said he wanted to play basketball, but I told him that boys his size (he weighed 298 pounds coming out of eighth grade) played football,'' his mother said. "He said he didn't want to play football and I said, 'Oh yes you are.' "

"Basketball, that's what all my cousins played,'' he said. "I didn't want to play football.''

Now, he's happy he changed his mind, grateful to his mother that she pushed him to get involved in the sport where he has excelled. It provided him with an outlet for all of that energy and it has provided him with an education. He will graduate in December with a degree in business management.

Mama's boy

Once his parents separated when he was very young, Adams and his mother forged a bond that has stayed strong in the face of the temptations that faced adolescent males growing up in Detroit.

"It was just the two of us; we had to have that relationship,'' his mother said. "My job was to earn the money. His job was to get good grades. I never reneged on my job and if he reneged on his, he was in trouble.''

Adams could have been in worse trouble had he taken to the streets. It was nothing for him to hear gunshots around the corner, see drug transactions taking place in the shadows, feel the pull of peer pressure to get involved, make the quick and dirty money.

"I could easily have been selling drugs,'' he said. "I was surrounded by that in my neighborhood. Someone stole the air bag out of my mother's truck when it was parked in her driveway.

"I worry about her all the time, but I don't want her to know that. She's all I have and I'm all she has.''

And unlike so many of his contemporaries, Adams has no qualms admitting that being called a mama's boy is cool with him.

"Everyone says it,'' he said. "In high school, I was elected the class mama's boy. That's all right. She's my best friend. She knows everything there is to know about me. I love her dearly.

"I've always wanted to buy her the big house and the big car she's wanted. Maybe that will come true one day.''

Provided he hasn't spent all of his money on clothes.

Dressed for success

It was a memorable moment in Penn State football history, but one you won't see on any highlight film.

Each year there is one player on the team who sets the sartorial standard. Last year it was linebacker Shamar Finney.

This year it is, hands down, Anthony Adams.

He established his credentials in the Media Room following the Blue-White game last April, when he showed up wearing a tailored, light green windowpane plaid suit and rose-colored glasses, and carrying an umbrella.

It was a bold statement that was picked up by the media, who quickly reported on Adams' fashion selection.

"Oh, man, you guys made it worse,'' Adams' mother said. "He came home and he just went out and bought clothes.''

Not just any clothes off the rack at the mall. Suits to wear when Penn State goes on the road. Colorful suits.

"Let's see, I've got a yellow one, a light blue one, the green one,'' he said, mentally sorting through his closet.

His sense of style was imparted to him by his mother and his city.

"When I was about eight or so, I had trouble matching things,'' he said. "One day I dressed myself for school and when I came downstairs my Mom looked at me and said, 'That's not going to cut it.' So we had this long conversation.''

It was a conversation in which she explained that plaids and stripes don't work well together, and brown shoes don't go with black slacks, etc. Call it a lecture in Fashion 101.

"Well, I always thought that when he went out he was a representation of me,'' his mother said. "If I can dress OK then he can dress OK. At that time I was the manager of a men's clothing store and people said I dressed him like a little old man.

"But as he got older, he developed his own sense of style. I'm more conservative, but guys in Detroit have a certain style.''

And Adams brought it with him to Happy Valley.

"That's just how it is in Detroit,'' he said. "We're into fashion.

"On any given day you might see a guy in a yellow suit, yellow shirt, yellow socks, yellow tie, yellow belt, wearing a yellow hat, talking into a yellow cell phone, hopping out of a yellow car. If you don't know how to dress in Detroit, you're gonna get clowned.''

At Penn State, the letterwinners no longer get the traditional blue-and-white varsity jacket with the chenille "S" on the chest. Now, they get a blue blazer, which many of the players wear on road trips.

Not Adams.

"If I'm in a rush you might catch me with that on,'' he laughed.

Or maybe not.

"I asked him, 'Anthony, where's your jacket?' and he says he doesn't know,'' Connie Davis said. "I asked him if he asked anyone and he said they'd probably give him one this year.

"I want to see him in that blazer and slacks. I want to take that picture of him in his blazer.''

For his mother, he might do that.