I mean, what was he going to say? That the shoulder is fine and that he can't wait for the season to start and blah, blah, blah. Been there, scribbled that.

The McNabbs were doing a blood-pressure awareness thing at AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plan for Novartis, a drug company for which they are paid spokespersons. There weren't any restrictions on the questions, but what was the point? Besides, it seemed at least a little bit interesting that this very public family was now entering its 10th year in a spotlight they chose to enter.

Ten years. There are very few football parents as well-known as the McNabbs, especially Wilma. This celebrity has brought them cash and fun and also controversy. It is clear they think it has been worth it. It is very clear, just listening to them.

"We never discussed being a public family," Wilma said. "[Donovan] is the public figure. We were just doing the public service, we thought."

But it has grown into something much bigger - a lot of it, she said, because of the series of Campbell's Soup commercials they shared. In some ways, it has to be bigger than they might have imagined.

"Sometimes things are kind of pressed upon you, to act in a certain way," Sam said. "I don't think that anywhere that I can remember, throughout this whole tenure, did we actually sit down and think that we wanted to be the family out in the limelight.

"Things happen in our lives that we're not afraid to talk about where a lot of family members maybe are," he said, including his diabetes and he and his wife's hypertension. "Donovan being who he is, I guess the opportunity kind of presents itself. Everybody's a little curious about not only Donovan, but sometimes about us as parents.

"Where we may be perceived in one light as this or that, we actually enjoy the fact that we can support him. And if we can do things in the community that can inspire and motivate others, then we do that as well."

They are perceived as meddlesome by many - no need to recount the incidents, "bitter sweet" and otherwise. They see it as merely being involved in their son's life. Donovan himself has occasionally had to make the point that his parents are their own people with their own voices. You wonder sometimes what kinds of emotions tug at him - because most athletes completely shelter their families from view these days.

"For athletes, you want to keep your family out of it - not the limelight, but out of the picture where you might put them in jeopardy," Donovan said. "A lot of times, individuals go through their careers in any sport and they're very protective of their families. I'm protective of my family . . . That's mainly because of the way society is now. It can be tough, what can happen to your family. It's nothing that we've talked about in any way - 'If this happens, we have to do this.' You just want to be natural.

"Everybody wants to see that side of you. They don't want to see . . . a player or individual as fake or trying to be somebody else. You want to be yourself. I think that's all we have been presenting to people, that this is who we are."

They are very comfortable doing these publicity tours - Chicago, Syracuse, Harrisburg and New York preceded Philadelphia. It is a long day, a lot of

talking and interviewing, but the McNabbs are good at it. They manage to shoehorn the terms "diabetes," "hypertension" and "Novartis" into just about any answer to any question if they talk long enough.

"This isn't our life," Sam said. "We don't do it every day . . . A lot of times, when we are asked, it's a privilege . . . but it's not like we crave to be in the public's eye."

Time was just about up.

Resistance was weak.

Aw, hell.

"The shoulder's fine," McNabb said. "Actually, the shoulder's great. I'm just looking forward to getting started, kind of being in training camp . . . "

Which is going to be 7 days longer this year, right?

"That's two football questions," Sam McNabb said, laughing. Two questions and no answers that we didn't already know. *

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