By KIT STIER
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

The unidentified assailant in Kevin Mawae's most vivid memory of a fumbled football isn't serving time on a Louisiana chain gang.

When a football is fumbled, the few seconds of chaos that ensue would likely make normal human beings cringe with fear.

Evil lurks at the bottom of the pile. Officials can't clearly see what goes on there, so what goes on there often inspires deviant behavior.

"I actually had a guy in high school who pulled a shoestring out of the equipment box during the game on the sideline, and when we asked him what he was going to do with it he said, 'I'm going to choke somebody with it,' " said Mawae, the New York Jets' five-time Pro Bowl center, recalling an incident that took place during his high school days in Louisiana.

"And sure enough in the next series, we're at the bottom of a pile and he's got his shoelace strapped about the guy's throat. In all my years of football, that's probably the craziest thing I've ever seen."

Jets quarterback Chad Pennington calls a lost fumble one of the most demoralizing things that can happen to an offense.

"But buyer beware when you are at the bottom of the pile," Pennington said. "You better close your eyes. After you get the ball in your hands, you better hold on so tight that you catch a cramp."

No player would debate that advice.

"It's brutal, to be honest," Mawae said. "Everything you can't see in the open field takes place at the bottom of the pile. Guys are grabbing fingers, sticking hands in face masks. If a guy has the ball, you try to bend his fingers back to get the ball. I don't think there's anywhere dirtier on the field than at the bottom of a scrum with the football."

Yet even in a mad scramble, sometimes there are players who try to use a subtle approach.

"Like one time I got a fumble and everybody was going, 'Give me the ball! Give me the ball!' " Jets defensive end John Abraham said. "I didn't know if it was one of my teammates or somebody else, so I just squeezed the ball tighter. I wasn't going to let go.

"It can get dark under the pile. You can't really tell one color from another color."

Asking for the ball wasn't on the mind of a villain second-year Jets safety Derek Pagel once saw when the quarterback of his team was stripped of the ball during a high school game in Iowa.

"They just gang-piled him," Pagel said, wondering if he should tell this sordid tale. "I remember he was on his back laying on somebody. He was lying there with his legs spread open. All I could see was this hand come up from underneath and ... "

Better let Jets coach Herman Edwards finish up for Pagel.

" ... And grabbing certain body parts you wouldn't think guys would do, basically," Edwards said.

Pagel will never forget that play.

"From the moment the person made contact with him, I can still vividly remember the emotional change in his face, from being upset at being sacked to a complete 180 of just fury and being upset that a person would do that," Pagel said.

Jets running back Curtis Martin will neither discuss fumbles, nor discuss why he won't discuss them.

"I'll talk about anything else, but I don't want to talk about fumbles," Martin said politely.

Edwards said he understands why Martin would take such a position. The coach, a former Philadelphia Eagles cornerback, remembers one Hall of Fame running back who literally took matters into his own hands after fumbling.

"Walter Payton," Edwards said, laughing. "You'd see guys jumping off the pile because he would pinch them. He would actually pinch them. I know because he pinched me. You would see guys jumping and going, 'Whoa!' He really had strong fingers. He would grab a guy's skin and guys were hopping off, going, 'What is going on?' He'd get you off of him, man."

It's not like there has been photographic evidence of life at the bottom of the pile. NFL Films hasn't captured play in those dark depths like National Geographic has filmed life inside a nest of nasty snakes.

By the way, Mawae was asked: Did the guy with the shoelace get caught?

"No, he didn't get caught," Mawae said, grinning. "It was at the bottom of the pile."

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