A LOOK AT TWO OF SUNDAY’S RAIDER, RAM OPPONENTS : NEW YORK GIANTS : Taylor Has the Energy, Again : He Faces a Tough Test After Substance Abuse

Lawrence Taylor, linebacker, is an uncommonly energetic, restless, driven young man whose idea of hell is sitting still.

Usually called L.T. and often called the best linebacker in football, Taylor, who is here to play the Raiders Sunday, was so jumpy after the 1984 season ended that he took up golf.

He excelled right off. He’s that kind of athlete. He learned the game in a week, and a week later shot a one-over-par 72.

But what people noticed most about Taylor the golfer was the nervous, restless way he went at the game. He couldn’t seem to quit.

“I’d play with friends--or I’d just go to a golf course and get a game with some guys,” he told a group of reporters at the New York Giants’ practice grounds a year ago. “I’d get them to give me some strokes, so I could win some lunch money. They think all those big black guys can’t play.

“Sometimes I’d play 45 holes a day. It was just like drugs. You know, once you start, you can’t stop.”

In the view of those who understand him, that’s the real L.T. He goes at football that way, and he goes at life that way.

Apparently he goes at alcohol that way, having once put down as many as 24 cans of beer in a single night, according to an assistant coach at North Carolina, where Taylor played college football.

And he may go at other drugs that way. Or more precisely, he may have done so. He has never identified the substance he was talking about when he said five months ago that he had been undergoing treatment for substance abuse.

The year that began fitfully on a golf course ended with a somber written statement by Taylor that he had sought professional help and that he had completed “the first phase in what I know will be a difficult and ongoing battle to overcome these problems.”

These could be beer or bourbon problems, some medics say. They say thousands of beer and wine drinkers eventually get into such a state. Or the problem could be something else.

The treatment doesn’t sound like cocaine, one of the player’s friends said. At a treatment center in Texas, Taylor was merely an outpatient for a while.

In any case, there are two larger questions now--whether he’s well again and whether he’s still playing well for the Giants. At the Coliseum Sunday, Raider fans can judge his play for themselves.

It has been five years since L.T. established himself as the game’s dominant linebacker. Is he holding up through his problems?

“I’m just a ballplayer this year, not an interview,” Taylor said at training camp last month, declining further comment.

Giant Coach Bill Parcells said: “He’s doing fine.”

Dave Klein, who covers the Giants for the Newark Star Ledger, said: “He’s just fair.”

Peter King, who covers the Giants for Long Island’s Newsday, said: “He was in Dan Fouts’ face a lot last week. I think he’s played effectively this season.”

In former years, the adverb would have been brilliantly .

As Taylor starts his sixth season with the Giants--he has been All-Pro each season--his teammates remain either supportive or noncommittal.

Harry Carson told Eastern reporters: “The (Taylor issue) is a closed issue now. L.T. is a fine player.”

Said General Manager George Young, who built the Giants into a Super Bowl contender: “To me, this is the same old Lawrence Taylor. When the other team’s quarterback comes up to the line of scrimmage, I notice that they’re still looking around to see where 56 (Taylor) is.”

Yes, but. At 27, is Taylor contributing as much to the Giant defense as he did in the years when he became known as the greatest linebacker since Dick Butkus?

Harry Hulmes, a veteran National Football League executive now serving the Giants as assistant general manager, said Taylor’s production as a football player has remained amazingly constant through his five-year Giant career.

“L.T. had 133 total tackles as a rookie in 1981,” Hulmes said. “After the strike year (1982), he had 125 tackles in 1983, 114 in 1984, and 104 last year. And remember, he keeps getting more (blocking) attention all the time.

“Remember his sacks, too. L.T. had 9 1/2 sacks in 1981, 7 1/2 in 1982, 9 in 1983, 11 1/2 in 1984 and 13 1/2 in 1985. I don’t see any dropoff in his performance, none whatever.”

Some Eastern reporters, quoting unidentified Giant players, question whether Taylor has actually been that productive.

Even if he were talking to reporters, it’s doubtful that Taylor would have much to say about it. He never has. Born in Williamsburg, Va., L.T. was the second of three sons of a shipyard worker who struggled to keep the family afloat. Thus he started shy and rebellious, they say, and still is.

At the same time, his old friends have always found Taylor to be loyal.

In 1981, soon after the Giants made him the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft--behind George Rogers of New Orleans, now Washington--Taylor got some distressing news while he was in New York celebrating.

A former North Carolina teammate, Steve Streater, had been paralyzed in an auto accident, and Taylor rushed off immediately to see him. When he returned to New York, Taylor said: “I’ve dedicated my season to him.”

Streater today is North Carolina’s coordinator of Students Against Drunk Driving. When Taylor’s substance problem surfaced last winter, Washington Post reporter Bill Brubaker looked Streater up.

Taylor’s problem in college, Streater said, was that he wasn’t getting enough respect. So one night he decided to do something about it.

“He walked into a bar and busted up everything--chairs, glasses, everything,” Streater said. “That’s what he thought it took to gain respect.”

Brubaker spent a month in North Carolina, New Jersey and New York last spring investigating Taylor’s substance problem and life style.

These are some of the things he found:

--Lawrence and Linda Taylor live in a five-bedroom house in an affluent suburb on an acre of New Jersey where a Doberman keeps guard and a maid keeps house while a baby-sitter keeps track of their two kids. The sitter, who doubles as Taylor’s bodyguard, is a former teammate.

--Taylor is the highest-paid defensive player the NFL has had. This year’s earnings: $750,000, or $46,875 a game. In each of the next four years, he will be paid $850,000, $900,000, $1 million and $1.1 million.

--In his investment portfolio, Taylor has interests in Arabian horses, Holstein cattle, a house in Virginia, a hotel in New York and a horse farm and an apartment complex in Southern California. Brubaker said: “At one point last year he had between $400,000 and $500,000 in a New Jersey bank account. Ready cash.”

--When he signed his first Giant contract, Taylor paid $100,000 of his $250,000 bonus to agent Mike Trope. He also gave $10,000 to relatives, bought a three-bedroom house for his parents and began sending $700 monthly to his mother.

--Taylor has spent some of his time at a go-go bar named the Bench in Carlstadt, N.J., near Giants Stadium. The bar’s manager, Vinnie Ravo, said his family and the Taylors have taken vacations and socialized together.

This “apparently disturbed Parcells,” Brubaker said, “because Ravo has a criminal record that includes felony convictions in New Jersey for larceny and receiving stolen property.”

Giant defensive end Leonard Marshall told Brubaker: “(Giant coaches) know the Bench has all the possibility of becoming a bad joint, a type of joint where a drug guy would hang out. Don’t make yourself too visible in this place.”

Ravo’s lawyer said his client has nothing to do with drugs. The NFL hasn’t announced any investigations of the place.

--At North Carolina, Taylor had a wild and crazy image, according to an assistant coach, who said: “He’d jump a good six or seven feet in the air to block a punt, then land on the back of his neck. He was reckless, just reckless.”

Reckless and loaded with energy. According to King and other Giant writers, that’s still his image as a citizen of New Jersey.

Last year, driving into the club’s parking lot at Giants Stadium, Taylor suddenly stepped on the gas, throwing a big scare into the other players.

The areas of the parking lot are lined with metal barrels. Driving his yellow Mercedes, Taylor slalomed around the barrels as if he were a disturbed visitor from Aspen.

“He was going 50-60 m.p.h.,” King said.

So he has more energy than a reactor. So he’s nervous, reckless, high strung. So what? Is it a crime to sit down and drink 24 beers?