HOW NOW? : Brown Rolls Up Yardage for the Irish With Rushes, Catches, Returns . . .

Tim Brown may be unaware of what he does and how he does it, but he is not unimpressed.

“Ooh,” he says happily, seeing a new montage of one of his punt returns, a four-part sequence showing him dancing around yet another helpless tackler, frozen forever in futile levitation, “that be illin’.”

Just as happily he surveys the rest of the Notre Dame sports information office, where the covered walls have become a kind of shrine to his strange and exciting ability and says, “January 2, after eligibility, I’m up here and taking these all with me.”

Those pictures, and some numbers, and maybe a certain trophy, will be all Brown has to document his feats, which are heroic reactions really, a series of fast-fiber muscle twitches that are neither planned nor particularly remembered--but which often count six in the game’s most exciting play.

The ball is high in the air, Brown’s only conscious thought that it be inbounds and catchable, and then he becomes a complicated reflex, the only physical guideline for what follows being “I try not to get hit.” Then: Touchdown!

So far this season, the senior flanker has returned three punts for touchdowns, two of them consecutively in a highly publicized Michigan State game.

In the three years before this one, he had returned three kickoffs for touchdowns. Last year, in a spectacular upset of USC, he returned a kickoff 57 yards and a punt 56, neither for touchdowns, but both memorable enough that he can expect to be the center of attention for Saturday’s revival of the rivalry at Notre Dame.

In addition, he has caught big passes and made big runs and has made famous the all-purpose yardage category. Throughout his career, Brown has averaged 14.8 yards every time he touches the ball . Imagine, just seven Tim-touches and Notre Dame marks six.

A remarkable statistic, yet it doesn’t define his special excitement. It’s those kick returns, the football equivalent of a one-punch knockout, except that it is more deliciously anticipated, or at least awaited, yet always a surprise when it happens.

The ball floats skyward while down below nearly two dozen bodies perform a confused choreography. Sometimes the bodies fan out--either to pursue No. 81 or, depending on their alliance, to throw a miserable two-second block--two seconds?--on his behalf.

Sometimes they converge at midfield, a dangerous clot of tacklers zeroing in on this poor man with the ball. Once in a while it’s an awful collision, the kick catcher looking up from the ball just in time to collect 230 hurtling pounds in his face mask. Usually in this game, the play ends with a whimper, the victim slowed by the gantlet and eventually buried harmlessly in a pile.

But sometimes, more often with Brown than anybody in the country, this muddle down below becomes suddenly transformed. This particle emerges from the mid-field jumble with an astonishing suddenness. The acceleration is breathtaking. “Like a draft when he goes by you,” Michigan State Coach George Perles said.

No two of these are ever alike. Last week, against Air Force, Brown simply smashed up the middle to open field, or mostly open field. The punter remained, lamely holding the fort. Punters are the worst.

“It can be kind of pitiful,” Brown agrees. “But I don’t think they open their eyes anyway.”

Or perhaps, as against Michigan State, it’s entirely free-lance. One of those was supposed to be a fair catch and there was no return blocking scheme set up. But he caught the ball--not even Brown knows why--and curled toward a sideline. That acceleration again. He whooshed past everybody, his 4.3-second time in the 40 stirring up a breeze by his own bench.

“Sometimes I break tackles, sometimes I run by people,” he says, trying to be helpful. Explanations, though, are exasperating. “I find it hard to explain. I really don’t know what’s going on, except I’m trying not to get hit.”

It is one of football’s greatest sights, Tim Brown not getting hit. Picture it. That be illin’ indeed.

The emergence of Tim Brown as a Heisman hero is basically due to those punt returns. He is not often used to rush the ball and he is so well covered on passing plays that he measures his success as a decoy.

“They line up two-three guys on me,” he says. “It can get frustrating.”

Though catching passes is his favorite play, he has been held to just 16 through the Irish’s 4-1 season.

Even kickoffs, which had given him early fame last season, are largely denied him now. Notre Dame gets more squib kicks than any team in the nation. Their field position, almost always good, is as much because Brown doesn’t catch the ball as because he does. He has returned just 10 this season, after running back 25 last year.

So all he has are the punts, and not all that many of those. Opposing teams simply don’t want the ball in his hands.

“Air Force kicks two out of bounds and three more so high I had to call for fair catches,” he laments. “The one I returned, I kind of thought he was trying to kick that out of bounds, too. When I saw I was going to catch it, I was just so happy.”

The point is, Brown is hard to deny. Eventually, no matter how careful the other team is, at least once a game Brown finds opportunity. But that has been his life story. You think Air Force didn’t want him to have the ball? How about his mother!

See, Brown wasn’t supposed to play football. Ever. Back in high school, little Timmy played in the band, worked on the school newspaper and went to church--three mother-approved activities.

On the sly, he played freshman football. Not mother-approved.

“She was just being a mom,” says Brown, charitably.

He got away with it, too, until his sophomore season when he couldn’t fit band in. The band master, stirring things up, kept calling Brown’s mother, wondering where his drummer was. Of course he knew where Brown was. Brown was at football practice.

“The old band story,” Brown says. Oldest story in the world.

What’s a mother to do? Well, though she relented, she never went to his games. Never has and never will. But had she, she would have seen one versatile player. Brown had to be versatile. Playing in the big-school division of Dallas football, Woodrow Wilson High had just 25 players.

“Not enough,” Brown says.

So Brown had to perform his own roster expansion. He played wide receiver, running back, quarterback and free safety. He also returned kicks, even then “my speciality.”

Nobody played as many positions, and certainly not as well. His team won only four games in his three seasons. Still, Brown drew interest. A lot, and some of it improper, Brown and his family later thought.

He almost enrolled at Southern Methodist but was put off by rumors. Also by his brother, Donald Kelly, who straightened the lad out pronto. He would go to Notre Dame. Donald had decided.

Twists of fate, then, or a contrary family influence. He might have been a top-notch drummer somewhere, or an SMU transfer.

USC has reason to wish he was one or another, anybody but a Notre Dame player. It was in that game last year that Brown staked his claim to big-play fame.

Notre Dame, which had been struggling through yet another mediocre season, was trailing, 30-12, with only 3:52 left in the third quarter. Then Brown returned a kickoff 57 yards and the Irish eventually went the remaining 37 and brought the score to 30-20.

Then after each team had scored again, his 49-yard reception put the Irish within 26 yards of the goal line. They closed that gap, made a two-point conversion and trailed, 37-35.

With 2:15 to play, he returned a punt 56 yards to the USC 16-yard line, setting up the winning field goal. Three big plays, three ways. They accounted for 162 of his 252 yards in total offense, and each was completed in the time it took Traveler to swish his tail.

And so it has gone this season. Brown’s numbers are impressive, but only when his versatility is accounted for. His 338 yards receiving hint at his frustration; he caught 45 passes for 910 yards and 5 touchdowns last season. He has rushed just 17 times for 35 yards this season, compared to 59 times for 254 last year.

Yet, as Notre Dame is relentlessly televised--every game is network or cable this season--Brown nevertheless finds himself the center of a lot of attention, as football voters cast about for a Heisman hopeful.

Notre Dame, which hasn’t had a Heisman winner since 1964, has done absolutely nothing to help his chances. There is no campaign and, when it could have helped him, stood on a principle and refused. Brown was wanted for an appearance in the Playboy all-star spread, but school policy frowns on the association with the magazine.

Moreover, Coach Lou Holtz hasn’t restructured his offense to showcase Brown’s abilities. Brown may be taking a smaller part but he says his teammates appreciate his role just the same. After he snapped off that touchdown run against Air Force, the offensive line crowded him and said, “That really broke their backs.”

Brown couldn’t say about that, but he did agree: “It added excitement to the game.”

Even Brown, who envisions his own gallery--Jan. 2 those pictures are coming down--to remind him of it, can feel it. In that one respect, at least, he’s like the rest of us.