SUPER BOWL XXVII : They Provide United Front : Commercials: Both NFL and United Way benefit from television spots designed to touch the viewers’ hearts.

The first thing you hear is quiet.

The commercials, by design, are an oasis in the middle of a Sunday afternoon resonating with noisy stadiums and somebody screaming at you to buy a truck.

“People getting up to get a beer notice that the TV has suddenly gone soft,” said producer-director Mario Pellegrini. “They stop and say, ‘What is that?’ ”

The next thing you hear is the tinkling of a piano, or the moan of a violin, or, if the objective is big-time tears, music from the song, “Memories.”

Then the vision appears, the image that the NFL and the United Way have polished for 19 years in hopes that it will touch your heart.

Big men and small children.

Beefy hands clutching tiny fingers. Thick arms draped around trembling shoulders. Big legs wading through bodies no bigger than high grass.

They all come together for what Pellegrini calls “the moment of truth.” Translated, hugs and kisses.

This season, moments of truth were as plentiful as San Francisco 49er touchdowns.

Jim Harbaugh of the Chicago Bears is kissed by two children at once. Doug Dawson of the Houston Oilers kisses one little girl twice.

Mark Carrier of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers kisses two little girls in consecutive pecks, although the first is somewhat diminished when the girl wipes it off.

Ethan Horton of the Raiders doesn’t kiss anybody, but he maybe sets an NFL-United Way standard by hugging three children at once.

Those who don’t hug, hang out.

Jacob Green of the Seattle Seahawks plays Ping-Pong with some children. Troy Aikman of the Dallas Cowboys helps a girl ride a horse.

Charles Mann of the Washington Redskins plays football with several children, although they show their gratitude by running an off-tackle play right past him.

Jim Wahler of the Phoenix Cardinals wins the award for nerve when he uses an animal puppet to speak to children who never take their eyes off his lips.

Jim Breech of the Cincinnati Bengals grills hamburgers for six children who are amazingly well behaved. Then again, they had better be, because they are all his children.

By this time, in case that guy who was getting his beer is still not having trouble swallowing, the commercials finish with Gloria Estefan singing the refrain of her inspirational hit, “Coming Out of the Dark.”

“I know the viewer can get emotional because sometimes, my own cameraman is crying,” Pellegrini said.

The spot ends, the football game returns, the United Way disappears from your vision until the next game.

But you do not forget. And that is what makes these 63-second soap operas the most successful, long-lasting partnership between a sports league and a charity.

According to a recent survey, more than one in three Americans associates the United Way with the NFL commercials. More impressive to charity officials is that many of those mention seeing the United Way commercials during the summer.

They have never been shown during the summer.

“When I go out to make a presentation, I say, ‘We’re the people from the football commercial,’ then everybody knows what I am talking about,” said Tara Finn, a director of marketing and resource development with the United Way in Green Bay, Wis.

That point will be made again Sunday, when a thank-you spot featuring this year’s best United Way spots will be shown to more than 100-million viewers during the Super Bowl.

Those 63 seconds will cost the NFL $1.8 million, which is an addition to the $45 million the league donates to cover the air time needed to show one spot during each football telecast during the season.

It has proved to be money well spent, though, and for reasons that involve more than charity.

If the experience of agent Leigh Steinberg is typical, some will watch Sunday’s commercial even closer than the game.

“My wife’s eyes sometimes glaze over during the game, but she watches those commercials with rapt attention,” Steinberg said. “I bet most viewers slightly tear up at them. Their impact is enormous.”

That impact is felt not only by the various agencies, but by those involved in the series. Sometimes, the commercials have changed lives:

--Steve Wallace, a 6-foot-5, 276 pound offensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, figured it would be a one-day assignment when he and his wife, Vassar, visited the Bay Shore Child Care Service in Daly City, Calif., last May to shoot a United Way spot.

What he didn’t figure on were the trusting, wide-eyed faces of the children waiting to be placed in foster homes.

Wallace and his wife were so touched, they decided that they had to have one.

Within two months, they had two.

Today they are foster parents of sisters who are 3 and 1, with hopes of becoming their legal parents within six months.

“We had talked about adopting someday, but, during that commercial, on the spot, we decided to do it now,” Wallace said. “We saw such a great need . . . it changed us.”

--When linebacker Reggie Williams did a United Way commercial for the Cincinnati Bengals in 1981, he had a severe speech impediment, the result of a hearing disability.

Williams spoke with such a lisp that Pellegrini had to record his voice separately in a church basement, Williams repeating his lines until they were understandable.

Today, Williams speaks as part of his job. He was in town earlier this week as the vocal leader of an NFL plan to build a youth educational training center in South-Central Los Angeles.

“Some guys aspire to the Pro Bowl, but when I came into the league, I aspired to make one of those commercials,” Williams said. “When I did, it was the turning point of my life.”

--Before Lomas Brown of the Detroit Lions did a United Way commercial during which he held hands with crack babies, he said he was an anonymous offensive lineman.

“The commercial changed my career,” Brown said. “All of a sudden, I’m as well known as any player in the Detroit area, and we have Barry Sanders on our team.”

The series has become so big, it is not uncommon for agents to pester front offices in hopes of persuading the clubs to pick their player for the spots. And some players say they do charitable work simply to increase their chances. All this, and the players are not paid. In fact, the players who are not living in town during the summer shooting even pay their own travel costs.

A strange thing happens once a player or coach is selected. Even though most will be addressing the largest audiences in their lives, they seem to lose all inhibitions.

Don Shula, the Miami Dolphin coach, shot a memorable spot in 1991, evoking the memory of his late wife, Dorothy. If his eyes looked red, well, it was because he cried several times during the shooting.

Randall Cunningham, when talking about his late parents, cried on camera.

“The human drama of these things . . . sometimes it cuts my heart,” Pellegrini said.

The edited version does more than merely show the real player, without helmet and protective shell. It often mirrors the franchise that is represented.

This year’s shot involving the laughable New England Patriots features four men dressed in Revolutionary War costumes marching through a field past defensive end Ray Agnew, who appears out of nowhere wearing a cream-colored suit.

Looking for a winner in the Super Bowl? Compare the commercials.

If Aikman steals a few hearts, Steve Tasker of the Buffalo Bills actually saves a life.

Shortly after Tasker had taken a CPR class from a local United Way agency a couple of years ago, his youngest son stopped breathing in the middle of the night. Tasker administered CPR.

The incident was recreated in the commercial, showing Tasker, a special teams star, and his wife standing outside in their robes while an ambulance pulls away.

When Tasker thanked the United Way at the end of the spot while holding the healthy boy on his hip, you believed him.

*

The most-asked question about the United Way commercials is, “Do the players really volunteer at those centers?”

The answer, in most cases, is no.

But the NFL demands only that the players have previously volunteered somewhere. That place is usually a United Way agency, if only because of the number of agencies.

And if you listen closely, the players rarely actually claim that they volunteer at the place they visit on television.

“The guy may not have ever been to that particular home for children, but if we only shot where guys actually worked, we would have too many of the same place,” Pellegrini said. “Just as long as he works with some other charity in town, I don’t care where. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t do the shot because that would be a rip-off.”

But true to the history of the United Way itself, which is still recovering from last year’s resignation of former president Bill Aramony amid charges that he used donations to support a lavish lifestyle, the commercials are not always what they seem.

“If anybody thinks that these players come over and play with these kids every day . . . c’mon,” said an official of one United Way chapter.

But the local chapters never publicly complain because they are the same people who, when surveyed last year, agreed nearly unanimously that the NFL spots were the most important service offered by the national organization.

“Because of the cost of the air time, we could never come close to producing those spots ourselves,” said John David Sidley, manager of news and marketing for the United Way of Cleveland. “Our dues more than pay for themselves just with that one commercial.”

Still, word of disappointments leak out.

Officials in the Greater Los Angeles chapter have not seen Ethan Horton since he shot their commercial last summer, although they say they haven’t pressed the issue.

“He had agreed to do several things with us but, because of commitments, it just hasn’t happened,” said Jill Nash, senior vice president. “But it is not his fault, because we have never asked him again.”

Sometimes, however, the commercial is a natural, like the pairing of Aikman and the Infant Intervention Center in Irving, Tex. In the commercial, he is holding a little boy on his lap, which he has done often.

Aikman worked at the center a couple of years before the shooting, and has since brought other players there as volunteers.

“Does Troy come out here every day and play with the kids? No . . . but he was doing things for us long before the cameras showed up,” said Phala Finley, executive director of the center, which treats developmentally disabled children.

The commercial has even produced a mini-series covering a player and child’s relationship over 16 years.

When Roger Staubach of the Cowboys was chosen as one of the first players for the commercial in 1974, he was scheduled to talk to a little boy who had survived open-heart surgery.

But the boy died before the commercial could be shot. Staubach then shot the commercial with Gayla Vaughn, a little girl who did survive the surgery.

Thirteen years later, Vaughn was named as one of the queens of her high school senior prom. Pellegrini recreated the event to film a second commercial, this time with Staubach asking her for the first dance. Two years later, when Vaughn was married, Pellegrini and Staubach were there again, filming a third commercial.

“The last thing Roger said to her was, ‘See you in the birthing room,’ ” said Mike King, a former vice president of the United Way in Dallas. “That poor girl can’t get rid of us.”

Not every commercial is so artistic, however.

In this year’s New York Giant shot, center Bart Oates is shown giving a speech to other volunteers. But hanging on the wall over his left shoulder is a piece of paper bearing the words, “Who Cares?”

Elaine Chao, president of United Way of America, immodestly says that her favorite spot is a collection of highlights during which she offers thanks to the NFL and other contributors.

“To see me surrounded by such generosity of time and heart . . . when I saw it, I had tears in my eyes,” she said. “The NFL spots are the cornerstone of our public service campaign.”

The commercials, which will continue at least until the current television contract ends after next season, are also the cornerstone of the NFL’s public service.

“The fans and communities have been very supportive of our franchises over the years. This is one way we can help repay that debt,” said Joe Browne, NFL vice president for communications and development.

Pellegrini, 60, is also repaying a debt of sorts.

Early in his career, he directed feature films. But in the late 1960s, his life changed drastically when his young wife died of leukemia.

“I realized that my films were not real,” he said. “From then on, I wanted to do something real.”

He eventually joined United Way of America and helped persuade former commissioner Pete Rozelle to start the series in 1974.

Nearly 20 years later, now running his own production company near San Francisco, Pellegrini still spends three months every summer driving around the country with a film crew, staying at inexpensive hotels and making old-fashioned tear-jerkers.

“I can’t get this out of my heart,” he says.