THE NFL /BILL PLASCHKE : These Three Kings of Charity Are . . .

Forgive us if we pause a moment amid the late hits and cheap shots and Fox-bashing and Kosar-ripping and Bills-bickering and Glanville-gashing and Babygate and Buddyball and everything else that makes the NFL so much fun.

Introducing our three wise men for 1993.

They are all great players but, at least for today, that doesn’t matter. What is important is that they are also great givers.

Not coincidentally, you wouldn’t believe the things they have received.

RICKY REYNOLDS, Cornerback, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

His hospital work was difficult, painful, unnerving. But Ricky Reynolds thought, what else was he going to do?

For nine long months beginning during the 1991 season, Reynolds was spending nearly every day at Tampa’s All Children’s Hospital anyway.

Son Derrick had been born three months premature and was fighting for his life. Wife Pam was fighting for her composure.

Ricky would fight on the field, shower, then drive to the hospital in hopes of bringing peace. The more he was there, the more he saw how much peace was needed, and not only in the pediatric nursery.

And so he began wandering the halls, visiting other sick children, arranging for his Buccaneer friends to join him. It is a practice he continues today.

“In situations like that, you learn a whole bunch,” Ricky said. “You see that you are needed, and you do what you have to do.”

So enamored of the children, he and wife Pam also began working with the local Rembrandt Boys’ and Girls’ Club.

Ricky started the football program, Pam began an outreach program that consisted of counseling mostly adolescent girls.

When Pam was reached by phone earlier this week, two of those youngsters were at their house having dinner.

And Derrick? In March of 1992, he died of multiple organ failure at 6 months old. He had never left the hospital.

Five months later, a secretary at the Bucccaneers’ office received a phone call from an agency representing a single mother who wished to give up her child for adoption.

Pam was standing in the lobby. The secretary handed her the phone.

Within 24 hours, Pam and Ricky were holding Renea Nicole. They have not let her go since.

“Our miracle,” Ricky said. “I believe now that as much as you give, it all comes back to you.”

VINCE BUCK, Cornerback, New Orleans Saints

Growing up in Owensboro, Ky., Vince Buck always wanted to meet a local professional athlete who could show him there was a reason to dream. He never did.

He would have settled for a stable male role model. But Buck never knew his father and spent his teen-age years shuttling among the homes of family members.

“Somehow, I survived, I made it out of there,” Buck said. “I feel I owe somebody for that.”

Payback last summer came in the form of long, hot days in the inner city.

While other NFL players were on vacation, Buck was battling reality in the middle of New Orleans.

When his wife left the house for her job, he left for the Milne Boys Home, where he voluntarily counseled young boys every day for two months.

“I have plenty of time to play golf,” Buck said. “I figured if I could help one kid, maybe somebody who was like me, it would be worth it.”

Tommy became that kid. He showed up at the home as a belligerent teen-ager in foster care. He wouldn’t socialize. He looked miserable.

“I spotted him right away as probably an abused child,” Buck said. “I was never abused, but I sat him down and told him about my life. We shared some things.”

After several weeks of this, Buck was wondering if he was making sense. Then one day, Tommy came to the home with two adults.

They were his foster parents. They wanted Buck’s advice. All of them.

Buck realized that he had not reached only one child, but perhaps brought a family together.

“Later, I learned that Tommy had started doing things like cleaning his room and taking out the garbage,” Buck said. “Little things, maybe. But not to him. And not to me.”

ROB MOORE, Wide Receiver, New York Jets

Growing up with 18 people in one house in Hempstead, Long Island, Rob Moore remembers having to fight for things.

But he never fought the way he had to succeed on his college entrance exams. He took the SAT three times before recording the minimum score that would allow him to enroll and play football at Syracuse University. He scored well enough on his last chance.

“I was a football player; I didn’t think I needed any books,” he said. “Then I almost lost it all because I didn’t care.”

Today he cares so much, dozens of inner-city students aren’t going to need three tries.

The last two summers, Moore has staged football’s only camp at which more time is spent on academics than football.

Called the Rob Moore Books & Ball Camp, held at the Jets’ training center near where Moore grew up, the weeklong camp consists of morning classroom sessions and afternoon field work.

Those who miss any classroom time are not allowed on the field. When the 70 or so campers graduate, they possess the basics for passing all the entrance exams.

It has cost them nothing, while the cost to Moore involves more than only money.

“I hear people--front office and players--sometimes questioning my devotion to football because I work so hard on this camp and other things,” said Moore, who formulated the camp idea with agent Gary Wichard. “I’m sorry, but this is just what makes me tick.”

He was really ticking earlier this year when he heard from a graduate named Amos, who had been living with foster parents and skipping school when he enrolled in camp.

“Well, he’ll be a senior in high school next year and he is going to be talking to some big universities,” Moore said. “To think that maybe we made some difference. . . . That is some feeling.”

BACK TO OUR FAVORITE SPORT

So what will this 20% increase in the NFL’s already obscene TV money mean?

One look at the San Francisco 49ers will tell you. Although club officials say that the new identical $9.375-million contract extensions given tackles Harris Barton and Steve Wallace this week have nothing to do with the TV money, one thing is clear.

“Teams with big stars will now be able to keep them,” agent Leigh Steinberg said. “It will help the free-agent market in terms of guys who want to move, but teams will be able to pay the guys they want to keep. Dynasties will not be undone.”

The flip side is that low-budget teams such as the Cincinnati Bengals have been sent reeling. Even though there will be about a dozen teams forced to make cuts to stay under the salary cap, if the Rams hoped to pick off some high-priced stars with no place to play, they can forget it.

GO FIGURE

--The Buccaneers, who play the Broncos at Denver on Sunday, have not defeated an AFC West team since 1979. They have never beaten four of the five teams in the division--Broncos, Raiders, Seattle Seahawks and San Diego Chargers--in 13 combined tries.

--Now They Have To Buy Him a New Recliner: Linebacker Gary Plummer had a contract clause that would have forced the Chargers, if they repeated as West Division champions, to buy him a new weight machine.

--If Miami and Cincinnati finish the season at their current positions in the standings--a probability with two games left--Don Shula’s Dolphins would visit Dave Shula’s Bengals next season in the first father-son coaching matchup in major pro sports history.

--Coach Bill Belichick, who has led the Cleveland Browns to a 6-8 record, told reporters: “To be honest with you, I feel we’re a better team now than we were at 5-2.”

--Everybody knows about the big losers in the recently completed NFL television deal. Some of the big winners could be the talent at local Fox affiliate KTTV, particularly veteran Rick Garcia.

--Peter Tom Willis’ quarterback rating for the Chicago Bears last Saturday against the Broncos was 20.0.

--It turns out that Pittsburgh running back Barry Foster was not the malingerer that we and many others suspected.

For saying that an MRI exam of Foster’s ankle showed no damage when an independent MRI showed enough damage that surgery was performed Tuesday, it is the Steeler organization that should have its head examined.