The young girl in eighth-grade science class may look like she's doing all right, but Claudeen Bryant knows better. The fifth-year teacher at inner-city Nashville's (Tenn.) Haynes Middle School has been around long enough to see through the facade of most struggling adolescents. She knows how easy it can be to trick people into believing everything is OK when, inside, you're an emotional wreck.

Brad McCoy has a favorite story to tell about his son Colt. It’s one that makes him more proud of his oldest boy than any touchdown pass ever could. Three years ago, Brad received a phone call on a Sunday afternoon from a man who had taken his 7-year-old son to church in Austin, Texas, earlier that morning. The man and his boy had taken seats directly behind Colt on the morning after the University of Texas quarterback had been injured in a road loss to Kansas State. Despite a trip to the hospital that revealed a pinched nerve in Colt’s neck and a late return to Austin, Colt was still in church at 8 a.m. for worship.

Very few people know what it’s like to play in the NFL. Even fewer know what it’s like to play in a Super Bowl. Only one knows what it is like to be the starting quarterback in four consecutive.

His name is Jim Kelly, and he is a football legend. From 1986 to 1996, as the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills, Kelly led his team to four consecutive Super Bowls, was selected to five Pro Bowls and passed for more than 35,000 career yards. Years before he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002, his poster graced the bedroom walls of kids nationwide, and his football cards were placed carefully into thousands of collectors’ albums.

So, let's talk about the man in the sweater vest. What are we to make of this model of straight-laced propriety? He patrols the hallowed sidelines of the Horseshoe with the air of a great military commander, mowing down foes like Patton and his tanks. But five-star generals never go to war in V-necks and an AT&T headset. And what of the slightly tinted spectacles, neatly trimmed hair and pressed slacks? It says more "professor" than "football coach."