A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

. . We were really starting to flail What does a 10-year-old girl look like , an

yway ? Does Rachel look like a boy ? when my 17-year-old , an athlete himself , 

happened onto the conversation and with one breathtakingly spare observation put

 the matter firmly to rest . `` Rachel , '' he said , `` looks like a soccer pla

yer . ''

 LOS ANGELES Rob Reiner 's 1984 rock-documentary parody film `` This Is Spinal T

ap '' inspired many of those who saw it to retell some of its best bits , like i

ts gags about exploding drummers , but for actor-screenwriter Rusty Cundieff , i

t did much more . It inspired him to make his own movie spoof . `` I was a big f

an of ` Spinal Tap , ' ' ' says Cundieff , 29 , during a midmorning interview at

 a diner near his home , adding that he has seen the film at least 11 times . ``

 It 's truly , truly awesome . It 's one of the best parodies it 's so subtle . 

'' The movie Cundieff directed , wrote and starred in , `` Fear of a Black Hat ,

 '' spoofs rap the way `` Spinal Tap '' spoofs rock , and it 's often as funny a

s its inspiration . Much as Reiner 's film tracks the career of a hard-rock band

 , `` Fear of a Black Hat '' follows the exploits of the fictitious hard-core ra

p group N.W.H. ( the `` H '' stands for hats ) and its members , Tone Def , Tast

y-Taste and Ice Cold , who is played by Cundieff . Cundieff , an actor and stand

-up comedian , decided he wanted to direct a rap parody movie in 1990 after memb

ers of 2 Live Crew were arrested in Florida for performing songs from `` As Nast

y as They Wanna Be . '' They were later found not guilty . `` It just seemed lik

e a ridiculous thing , '' Cundieff says . `` The ( First Amendment issue ) was i

mportant , but it was ridiculous the way it came about ... . The idea was to do 

a film like ` Spinal Tap ' that had a group of rappers who were on death row for

 obscenity ( charges ) . '' `` Fear '' eventually evolved into a broad parody of

 hip-hop culture that spares few rappers and few rap conventions . The pseudo-my

stical Tone Def sounds suspiciously like Prince B. of PM Dawn ; minor characters

 Vanilla Sherbet and MC Slammer have obvious real-life counterparts ; and the mo

re one knows about rap , the more inside jokes one can spot . In a nod to `` Spi

nal Tap , '' the group 's managers rather than its drummers die under mysterious

 circumstances . ( Begin optional trim ) `` The movie plays on a few different l

evels , '' Cundieff says . `` People who are really into rap and understand the 

business get one area of it . People who aren't into rap laugh at it , but in an

 entirely different way . People who are really into rap , and seriously take it

 as real , don't like the movie . `` One of the things that a lot of people don'

t seem to realize is that rap is a performance , just like anything else ... . I

t 's kind of scary when people take the lyric to a song and turn it into a polit

ical frame of mind : ` OK , we are basing our dogma on this : `` Fight the Power

. '' ' The song is a great song .. . but you hope the people will go beyond that

 . '' Making `` Fear '' not only gave Cundieff his first chance to direct , but 

it also gave the longtime rap fan his first chance to grab the microphone himsel

f he does some of the rapping on the movie 's soundtrack , a collection of N.W.H

. songs that includes `` My Peanuts , '' a send-up of Run DMC 's song `` My Adid

as , '' and the group 's controversial hit `` ( Expletive ) the Security Guards 

. '' About two weeks ago , he went into the studio to cut a new track for a soon

-to-be-released video by Ice Cold 's newest persona controversial gangsta rapper

 Ice Froggy Frog . ( End optional trim ) Though Cundieff pokes fun at hip-hop 's

 cliches , he seems to have a genuine love of the music , which he started liste

ning to in the early 1980s while growing up in Pittsburgh . After graduating fro

m the University of Southern California , he started doing stand-up comedy and a

cting . After appearing in a small role in Spike Lee 's `` School Daze , '' Cund

ieff decided he wanted to write and direct . `` Spike was really influential , '

' Cundieff says . `` Any time anyone had a problem with what he was doing , he '

d say : ` If you don't like it , direct it yourself . ' It made total sense to m

e . '' Cundieff and `` Fear '' producer Darin Scott a big `` Spinal Tap '' fan a

nd a friend of Cundieff 's used $ 600 they won gambling on a trip to Las Vegas t

o make a 20-minute video version of the movie they could shop around to producti

on companies . Though none were immediately interested , ITC picked up the movie

 in 1992 . The film premiered at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival and was well re

ceived , but internal changes at ITC caused the film to be delayed for about a y

ear . Even if the delay affects how the film does at the box office , Scott stil

l regards `` Fear '' as a success because it helped the two land other projects 

, including `` Tales From the Hood , '' an urban suspense anthology they co-wrot

e , which will be produced by Spike Lee . `` No matter how well it does at the b

ox office , it 's already ( done well ) for us , '' Scott says of `` Fear . '' `

` We 're making more movies . ''

 After more than a century of girding the loins of American male athletes and gi

ving its name to those who wear it the jock is slipping . `` I never see jockstr

aps anymore , '' says Michael Joy , 17 , a high school junior in West Hartford ,

 Conn. . Joy , who plays basketball and lacrosse , says although cup protectors 

are de rigueur for lacrosse , the jock alone is definitely an endangered species

 . The jock continues to have its supporters it 's still issued by many college 

and pro teams . And protective cups , both hard and soft , with cup supporters t

hat , with any luck , keep them in position , have never gone out of style in co

ntact sports . But novel fabrics and designs have helped to create a new generat

ion of athletic underwear . Undoubtedly the fastest growing jock alternative is 

compression shorts those skin-tight spandex shorts made famous by college and pr

o basketball players . ( Some athletes do wear jocks under their compression sho

rts . ) Also edging out the traditional strap are light , brief-type supporters 

that feel and look like the underwear that up-and-coming athletes are used to . 

`` Most of all , it 's the advent of new materials , '' says Bob Beeton , manage

r of the clinical services program in sports medicine at the U.S. Olympic Commit

tee training center in Colorado Springs , Colo . Beeton says jockstraps are incr

easingly rare among would-be Olympians . `` It 's a lot more comfortable getting

 your support from something that is kind of a full-sleeve support rather than s

omething with straps and bands around it and never seems to stay where it 's sup

posed to , '' says Beeton . The jock is not simply another piece of clothing . T

hose in middle age and older can remember when getting the first jock sometimes 

required for junior high or high school physical education classes or youth spor

ts was an awkward rite of passage . It has been a rich source of rib-tickling lo

cker-room humor : The old Ben Gay-in-the-jock rarely failed to get a laugh , and

 seniors often tried to convince unwary freshmen that the strange , new applianc

e was really a noseguard . Who can dispute its many contributions to the colorfu

l language of sport ? Will it be possible to fake someone out of his compression

 shorts ? One would think that the demise of the jock would be met with anguish 

at the jock capitol of the world : the Knoxville , Tenn. , headquarters of Bike 

Athletic Co. , the company that developed and sold the first jockstrap in 1874 i

n Boston to protect the privates of bicycle jockeys ( thus the name ) who were b

ouncing over Beantown cobblestones . Bike sold its 300 millionth jock two years 

ago . `` There are a lot of different products out there cannibalizing the jock 

business , '' says Beth Hamilton , marketing manager for the elastics division ,

 which includes jockstraps . The jock `` is on the way out , but I can't tell yo

u that it 's gone . There are still people who prefer the traditional supporter 

. '' Actually , Bike invented compression shorts , so it is happily competing wi

th itself . The shorts were originally designed from surgical hose 15 years ago 

to reduce hamstring injuries and groin pulls among football players . And Bike i

s further diversifying : Besides brief-type jocks and special lightweight number

s for runners and swimmers , Bike this summer will add a line of men 's underwea

r briefs `` with a mild degree of support , '' according to Hamilton . Bob Gfell

er , senior marketing manager of Champion Underwear of Winston , N.C. , another 

jock maker , calls the traditional strap `` a low-end loss-leader for our line .

 '' It 's an entry-level item , he says , but it accounts for only 5 percent of 

Champion 's underwear business , while its Cool Jock one of the new wave of ligh

tweight jocks , has 8 percent . Compression shorts are 65 percent of Champion 's

 business . `` You 're seeing a move out of jocks and into compression pants , '

' he says . ( Optional add end ) The need for support is reiterated constantly b

y sports-medicine experts . Dr. John Fulkerson , head of sports medicine at the 

University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington , echoes this advice : `` 

If athletes don't have some form of protection and support , they are at additio

nal risk of injury . '' ( Protection and support , technically , are two differe

nt things , according to Bike 's Hamilton . A cup supporter is designed only to 

hold a cup in place , not to support the genitals . For both protection and supp

ort , she says , you need to wear both a cup and a supportive garment . Compress

ion pants , by the way , make everything feel tight , but they don't provide qui

te the same support as jocks . Claims that they help prevent groin and hamstring

 injuries have not been clinically evaluated . ) Dr. Jeffrey P. York , a Portlan

d , Maine , urologist who has written on sports and the male genitals , agrees t

hat athletes need protection and support . But he notes that the part about supp

ort is more a common-sense opinion than the product of exhaustive research . If 

male athletes slam their testicles around over a long period of time , he says ,

 they 're likely to end sore , even bruised . Dr. Kennon Miller , an assistant p

rofessor of urology at the State University of New York , Buffalo , says support

 in athletics is not a matter of plastering the family jewels tightly against th

e abdomen but of `` gathering the genitals in a little more of a defined area . 

'' Jocks do this quite well , he notes , but so do good-fitting briefs , the bui

lt-in briefs in some running and gym shorts and some kinds of compression shorts

 . Traditional jocks , he says , can chafe some men more than alternatives ( com

pression shorts are particularly chafe-proof ) . And wearing yesterday 's dirty 

jock can worsen existing skin problems such as `` jock itch , '' a yeast infecti

on . If the need for support is so obvious , why did the ancient Greeks who were

 smart enough to invent democracy , geometry and assisted suicide not wear jocks

 ? Such a question plagued the late Waldo E . Sweet , a professor of classics at

 the University of Michigan , who devoted a chapter to the topic in his 1987 boo

k , `` Sport and Recreation in Ancient Greece . '' Sweet 's conclusion , based o

n glosses of ancient texts , interviews with nudists and a little firsthand birt

hday-suit running , was that the cremaster muscle , which lifts or lowers the te

sticles involuntarily based on temperature or stress lifts away during exercise 

. The Greeks figured out that nature provides its own support . York says nature

 's built-in jockstrap undoubtedly does kick in as exercise begins . However , a

s the body temperature goes up with an extended workout , the cremaster and othe

r muscles in and around the scrotum will relax . `` If I were running a marathon

 , '' he says , `` I 'd probably wear an athletic supporter . '' He also notes t

hat the body may adapt to some kind of habitual exercise . `` Too many of us are

 weekend athletes , '' he says . Nonetheless , the Greek way seems to appeal to 

a segment of young athletes who forgo support for style . Josh Lippman , an 18-y

ear-old high school junior in West Hartford , Conn. , says although the jock is 

surviving , there is an anti-jock movement among teen-agers . `` A lot of kids a

re wearing boxers now , even for sports , '' he reports . `` They think you 've 

got to hang loose . ''

 GLENELG , Md. . It 's a slow , meandering journey from New Jersey to Georgia on

 a mule . That 's how Keri Martin likes it . She 's a 40-year-old woman with no 

permanent home who travels the country on her mule , Samuel 3 mph when she walks

 him , 2 mph when she rides . `` I don't rush , '' says Martin , who was visitin

g friends here recently . `` It 's the trip that matters . '' She took three wee

ks to travel from her father 's house in New Jersey to Glenelg , where she staye

d one week before departing for Georgia . If you gauge a trip by the time it tak

es to get there , then Martin ranks last . But if you measure the journey by pea

ce of mind , then she finishes ahead of most of us . Her father , a corporate ex

ecutive , has come to realize that . `` I 'm sure there are times you look at yo

ur job and your life and wonder : ` Is this all there is ? '' says Frank Martin 

, 63 , by telephone from New Jersey . `` There 's a little bit of Keri in all of

 us . '' Plain-spoken with a grand smile , Martin wears her usual outfit : Old h

at , wire-rim glasses , scarf tied around her neck and overalls . Two pigtails h

ang down her back . `` I guess the old-time pioneer spirit is still left in a fe

w people , '' she says . She 's not sure why it 's left in her , but she remembe

rs in the sixth grade having to write a composition about what she wanted to do 

when she grew up . She wanted to ride a horse across country . That was admirabl

e for a 12-year-old girl living in the suburbs of New Jersey . But when she got 

a job at a riding stable in high school , bought a mare for $ 250 and announced 

her intention of riding west after graduation , that was unsettling for her pare

nts . She left with her mare , Lady David , after midnight to avoid the daytime 

traffic around Philadelphia . She crossed the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge over the Del

aware River leading Lady David , blindfolded , next to a police escort with flas

hing lights . `` I didn't have any idea where I was going , '' Martin says of th

at 1972 trip . `` I was just heading out . I still do that sometimes , just head

 out . '' The trip lasted two months , derailed a week by Hurricane Agnes and fi

nally stalled in Western Maryland near Sugarloaf Mountain when Lady David bent a

 shoe . Martin went to college that fall , attended three years and dropped out 

. She worked at a riding stable , learned blacksmithing and then got the itch ag

ain and again , and again . This is her eighth journey . She 's ridden as far we

st as Texas . Working odd jobs , she settles down for short stretches at her fat

her 's , at friends ' farms . `` When the grass starts growing in the spring , '

' she says , `` I 've got to go somewhere . '' ( Optional add end ) Martin was r

obbed once . She 's been pestered by drunks , and once a driver accidentally sid

eswiped her mule but didn't hurt him . That 's about all the bad things that hav

e happened , she says . `` For hours you can think what you want to think , '' s

he says . `` You can go all day and not say a word to anybody . `` I 'm not the 

kind of person who gets lonely . I don't get bored either . I 'm happy doing thi

s . I don't see any reason to change . '' Materialism is not for her . `` The mo

re possessions you have , the more you have to work to pay for them , '' she say

s . `` If all you own is a mule and a few possessions , you don't have to work t

hat much. .. . Life 's supposed to be fun , at least that 's the way I look at i

t . '' She packs lightly a tent , some food and not much else . Traveling alongs

ide the road , she rides Samuel up hills , walks him down hills and splits the r

est of the time riding and walking . `` He 's got over 8,000 miles on him , '' s

he says of Samuel , who is 16 . `` I 'm going to have to retire him pretty soon 

. '' Samuel is her second mule . She switched from horses because , she says , m

ules are sturdier , friendlier and better travelers . The pair sleep at night in

 woods or fields . Attracting a lot of attention during the day , they 're often

 invited to stay with strangers . Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washingto

n Post News Service .

 This will be the summer of Joe 's 10th year , the summer of letting go . I can 

see in my son an anxiousness to be free of little boydom . In me , there is just

 anxiousness about the little freedoms that I will be forced to grant , about th

e freedoms he will stretch and embroider , about rules he will bend and break , 

just to see if I am serious , just to see how far he can get . I have seen it co

ming all this year . He pressed me to be allowed to return to the school playgro

und with his buddies , and came home with new words to try out on me . I could s

ee him calculate my reaction . Just what do mothers do when you say those things

 ? On another trip to that playground , he was threatened by some older boys and

 tried not to show how shaken it had left him . He is ready for all this . I 'm 

not so sure about me . My own memories come into focus about the age of 10 , so 

I am conscious of this turning point for him . It pains me to think that all we 

have done together up to now will be lost to him , that it will be me telling hi

m about the memories , not him remembering them . That what has meant the most t

o me during these 10 years will exist only in photo albums for him . But I am al

so pleased with the kind of clean slate his amnesia will give me . We can start 

over , sort of , building this wonderful relationship that will sustain us throu

gh his adolescence . I 'm not sure how to do it , though . I had sisters . I don

't know what it is like to be a 10-year-old boy . At 10 , I was waiting to wear 

a bra and shave my legs . He wants to ride his bike across a four-lane road to p

lay at a dock on a deep and forbidding stream . I was trying to get my mother to

 let me have bangs . He wants to spend all day in the woods where liquor bottles

 have been found and where teen-agers smoke . I don't know if I will like it if 

I can't hear his voice through the screen door . While I wanted to read `` Archi

e and Veronica '' comic books and drink Cokes with older girls when I was 10 , J

oe has buddies with Swiss army knives and real bows and arrows . My girlfriends 

' mothers took me with them to the new mall in our neighborhood . Joe has a frie

nd whose dad might take him hunting . Did I think he was going to play Legos in 

front of the television for the rest of his life ? Joe and his dad are best frie

nds now . It used to be me . Now , I feel like a woman who comes in to do the wa

sh . But why would you want to go to a children 's theater performance of `` Cin

derella '' when somebody else will take you to the batting cages ? So soon ? He 

used to love seeing plays with me . Now , he and his dad trade their mild bathro

om jokes in whispers out of earshot of disapproving me . When Joe fidgets in chu

rch , it is his dad who settles him by telling him to pray for hits . His father

 is now endlessly amusing while I his partner during years of intimate moments h

ave become a bore . `` Ohhhh , mom ! '' is what I hear most often these days . J

oe used to wear the polo shirts , khakis and Docksiders I chose for him . ( His 

father says I dressed him like someone I would like to have dated . ) Now , most

 days , he looks like a pile of dirty wash and glad of it . His long , delicate 

fingers are always filthy now I swear , it looks as if he digs for his food and 

his nails are chipped and broken . He still slips that little paw into my hand w

hen we walk , but I wonder how long that will last . He doesn't seem to be very 

curious about sex . I guess I am grateful for that . But there is one girl in hi

s class that he doesn't absolutely hate , and he endures endless teasing when he

 refuses to disparage her . He never cared if his teeth were brushed , but sudde

nly he cares what his hair looks like . Oh my , I can see him in a prom tux ! I 

don't like what he chooses to wear to school ; I will never approve of whom he w

ants to date . How did we get to this point , Joe and I ? How did I , a college 

hippie and a ground-zero feminist , end up with a station wagon full of Little L

eaguers ? How did I , who wanted the sports section of my college newspaper disb

anded as irrelevant , come to feel such pride in the fact that my son bats secon

d and fields like Chris Sabo ? Joe and I got to this point together , I guess , 

traveling down the same road these 10 years . I can't help but wonder when that 

road will fork for us . Sometime in the next 10 years , I suppose .

 What 's a mother to do ? One of the earliest choices she makes is how to feed h

er child , but society doesn't always make the best choice an easy one . New Yor

k State has recently enacted a law protecting a woman 's ability to breast-feed 

in public and imposing stiff penalties on people who try to interfere . Breast m

ay be best , but the American public still tends to confuse the fundamentally de

cent act of nurturing a baby with the crime of indecent exposure . Even a few fa

cts about breast-feeding versus the bottle can make the decision a no-brainer no

t just for mothers , but for policy makers , employers , health insurers and any

one else concerned about public health and welfare . Breast-fed babies get fewer