HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- The New York Jets public relations man was just doing his job.

"You're not going to bring up the D-word are you?" he asked the reporter. "Because it will really upset him."

	Laveranues Coles leads the Jets with 73 receptions for 1022 yards.

The infamous D-word, the single word that to this point has defined the NFL career of wide receiver Laveranues Coles. Every story on the Jets' ascendant star has usually included a variation on the following paragraph:

Coles was arrested on Sept. 29, 1999 on charges of felony grand theft after he and Florida State teammate Peter Warrick paid for $412.38 worth of clothing with $21.40 at a Dillard's department store. Head coach Bobby Bowden, citing previous missteps, kicked Coles off the team four games into the season while Warrick, a Heisman Trophy candidate, missed only two games.

This might be the last one.

It was a five-minute mistake, a tragic lapse in judgment that cost Coles dearly. He had first-round talent, but the episode sent him spiraling into the third round of the 2000 draft. When the Jets finally took him with the No. 78 overall choice, 12 other wide receivers had already been drafted. In retrospect, the D-word cost Coles roughly a season of his NFL career.

You see, he came to believe the hype.

"It was just hanging over my head day in and day out," Coles said Thursday at the Jets' training facility at Hofstra University. "Of course, you start to believe the perception about you, that you're a bad person, that eventually something bad is going to happen again. Everybody's thinking that this guy here's a trouble-maker. They gave him a chance … it ain't going to be long again before something happens and he's going to be on the front page of the newspaper.

"It just made me start believing that, `Laveranues, you're a bad person. Stay away from everybody, stay in the house, because if you go out and you're around people, something's just bound to happen.' And I really felt that way for awhile."

Chad Pennington, one of four first-round picks in the same draft that brought Coles to Hempstead, identified with the wide receiver. That first year, they spent a lot of time together on the scout team.

"I think when you get burned or make a mistake and people just can't let it go, you naturally form a shell around yourself to protect yourself," Pennington said. "It's only natural, and that's what Laveranues had to do to protect himself and make sure that he didn't step out of line again to let this thing go."

His self-esteem, as Oprah might say, was less than healthy. Maybe it was the whole D-word affair or all the other baggage that he carried from college. Perhaps it was the fact that he'd played only one full year of wide receiver and was told by then-head coach Al Groh that he was viewed largely as a special teams performer. Maybe it was all those stories about the lack of impact he was making as a rookie. He had once been timed in a sick, sick 4.16 seconds in the 40-yard dash -- faster than anyone ever at Florida State, including Deion Sanders -- but he had only 22 catches.

So, how do you break the cycle? How do you summon the strength and the fire to prove everyone wrong -- including yourself?

The answer: Herman Edwards. He was hired when Groh took the University of Virginia job and, after extensive research, Laveranues Coles became one of his early projects. Both men remember a telling conversation.

"It was before training camp, and it was a nice hot day," Edwards said. "I told him, `These are the expectations that I have for you.' It was a lot of this, this, this, this, this. And he looked at me like, `The coach just got the job and he doesn't really know me.'

"I knew who he was and I watched him in college and I knew the talent this guy had. I think it was just a matter of someone telling him what they expected out of him, rather than being a follower, I actually wanted him to be a leader."

Coles added, "He said, `Laveranues, you're my guy. You're going to have to come in and have to work hard and make plays for this football team to be successful.' He said, `I'm telling you right now, you're going to be my guy.' And him looking me in my eyes and telling me that, coming in as a head coach … I was like, `This guy is giving me a chance to play wide receiver in the NFL and live out my dream and prove everybody wrong about everything they've had to say about me. ' "

That faith eventually led toward confidence. And it was a liberating feeling. Coles caught 59 passes last year for 868 yards and seven touchdowns. His speed, always lethal, was now complimented by more precise routes and a less mechanical method of catching. And then, when Pennington stepped in for Vinny Testaverde in the season's fourth game, Coles got another vote of confidence. While Wayne Chrebet had been Testaverde's go-to guy, Coles immediately became Pennington's bail-out clause.

Oh, sometimes the doubts crept in. When Coles started to get more playing time, he actually told the Jets' beat writers that the team must really, uh, stink, if they were playing him so much. The other day, when Edwards said Coles was his Jets MVP, Coles seemed stunned and said he never dreamed he would be considered in that light. Then again, Coles is only 24 years old.

	“	I think when you get burned or make a mistake and people just can't let it go, you naturally form a shell around yourself to protect yourself. It's only natural, and that's what Laveranues had to do to protect himself and make sure that he didn't step out of line again to let this thing go. ”
		— Chad Pennington, Jets quarterback

Somehow, though, he became New York's best player. Through 13 games, he has 73 catches (12th in the NFL) for 1,022 yards (10th). He is a big reason the Jets are 7-6 and winners of five of their last six games. The playoffs are still a possibility for the team that hit the bye week 1-4. Last week against, Denver Coles caught six passes for 126 yards and a huge, huge touchdown.

Early in the fourth quarter Pennington, sensing a Broncos' blitz, changed the play at the line of scrimmage to put Coles in a one-on-one situation with cornerback Jimmy Spencer. The ball, thrown into a fierce wind, was underthrown but Coles, fighting through Spencer -- he was called for pass interference -- came back to make the catch at the 2-yard-line. He then had the presence to roll into the end zone.

The play, from beginning to end, nicely framed Coles' NFL trajectory.

"It completed the wheel in the fact of all he's had to go through his whole career," Edwards said. "To make a catch at that time, to have the mindset to score … I think for him to do that is very fitting."

Pennington agreed. "That play definitely sets him up for the rest of his career."

Coles himself was moved.

"Everybody's cheering -- I'm cheering -- I'm cheering for myself like a little kid. It's kind of like a burden lifted off your shoulders for people to see you in a new light and say, `This guy here is not the guy we thought he was. He's a good man today, and a great football player."

After Wednesday's interview, Coles shook hands with the reporter, who tried to explain why it was necessary to broach the subject of the D-word, why he was just doing his job. Coles nodded and offered a muted smile.

"It's OK. I understand," he said. "I'm learning to let it go."

It's a process. He is keenly aware, for example, that of those 12 receivers drafted ahead of him in 2000, only two - Darrell Jackson of Seattle and Pittsburgh's Plaxico Burress -- have more than his 2,260 career receiving yards and three (add old teammate Peter Warrick to the list) have more than his 154 catches.

Talking to him, you get the strong impression he's headed to the top of that list, that he truly may have let the college episode go off the field. On the field, it's a different story.

"When I step on the field," Coles had said earlier, "it just boils up in me. I get to see my opponents, I get to see their coaches, and everything just flashes back from the time the incident happened. I mean, to see that draft day and all the guys that passed me over for me to come play for their team.

"And for me, it just sort of builds up inside me on game day. It's just still there and it arrives and when I just look at that coach before the game, I just him in the eyes and say, `This is the man you passed over on draft day. I'm going to show you what I'm made of.' "

Greg Garber is a senior writer at ESPN.com.