An hour before dawn, the old pickup truck with the rusted-out bumper and the wood-slat railing would sputter through both stop lights in Gibsonville, N.C., before coming to a halt near Torry Holt's home on Homestead Street. Too young for a worker's permit but eager to pitch in and help his family, the young teenager would stumble out of bed, hold his nose while tugging on his sticky clothes, and crawl into the back of the truck for the bumpy 10-minute ride to the tobacco fields.

Soaked by the dew of the plants and often shivering in the morning chill, Holt would then reach in through the tacky leaves of the chest-high plants, grasp a stalk, drop his weight into the plant until it broke, tear it down toward the snake-infested mud and then yank a leaf into the air and tuck it under his left arm in a single motion. Clench, push, break … pull, swing, tuck. Clench, push, break … pull, swing, tuck. Over and over and over, until the sun came out and baked the gluey tar into his clothes and skin, and his arms became so tired he would shove his hands into his pockets to keep from carrying them.

Once a tobacco leaf is pulled from the stalk and hung out to dry in the sun, it actually begins to resemble a football, an image that works perfectly for Holt. After all, the man who led the NFL with 1,635 receiving yards in 2000 can trace most of his football success back to the tobacco fields of rural North Carolina. The powerful hands that Holt used at NC State to seize an ACC-record five receiving touchdowns against Florida State in 1997? They were honed in those fields.

"Most guys catch the ball," says veteran Rams receiver Ricky Proehl, "Torry attacks it."

The guts he showed when he played through a hit by Derrick Brooks that cracked his ribs and had him spitting up blood on the sidelines but didn't stop him from leading the Rams with seven catches in the 1999 NFC championship game? Nurtured in those fields.

And the silky smooth serpentine moves and flashbulb speed the six-foot, 190-pound rookie displayed on his way to seven catches and 109 yards in Super Bowl XXXIV? Hey, you had to be quick to escape the black and green snakes that lurked in the shade beneath those tobacco plants.

For Torry Holt, it all began humbly, in those Carolina fields. And like the goo from those tobacco leaves, the lessons stuck.

"Pulling tobacco made me who I am today," says Holt. "I haven't taken anything for granted since I worked in those fields. I work hard now to be the best -- and stay the best -- because I don't ever want to go back to those fields."

The lessons continued after he finished his six-hour shift in the fields. He'd collect his 30 bucks and head to Jack's Barbecue on West Main Street in Gibsonville (pop: 4,300) for a Big Boy with coleslaw and chili. Then he'd return home to help care for his mother, Ojetta, whose long battle with lymphoma ended at age 43, on Dec. 27, 1996. (Ojetta and Holt's father, Odell Shoffner, were together for 25 years but did not wed until 1995, which is why Holt took his mother's name.) Even while she was being treated, Ojetta would complete a full shift at a local yarn mill and then make dinner and do housework well into the evening. Torry would often stay up with his mother and rub her temples to help her fall asleep after a rough round of chemo.

"I play with no fear," says Holt. "Because I've seen real pain and real suffering up close. I try to apply what my mother taught me to my life, which is to live with a sense of urgency, to maximize every opportunity, because it can all be taken away from you in a moment. I attack things full steam because that's what she would have done."

Holt considered going pro after his junior season, but stayed at NC State to play a year with his younger brother, Terrence, and to do what all smart tobacco farmers do with their best product -- let it cure as long as possible to become something truly special. On the day he decided to come back to school, Holt marched into assistant coach William Hicks' office and asked for a promise: "If I come back for my senior year, will you work with me and make me better every day until the draft?" Over the next 16 months, Hicks says, Holt did not take a single day off. Says Dick Vermeil, the man who made Holt the sixth pick overall in the 1999 draft: "Work is his middle name."

Holt spent his summer toiling away in a field under the blazing Carolina sun -- only this time it was a football field, and he was pulling down passes and snaking through a collection of orange cones until his routes were sharp enough to slice paper. Over those 16 months, he poured himself through his palette of gifts and lessons -- the vice-grip hands, the rock-hard body, the 4.35 speed, the hardscrabble hours in the field, those nights easing his mother's pain -- and the portrait that emerged was of an athlete with a clear, confident sense of his abilities, one who could relax and excel in the tensest moments on the field.

"I prepared to play at a level like no other," says Holt. "I ran the extra routes. I watched the extra film. I caught those extra balls. So when the pass goes up and I'm going up top to get it, I'm coming down with it. There is no doubt in my mind."

Because of a propensity for pulling off huge performances in the most important games, Holt's Wolfpack teammates tagged him Big Game. He has a new clothing line to match the moniker, and his personal voicemail greeting now asks callers to leave a message for Torry "Big Game" Holt.

As a senior, Holt led the Wolfpack to one of the biggest upsets in college football history -- a 24-7 win over the No. 1 ranked Seminoles -- with nine catches, including 1 TD, and a 68-yard punt return that broke the game wide open.

"Torry got the absolute crap knocked out of him on that punt," says Hicks. "It should have been a highlight-reel hit for the defender. Instead, Torry just kept his balance, shook it off, kept churning and bolted to the outside. Such strength and power … I mean, there are, maybe, one or two other football players in America who could make that play. That's what makes me think, 10 years from now, that we'll all be talking about Torry Holt the way people talk about Jerry Rice."

The big games for Big Game continued when Holt hit the NFL. As the Rams surged toward an NFL title in 1999, Holt snagged 25 passes for 429 yards and four scores in the final six regular-season games, and he led the team in catches in each of its three playoff contests.

"He's just a flat-out playmaker," says Rams coach Mike Martz. In Week 4 of the 2000 season, Holt piled up 189 yards and 2 TDs on just three catches against the Falcons, for an NFL-record 63 yards per catch. Holt went on to finish 2000 with 82 grabs, 6 TDs, an eye-popping league-best 19.9 yards per catch and an invite to the Pro Bowl. He was first player to lead the league in receiving yards and yards per catch since Wesley Walker in 1978.

"Torry says he wants to be one of the best in the league," says Ken Zampese, the Rams wide receivers coach. "But, shoot, look at the numbers and look at what he does for this team -- he already is."

To highlight his rare combo of burst, brawn and ball-catching ability, the Rams have added a corner route to their repertoire -- specifically for Holt -- called Deep 7.

"Every time he runs that route he's open," says Rams quarterback Kurt Warner. "We watch him run Deep 7 and shake our heads in the huddle, because he's the only one in the NFL who could do it. He can run past the little guys, use his strength to beat the big guys and go up and get it over anyone. And that's what it's all about in the NFL, to be a guy who has the ability to do things no one else can."

The Atlanta game highlighted the key role that Holt has played in the development of what might be the most prolific attack in NFL history. His fluid but explosive downfield play is the lit match that turns the Rams' moonshine offense (turn to page 105 to see how to stop the Rams) into a Molotov cocktail. His mastery of the crossing routes that anchor Martz's offense helps open the middle of the field and the sidelines, where veteran wideout Isaac Bruce can rip defenses apart like a piranha. Holt's presence also prevents teams from sending an extra blitzer to pulverize the less-than-agile Warner or putting eight in the box to stuff NFL MVP Marshall Faulk.

Pro defenses are like rubber bands: they can stretch to contain Warner, they can strain a little more to stop Faulk and they can even expand to account for Bruce. But add Holt to the mix and they snap.

"As soon as he came into the league, you knew Torry was going to be a great one," says Falcons cornerback Ray Buchanan. "He is that one extra guy who prevents you from doubling anyone on that offense. You think about it, you're tempted, but Holt will always get you for it."

Beyond his physical skills, Holt's effervescent style on and off the field have helped bring a sense of harmony to a unit ripe for the kind of crippling locker room rifts that have done in talented but ego-heavy teams like the 1986 Bears and the 2000 Redskins. (Holt once brought the house down during an elementary school production of Alice in Wonderland as a hip-hop caterpillar.)

"He makes a play, he pops up, jumps around, he's excited," says Warner. "His fun-loving attitude keeps the rest of us loose -- and that's a big key to this offense."

In the bottleneck of young wannabe heirs to the Jerry Rice mantle, this is what distinguishes Holt from a Randy Moss.

"Torry's the reason I'm still playing this game," says Proehl. "He is so much fun to be around, he lifts up everyone around him. And his mood never changes. The Super Bowl, practice, eating dinner at a restaurant -- the guy is someone who just always seems to have a blast, no matter what he's doing."

This summer, before camp began, Holt drove back to his hometown, back to Gibsonville, which sits half-way between Raleigh and Charlotte and roughly five miles from Interstate 85. Holt drove past the catfish ponds and the old men rocking on their porches, past the massive oak trees and tiny bungalows, past the boarded-up laundromat and the railroad tracks, past the gas station signs promising "Live Bait" -- and, of course, past the leafy green sea of tobacco plants.

As he drove, Holt daydreamed about a 2001 season-ending showdown between the Ravens' No. 1 defense and the Rams' No. 1 offense. He weaved his way through the places of his past until he came to Alamance Memorial Park, where his mom is buried. There, as he cleaned off Ojetta's memorial stone, the two caught up a bit.

"I let her know where I've been," he says. "I told her I'm working hard, staying humble, maximizing my time. I told her, 'When I shine, Mama, you shine too.'"

At the end of the visit, he took a knee and bowed his head. "Watch me again this year, Mama," Holt whispered. "I'm gonna make you so proud this season."

This article appears in the October 1 issue of ESPN The Magazine.