Updated: Jan. 23, 2004, 3:29 AM ET
Associated Press
National Football League News Wire
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Carolina Panthers were a little nervous when notorious trash talker Mike Rucker was asked to wear a microphone during a nationally televised game.
Just do your best to keep it clean, they asked the defensive end.
"You don't have to worry," he promised. "I don't curse."
What? The guy who got so worked up taunting an opponent earlier this season that he began to hyperventilate and had to leave the game keeps it clean?
Believe it, because his teammates swear -- no pun intended -- it's true.
"You would think a person like Rucker, who talks as much trash as he does, that a cuss word would come out," defensive tackle Brentson Buckner said. "It's surprising because you listen and you think one is coming, but it never does. I heard him say shoot, shucks, dangit, but never, ever a curse word."
Rucker can be tough with his taunting -- during the game in which he was miked, he kept telling an opposing player he was bowlegged -- but says he never spices it up with four-letter words.
He isn't alone, either.
Safety Mike Minter doesn't curse, but as an aspiring pastor, it's a little more believable from him. Minter insists he's never cursed once in his life, even when he comes across a dirty word in a book.
"I read out loud, so I won't even say it," Minter said. "If you do that, then without thinking about it, a swear word will come out. If it's in you, then it will come out."
The worst word Minter will say? Dang.
"Seriously, that's about all I say," he explained. "I just don't feel the need to curse. It's not my style."
Rucker acknowledges he was quite a curser when he played college ball at Nebraska, but stopped the gutter talk about seven years ago.
"I kind of ran afoul in college," he said. "I decided it's just not healthy. It's just not clean. And you never know who is listening to you.
"It was a little hard to stop, especially because a lot of people around me were still doing it, so that made it hard. But I did it, and I think that's a good example to set for little kids."
Both Minter and Rucker get their fair share of teasing -- and baiting -- from their Panthers teammates. Defensive tackle Kris Jenkins, voted the foulest mouth in the locker room, taunts them the most.
"If we stood here and said, `OK, no more cursing,' Jenks would walk by and just start cursing," Buckner said. "Or you can tell him, `Don't cuss near Mike because he's a preacher.' Then Jenks will walk right by his locker and start cussing just to do it."
Minter said he just shrugs it off.
"He's probably the only one who walks through here and would do that to mess with you," Minter said. "Everyone else respects it."
Respect, yes. But they still give out a decent amount of ribbing.
"You'll hear Ruck say, `Gosh dangit!" safety Deon Grant said. "I mean, gosh dangit? Who in the NFL says that?"
Like Minter, Rucker doesn't let it bother him.
"I'll use different words, so it sounds a little corny," Rucker said. "I catch a little flak because of that. But that's my thing. I don't cuss, and that's a good thing."
This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire. Wire
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