Peterson now comfortable with media's attention

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Adrian Peterson, soon to be surrounded by dozens of writers, turned chivalrous Wednesday at the Big 12 Media Days, offering his chair at his interview table to a female reporter peering over his shoulder.

Laughing, she pointed out: "That's your seat. You're in the big chair."

And Peterson has never seemed so comfortable -- as Oklahoma's main man, as a national star, even as a media target.

"Two years ago, man, you couldn't have had me at this thing," Peterson said.

What changed?

"It's just being relaxed."

For all Peterson's fame as a Sooner, he's been relatively shielded from the media glare.

Wednesday marked his first time representing OU at the conference's kickoff event. The demands can be intense.

Peterson entered the fray shortly after 10 a.m. Although fast-paced, the time in the spotlight lasted nearly 2½ hours.

He was shuffled to radio spots, tapings for national college football TV shows, before rows of TV cameras bearing the call letters of stations from Topeka to Tulsa, and finally for a sit-down with writers where only time restraints cut the session at 68 probing questions.

Many of the questions, and answers, were familiar enough.

"What will it be like to have your father free from prison and watching you play?"

"It will be real big. I can't express how I feel."

"How frustrating were the injuries that hampered your production a year ago?"

"It was hard being out and watching my guys go to war without me. It hurt me to sit on the sideline and watch. I'm just glad it's over with."

"How much do you think about the Heisman?"

"I don't think about the Heisman that much. It's something I'd love to win. I've wanted to win it since I was a little kid. But it's not my main focus."

"Are you ready to say if this is your last year (at OU) for sure?"

"No, I can't say that right now."

Yet while so many of the questions had played in some form before, Peterson's comfort was something new.

"I'm used to it now," Peterson said, smiling still, when it all was over more than two hours later.

"I'm just trying to go with the flow, not trying to think too much about it. That makes it hard on you."

Peterson is faced with maintaining a smooth flow. The media requests keep coming and will only increase if he remains healthy and makes a run at his and his team's lofty goals.

"It hasn't been crazy -- yet," said Kenny Mossman, OU's media relations director. "What Adrian's going to have to deal with, more than any other time, is a steady stream of this."

Today, Peterson is scheduled to tape an appearance in Norman for "Cold Pizza."

Already he's done a national teleconference and a photo shoot to accommodate the state's largest newspapers, USA Today, the Orlando Sentinel and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. ESPN and others are calling to do extensive pieces on Peterson and his father, Nelson, who, until his recent release to a halfway house, had been in jail since Adrian was 13.

Everybody, it seems, wants a piece of Peterson.

And for the first time, he's giving it less reluctantly.

Two years ago, Peterson was entering his record-breaking freshman season at OU. A touted recruit from Palestine, Texas, he was nonetheless shy and soft-spoken. Immediately there was a move to protect him from the media crush, as Peterson was ruled off-limits for interviews.

Four games into that 2004 season, Peterson was made available to a group of some 15 reporters for the first time. Then he basically talked once a week, briefly, after practice.

Even during a Heisman Trophy run that year -- he finished runner-up to Southern Cal's Matt Leinart -- through last year's up-and-down season marred by injuries, Peterson's moments before microphones and cameras were just that, moments. No heavy lifting.

Until now.

And the big chair appears quite comfortable.

"It's cool," Peterson said. "I wouldn't say it's a pain. It comes with the territory. I accept it for what it is and it's not all that bad."