Please, do not call him 'Jelly'

Balmer goes from fat kid to pro player

The rules of "Kill the Man with the Football" aren't complicated. You throw the ball to one of the other players and everyone else tries to tackle him before he makes it to the other side of the yard. Win and you get to sit out a play. Lose and you find yourself at the bottom of a dog pile.

It was in that rough-and-tumble backyard crucible -- with all the childhood politics that come when revered older cousins are in town -- that former UNC star and current San Francisco 49ers rookie Kentwan Balmer made perhaps his greatest tackle.

The 9-year-old Balmer not only was the youngest of four brothers. He also was the youngest of his cousins. And to make matters worse he was, well ...

"Hey, Kentwan, I hear you were a bit chubby when you were little."

"A bit chubby?" Balmer replied. "Man, I was fat."

So much so that he wasn't "Kentwan" to his cousins. They called him "Jelly."

This, however, is the story of how Jelly became Kentwan again.

Balmer grew up in tiny Weldon, a town 10 miles down Interstate 95 from the Virginia-North Carolina border. The Balmers' extended family is scattered across the tidewater plains of both states.

One of his cousins is Shaun Stevenson, who is three years older and now lives in Norfolk, Va. Back in their "Kill the Man with the Football" days, Stevenson fancied himself a Walter Payton type -- a quick-stepping runner with sweet moves.

Stevenson had the ball one day and thought he was in the clear when -- wham! -- he was leveled by what seemed like a massive bowling ball shot from a cannon.

"He came out of nowhere," Stevenson recalled in a phone interview. "He put the Jelly on me, I guess you could say."

MAN KILLED AT COWBOYS CONSTRUCTION SITE: An electrician working at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium died Saturday when he touched a high-voltage line, the second serious accident at the construction site in less than a week.

The man was standing on a ladder and performing an electrical test when he touched the power line, said Neal Strasser, a battalion chief with the Arlington Fire Department.

The man became wedged between the ladder and the stadium wall. A co-worker carried him to the ground and tried to revive him, Strasser said.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Web site identified the man as Timothy Mackinnon, 45, of Arlington. He worked for JMEG Electric, a subcontractor hired by the stadium's general contractor, Manhattan Construction.

The accident happened around 11 a.m. The fire department received an emergency call at 11:05 a.m. and arrived within five minutes, but revival attempts at the scene were unsuccessful. Mackinnon was pronounced dead at Arlington Memorial Hospital.

JOHNSON WORKS OUT AT BENGALS MINICAMP: Receiver Chad Johnson fully participated in drills for the first time Saturday as the Cincinnati Bengals wrapped up their minicamp.

The disgruntled receiver limited himself to a few drills during workouts on Thursday and Friday, complaining through his agent that he has a bad ankle. He looked fine during a workout on Saturday, catching passes from Carson Palmer.

He declined to talk to the media again, other than to say "Vote for Obama" as he walked off the field -- apparently throwing his support behind Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.