ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Kevin Kasper has this rule. He must always get up.

This can be hard to do when you're a kick returner in the NFL. It's you against 11 men, and somewhere somebody's going to lay a shoulder so hard into your thorax you might feel you'll never breathe again.

But Kevin Kasper has to get up. The pounding might have knocked him cold, left him lost, confused, uncertain where he is. Still, he has to get back to his feet. Stay down, and they'll know they have him, that he's tentative, afraid. If there's one thing you can't be when you're a kick returner in the NFL, it's afraid. Show them that, and you're done.

Yesterday he ran his hand through a shock of platinum hair at the New England Patriots' hotel and smiled. He won't be afraid.

"I guess I was a kid on the edge," he says.

He's been there from the moment his friends back in Hillsdale, Ill., fanned the halls of the high school looking for volunteers tough enough to fight the football player in the basement of his parents' house. One on one, all alone, strap on the boxing gloves and go at it right there on the wrestling mat made into a boxing ring. No bell, no referees, no rounds. Two boys, one ring, until one goes down.

Who wanted a piece?

Someone hit play on the CD player and the trumpets blared — "Rocky," his song. The fists flew and another tough guy fell. Soon they started coming from other schools — more tough guys challenging Kasper in his home ring. Upstairs, his parents, Ed and Lee, heard noise and figured it was boys letting off steam.

It wasn't until later that Lee realized her three sons had been operating on a five-year rule. She would hear about such things five years after they happened.

When she did, Kevin told her what he told everyone else: He won every fight.

He must stay on the edge, because otherwise, in the NFL, he's gone. There are too many players like him: fast, strong and built like statues but never good enough to keep too long.

In four years of football, Kasper has been cut and signed 10 times. He was a Seahawk for a few weeks in 2002, a Bronco before that. This year, the Patriots have let him go and brought him back twice. He may or may not play in Sunday's Super Bowl. But he's on the roster, and it's all the stability a guy like him gets.

If they were to rank the New England roster from top to bottom, with quarterback Tom Brady being No. 1, Kasper would probably be last. The one who can go at any minute.

But he stays because he is also something that is hard to find: a player who relishes returning kicks and who thinks the best job on a football field is to be all by himself with 11 men hollering for his head. He loves the contact. At least twice as a professional football player, he has pulled himself up from a hit, looked around and had no idea where he was.

If this should worry him, it doesn't. It's a part of the game, he figures. Everyone has a few concussions, don't they?

"Anytime I was with a group of kids when I was younger, I was the guy who, when someone dared everyone to do something, I'd do it," Kasper says.

A few years ago, he was on a boat with his younger brother in Sarasota, Fla. In the distance he spotted a bridge soaring above the ocean, and suddenly he felt the rush. He had to know what it was like to jump off that bridge. He asked his brother to join him. His brother, thinking more wisely, shook his head.

Kasper went anyway, leaping down into the water with such force his feet burned when they touched the surface. He wound up jumping off the bridge nine times. It wasn't until later that he realized there could have been a reef under the water and that, in his haste for a thrill, he could have jumped to his death instead.

But that's not the way of Kevin Kasper. Consequences never mattered. He is an anomaly to his family. His father is a dentist. His older brother is an orthodontist. His younger brother is in dentistry school.

"We're all conservative people in this family," Lee Kasper says. "We're not sure where his genes came from."

He is a husband and a father now, and that's supposed to change everything. It's supposed to keep him from leaping off bridges and taking on entire defenses in a football Death Wish. In a way, things are different. He's terrified about his 14-month-old son, Kyler. Even the simple act of propping the boy on a sofa leaves him frightened that something will happen and his child will tumble to the floor.

"I sure hope he doesn't grow up to be like me," Kasper says.

Nothing is normal when you live on the edge. After Denver and Seattle, Kasper thought he had a home with the Arizona Cardinals. But they cut him early in the fall, leaving him to look for tryouts. New England offered one in October and, certain he was going for a workout and a flight back home, he packed a small backpack with a change of clothes, a DVD player and some movies he had rented.

Then the Patriots gave him a contract. Instead of bursting with joy at being signed by the world champions, he panicked. The rental movies! How would he get them back without being charged a late fee?!

He phoned Lisa and blurted, "You've got to call Blockbuster and see if you can extend the return date."

This is what it's like on the edge, where, even when you throw your body into peril, you can be cut the next day.

Lisa and Kyler came up to Foxborough, Mass., where the three of them have been living in a room at the Renaissance Suites. It is not the ideal arrangement, but they survive. It's the best option they have.

Kasper loves the fact that he has a wife who is willing to move around. But this is no life. They can't do this forever.

He's used to it, though. Coming out of high school, no one thought him a good enough wide receiver to offer a scholarship. The best chance he had was to be a kicker and punter at Eastern Illinois. He wanted something bigger, so he walked on at Iowa. Five years later, he left as the school's all-time leading receiver.

Which is reason enough to keep him. He doesn't disappear easily. Then again, you can't.

Not when you're on the edge.

Les Carpenter: 206-464-2280 or lcarpenter@seattletimes.com