Sport: Just Doing What I Know Best'

A less likely candidate for stardom in Boston than Steven James Grogan would be hard to find. Bostonians, proper or improper, are accustomed to outsize heroes with outsize skills—Ted Williams, Bill Russell, Bobby Orr and, yes, even Jim Plunkett. The quiet, country-bred young man from Ottawa, Kansas (pop. 11,000), resembles none of these demigods; yet he has already begun to exert his own spell on the Hub, its congeries of suburbs and that state of mind known as New England. For beneath his placid exterior, a competitive fire burns. Says Patriot Coach Chuck Fairbanks, who saw it early: "His eyes light...