Tiki Barber is as versatile off the field as he is on it.

Barber enjoyed a breakout season for the New York Giants in 1999, posing a dangerous threat as a receiver out of the backfield and as a punt returner. With the footballs in storage for a few months, Barber has launched a budding career as a sportscaster in the nation's biggest media market.

The 24-year-old Barber is currently doing sportscasts for WCBS-TV in New York, a role he landed after making several guest appearances for the station last season.

"This is a step for me. It's something I have wanted to do," Barber says. "Sportscasting is a job, and I will do it objectively."

When Tiki Barber the journalist critiques Tiki Barber the player, he likes what he sees.

"I knew this was going to be my year, because I worked so hard in the off-season," Barber says. "When I wasn't playing much early in the year, I was telling guys that they would need me."

That chance came in October for Barber, who was selected in the second round of the 1997 draft out of the University of Virginia. Before a national television audience on a Monday night, Barber returned a punt 85 yards for a score and had a 56-yard reception on a screen play that set up a game-winning field goal in a 13 - 10 victory over the Dallas Cowboys.

Barber, who wears number 21, made more dazzling plays that night than Deion Sanders of the Cowboys, a more famous counterpart with the same number.

Another huge play came in December against the Buffalo Bills when Barber had a key 15-yard reception that led to a game-winning field goal.

For the season, Barber caught 66 passes for 609 yards, the third-most catches in the NFL among running backs behind Larry Centers of Arizona and Dorsey Levens of Green Bay. Opposing defenses never seemed to catch up with Barber, who often was matched up with a slower linebacker instead of a swifter defensive back.

"A linebacker can't cover me," boasts Barber. "At the end of the Buffalo game they put a defensive back on me, and I wondered what took them so long."

The stellar season ended with Barber third in the NFC in punt returns (11.5 average). He also rushed 62 times for 258 yards. But his emergence as an NFL threat came slowly, punctuated by a torn knee ligament suffered in his rookie year. The injury and ensuing recovery robbed him of the flashy style and perhaps some of the confidence that enabled him to become Virginia's all-time leading rusher.

He lost his starting role in 1998 to Gary Brown and then rededicated himself to a conditioning program. So focused was Barber that he even scouted out high-tech gyms to use during his honeymoon in Europe.

"I found a gym in Paris but not in Venice. Too much water," Barber jokes.

Sampling new things is nothing new to Barber, who is as cosmopolitan as the city he currently calls home. He lives in Manhattan and often can be found on Broadway. He has attended Les Misérables four times.

Last year, Barber appeared in an off-Broadway production called Seeing Double. The story about a pair of twins is close to home for Barber, whose twin brother, Ronde, is a defensive back for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Barbers grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, and played together at UVA. They also started a Web site, NFLTwins.com.

For now, the focus of Tiki Barber's multimedia career is broadcasting, a role he will maintain until training camp this summer, when it will be time for making plays rather than critiquing them.