He's got skinny, winter-white legs with striped sweat socks pulled up around his ankles and is constantly accusing people of staring at his legs. But this false, mocking bravado is betrayed by a sharp, sparkling intelligence in his eyes and a reassuring laugh. His gravelly voice and simple integrity leave less of a mental picture of his face than an impression of his character.

But this man's intelligence isn't often acknowledged in an educational community oriented toward tangible achievements, where a person's merit is often judged by the number of letters following his or her name.

Sometimes when Richard Pencek, assistant professor of exercise and sport science, writes letters of recommendation for students applying to medical and graduate schools, they are returned.

Pencek, also an assistant professor of American studies, said admissions boards notice the absent "Ph.D." after his name and the exercise and sport science department stationery and think the recommendation is either a mistake or unacceptable.

What the admissions boards don't see is that students go to Pencek for recommendations because after being a nine-digit number for years, he is one of the few people at the University who can say anything about their personality or ability.

"I think kids don't mind being treated as adults and human beings . . . they like to get off the treadmill sometimes," Pencek said.

And off the treadmill his students get, as many of his squash, tennis or golf classes turn into mini-discussion groups on ethnicity, culture or any other topic his students bring up. Pencek said there are things in physical education classes that people overlook.

"There is no better diversity, racially and intellectually, than in a phys ed class," Pencek said. He mentioned a Vietnamese student who talked to her class about coming to the United States on a boat and a Russian student who, when talking to his classmates about future earnings, shocked them by saying he hoped to earn $4,000 at home after graduation.

A former student, Tanya Paoli (junior-accounting), said, "He would just bring up things like racism and sexism in the classroom . . . he would basically talk about what was going on in our lives, because he knew."

Paoli, who took squash with Pencek, said his class was her favorite last semester because he is easy going and tried to get to know everyone in the class.

But as much as students enjoy Pencek as a teacher, he says he has just been blessed with good students.

"The opportunity to talk to these kids and learn a different lifestyle is amazing," Pencek said. "You don't really know about someone's lifestyle until you've at least talked to them."

Pencek said there are things he can talk about more freely with his students. He said he can sit down and talk to John Amaechi, a member of the men's basketball team, about black-and-white issues with more candor than with the people on the University committees he has been on.

"The thing that's always bothered me about this institution is that someone with no women and one black on their staff can sit around talking about diversity," he said.

This 52-year-old native of Port Jervis, N.Y., who says he was "born out of a garage," earned a bachelor's degree in history and English education at Rutgers University and got his masters degree in physical education at Penn State.

He came here at 21 as the men's lacrosse coach, but was drafted during the Cuban missile crisis.

"I was a Dan Quayle, I avoided combat," Pencek said, explaining that he spent his two years of service as the assistant lacrosse coach at the U.S. Military Acadamy in West Point, N.Y., rooming with the then-assistant basketball coach and now the University of Indiana's head basketball coach, Bobby Knight.

Pencek returned to the University and began teaching physical education classes.

"I get as much out of teaching squash or golf as coaching varsity sports," Pencek said, explaining that although he refrained from pursuing a doctoral degree because of time demands imposed by coaching, he later gave up coaching to his many other interests -- including volunteer work and teaching in the Upward Bound program.

Pencek's current efforts focus on volunteer work with people with physical disabilities through the Center for Independent Living. The center's purpose is to help people with disabilities adapt to their surroundings. He is also involved with a state mandate requiring all historical sights to be accessible for people with disabilities.

The Upward Bound program is designed to give area disadvantaged children the educational opportunity to pursue higher education after high school.

"From a teaching standpoint it was so funny," he said, explaining that the kids often have short attention spans. "But the incredible thing, in all your teaching, is that you can't not take it seriously because you just don't know what's under there."